MIT, other Engineering & App Advice

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>Chance me for MIT, Caltech, Stanford, Berkeley, Rice, UT-Austin
Hoping to double major in Mechanical Engineering and Linguistics
Since I only get five activities, which do you think I should stress?</p>

<p>School type: Public
Location: Texas
Economic status: Upper middle class
Gender: Female
Ethnicity: Half Scandinavian, half Asian (first generation American)
Prospective major: Engineering (probably Mechanical)
Unweighted GPA: 3.9583
Weighted GPA: 4.5833
Class rank: 28/709 -> top 4%</p>

<p>Course load:
APs whenever available; otherwise honors</p>

<p>Electives: Concepts of Engineering and Technology (8th grade), Debate (9th grade), Tennis (9-11) & Choir (4 years)</p>

<p>Test scores:
ACT: 35
SAT: 2380
SAT II: Math II: 800; Physics: 760; Chemistry: 720
AP: 5s in BC Calc, Human Geo, Psych, World History, US History, AP Lang</p>

<p>ECs:
~FIRST Robotics team Founder and president (12 - this year is our rookie year)
~Engineering Club Founder and president (11-12)
~Choir (9-12; 6 years as Region Choir member; 2 years in Varsity Chorale)
~Tennis (9-11; won Freshmen Girls Doubles District; ad hoc JV team captain - three years)
~UIL Academics: Spelling (10-12), State Team Champions 10th grade, Region champs 11th grade
Current Events (11-12), Region Champs 11th grade
Math (12)
~Tutoring: for money, hours, and just for fun; formal community tutoring program -> 9th grade bio, unofficially everything else
~National Honor Society
~OCW, Coursera, and EdX courses (Computer programming, physics, chemistry, biology, game theory)</p>

<p>Honors:
National Merit Semifinalist, AP Scholar with Distinction, Outstanding 10th and 11th Grade Girl, too many to list departmental prizes from school,</p>

<p>Summer programs:
None. Just a lot of traveling with my family</p>

<p>Recs:
Should be excellent</p>

<p>Essays:
I am NOT good at writing concisely. Or at writing, really. So these might not be so good... Any advice?</p>

<p>Is there anything else I missed? I've been reading the blogs (I've read all the blogs for the past 8 years) and I know they warn against this but I need to know whether or not I stand a chance and how I can increase my chances. Thank you so much!</p>

2

<p>For essay i would recommend your guidance counselor to take a look. Back to your chances imho i think you are in. You are a female with near perfect standardized testing applying for MIT a rarity.</p>

3

<p>Thanks for responding so quickly. Unfortunately my counselor is very overworked and has no time for me- she hasn’t even finished the recommendations yet. That’s why I’m resorting to the internet for advice :)</p>

4

<p>Honestly, you’ve got a great shot. Great GPA and SATs. If your counselor is busy, then you should talk to your English teacher about what you can write/how to write it.</p>

<p>I’d really appreciate if you could chance me/help me out as well! :slight_smile: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1695042-brown-or-cornell.html#latest”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1695042-brown-or-cornell.html#latest&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

5

<p>Your grades, test scores, and ec’s look great! I think your acceptances will depend on your essays so work very hard on them and make sure they describe who you are as a person. If you write a good essay, i would be surprised if you did not get into at least one of the schools MIT, Caltech, Stanford, and Berkeley</p>

6

<p>Solid stats and ecs, it really shows that you have an interest in engineering, which is good. I’d say Stanford and Caltech are going to be tough, just because of legacy and how competitive they are. Isef, siemens, amc competitions can help, but aren’t necessary. I think you have a better chance at MIT, but I’m still wary, just because of the crap storm that is admissions up at the higher level schools. As for the essay, I empathize with you. Luckily, there are resources for us. Id recommend friends or those harvard essay book compilation. These just help you to get a feel for things to wrote about. As for the actual writing, although a literary masterpiece would certainly help, really just getting your personality through cam be enough.</p>

7

<p>Thanks so much for the positivity… I really appreciate it!</p>

8

<p>I’m just worried because there are about ten other EA applicants from my school including one who went to WTP and another who went to MITES (MIT summer programs)… There’s also Science Fair participants and Decathletes and state champions… and then there’s me. So I was getting pretty stressed</p>

9

<p>WTP, etc. isn’t just about <em>going</em> there, it’s about making a Rube Goldberg machine that works. In the next couple of weeks think about the ‘manus’ part of ‘mens et manus’. What can you write about that shows that your soul is in engineering. Do you have an example project that you can highlight- something you made would be ideal? Or an example of a linguistics project that you did? You evidently can do the work if you are accepted. And you are an URM (female) with excellent grades and standardized scores and motivation (founder/president, etc.). Good luck! Your stats look great!</p>