School Type: Public
Location: MI
Race/Gender: Asian Female
Prospective Major: Mechanical Engineering
Unweighted GPA: 3.93
Weighted GPA: 4.108 (Will be 4.2 ish after 1st semester of Senior year)
School doesn’t rank
SAT I Score: 1510
ACT Score: 33C
APs: APUSH, AP Chem, AP Lang, AP Com Sci
Senior Year Course Load:
AP Biology, AP Lit, AP Calc BC, Spanish 4, AP Physics C, Creative Writing and AP US Gov
Extracurricular Info:
Forensics 9-12 (Possibly being Co-captain this year)
Science Olympiad 11-12 (Participated in Chem Lab, Microbe Mission, Ecology, Write It Do It, Rocks and Minerals, and Invasive Species. I earned my Varsity Letter this year)
Model UN 11-12 (Possibly elected to serve as a board member this year)
Political and Current Events Club Vice President 11-12
Color Guard 10-12 Captain
Theatre 9-10
I also volunteer at my library and have roughly 150 hours
Awards:
Forensics (Regional) 3rd place in Poetry and Sales
MUN Best Delegate
Science Olympiad (States) 4th Write It do It, 7th Microbe Mission
(Regional) 4th Ecology
Colleges:
University of Michigan
Johns Hopkins
University of Illinois- Urbana Champaign
Thank you so much for reading this! I’m really worried because Theatre took up most of my freshman and sophomore year and it wasn’t until later that I discovered that I love public speaking and world events. Therefore, I only have Science Olympiad as my STEM EC. Do my courses make up for that? I really do want to be an engineer, I just have two very opposing interests haha. Would I be at a disadvantage if I write my essays on public speaking and tie it in with engineering?
Have one essay about public speaking and one about engineering, don’t try to tie them artificially (obviously if they tie organically do so).
Also, you’re good at public speaking - own it and show how you could help their teams.
What’s your budget?
UMichigan is the one to beat and as long as you don’t suddenly start getting Ds it’s a low match for you.
JHU is a reach for everyone and thus for you, although you’re competitive. Run the NPC and make sure it’s affordable for your parents.
UIUC will not provide you with financial aid, so, do your parents have 50k/year from income and savings? If not, cross out.
What other universities are you applying to?
Run the npc on NCSU, VTech, Cornell, Penn, Olin, Columbia, Iowa State, UMinnesota, UDelaware, RPI, WPI, RIT, Noetheastern, UCincinnati (the last two if you like the idea of co ops), UVermont, Temple.
Based on our school stats, you have a likely chance of getting into University of Michigan and University of Illinois UC. Johns Hopkins is probably going to be more difficult, but you EC’s will make a likelier chance of getting in.
Good luck!
@MYOS1634 Thank you so much for responding! Can you clarify what you mean by “UMich is the one to beat?” and is “low match” a step above safety or a step below reach? Sorry I’m new haha.
Great EC’s. Michigan and Illinois are very good and JHU will be tough. Great SAT scores and ACT but still around 50% for JHU. With the EC’s I d say you have a fair to good chance for JHU. Also a “low match” is a high safety :). Can you chance me back?
JHU will be a reach for you, just like everyone else. UMich will be a match as an in-state applicant. Same with UIUC - it is less competitive but you are an OOS applicant.
Make sure you definitely have a safety as well. Michigan State would be a good option.
@candyapple119 : a low match is just above a safety.
by “the one to beat”, I mean that finding equal quality at the same price as UMichigan is going to be tough benchmark to meet/beat. 
I would strongly recommend you look into Olin, RPI, and HarveyMudd, all of which would offer something different from UMich. Run the NPC first.
UMich would be a good match with excellent value. UIUC would be expensive and not worth ir. The chance of getting in is lower than UMich too. JHU is a reach.
Apply early somewhere. I am fairly certain you can apply ED to JHU and EA to Michigan. You have good chances for all three schools, but applicants with better profiles could easily be rejected. It comes down to how you choose to advertise yourself. Don’t force two different ideas into one essay unless the essay prompt is very broad. Admissions officers will understand you like public speaking even if you don’t talk about it that much in an essay. If you can fit in a sentence or two about public speaking in an essay about why you love STEM, that’s fine.