LONG POST WARNING
I’m a senior currently, and I’m beginning to realize how bad my decision was to make my college list top heavy. I’m applying for mechanical engineering/aerospace.
The schools I’m applying to currently:
UMich
Purdue
Georgia Tech
USC
U Wash
NYU
Rice
University of Maryland
Notre Dame
RPI
ALL the UCs (I figured there was no harm in trying)
USC
Penn State
University of Wisconsin-Madison
CSULB & Cal Poly Slo (I live in CA btw)
I’m realizing now how low my chances are at getting into these schools. I have a 3.63 UW GPA, 4.46 W. I’ll have taken 12 AP courses by the time I graduate. The scores I got in my STEM classes aren’t great: 3 in AB Calc and a C then a B; 3 and 4 in AP Physics 1 & 2 respectively, B’s all 4 semesters. I have solid test scores; I’m a National Merit Semifinalist and got an ACT score of 34. I personally think my extra curriculars are pretty weak: 4 years debate team (no significant awards), 2 years CyberPatriots (co-captain of team and 2 year state competition qualifier), 4-H (300+ community service hours, lots of leadership and mentoring, teaching youth about computer science, aerospace, and rocketry, along with several State Level leadership positions), taekwondo, Civil Air Patrol (leadership/community service, also learn about aerospace and do aero projects), Heavy in leadership I suppose, but not in engineering. I also had a research internship at a top 30 university in my area, researching cyberwarfare. I’m also asian and male (oof). I will say my essays are pretty compelling; I wrote about my culture, my speech impediment and how I want to use engineering to develop tech to help others do speech therapy at home (I got into the technical specifics of my idea), and heavily modifying/innovating a plane engine with my friends, among other topics. I think they’re pretty unique and well-written; I showed them to former English teachers at my school who are notoriously critical, and they really liked them. Maybe the above admissions committees won’t, but it’s the best I can do idk. I may be not the best, or even good, at engineering related work, but I know it’s what I want to do in life.
Again, I realize that these stats are extremely lackluster. My test scores and essays are outweighed by my weak ECs, grades, and AP scores. Honestly the only schools above I think I maybe have a shot at are CSULB and UC Merced, solely bc those are the only gpa averages I meet, but keep in mind that’s based on AVERAGE stats; engineering admit stats tend to be higher and more competitive as we know. I go to a really high performing public school, and people unfortunately kind of look down on the schools that most of the country considers as safeties. I mean, most people at my school consider would CSULB, UMD, UCSC, and UCR to be safeties! For engineering! Which they are, maybe, for those people. Unfortunately, I foolishly bought into this mindset despite my obvious issues with the package I’m sending off to colleges, and now I’ve kind of cornered between a rock and a bunch of schools out of my league. If you’ve read this far, I really appreciate it. Based on these stats, what engineering schools that aren’t big public research schools do I have over a 60% chance of getting into? Heck, I’ll take the big public research schools. Because at this point, I’m seriously concerned. Or who knows maybe I’m being extremely irrational and I wasted 10 minutes of your life (sorry lol!). Idk, but I’d be thankful for any help you can give me 