Demographics: Female/Middle Eastern/Muslim/Texas
I’m a first generation immigrant, both of my parents are college educated, and I’m a senior right now.
Hooks: Underrepresented Minority- Middle eastern woman/ Reccomendation letter from Girls Who Code teacher who is a UTCS alumni, he says that he mentioned how I would specifically be a great fit for UTCS.
Intended major(s): Computer Science for my first choice, Computer Engineering for my second
SAT:
Best in one sitting: 2010 ( CR:680 M:700 W: 630)
Superscored: 2030 (CR:680, M:700, W:650)
NEW SAT: 1370( R/W: 700, M: 670)
ACT: 29
Class rank: 32/130 (24.6%)
GPA: 3.72UW/4.0W
Coursework:–
AP Human Geography- Freshman Year
AP World History- Sophomore year
AP Computer Science- Junior
AP Lang- Junior
AP Psychology- Junior
AP US History- Junior
AP Statistics- Senior
AP Lit- Senior
AP Environmental Science- Senior
AP European History- Senior
Dual Credit Econ, Speech, Gov, and Spanish
Awards:
-AP Scholar with Honor
Various robotics trophies including those for team Spirit, Finalist alliance,League Champions and more! AP Scholar with honor.
Extracurriculars:
-NHS
-A very dedicated member of FTC Robotics for 4 years, team leader for 3 years and I run the social media for our team. I helped get our team over 20k in sponsorship before my sophomore year. I have taught the basics of building and programming a robot to 3 years of new members and ensured that they grasped the concepts of FTC.
-Was a member of our schools MATE ROV underwater robotics team, where we would have to create a robot that could perform underwater tasks in a certain amount of time, the competition was at the NASA buoyancy lab in Texas and we placed 5th overall! I was the secretary of the team and had to memorize procedures to maximize points in competition.
-TARC, team engineer so I essentially designed the rocket.
-Student Council all four years, helped plan two blood drives and various fundraisers, elected as Vice President and am working with the president to set up a council of clubs to help enrich our schools clubs affiliations with one another!
-We have a PG17 committee where a group of students plan the trips and fundraisers for our graduating class, I am the Vice President of the group and primarily am in charge of talking to companies and organizing fundraisers and events such as a Black History Movie night or after school bake sales! This year I am focusing on planning the carnival for homecoming and secured the venue for our school prom.
-I spent every Saturday for 9 months going to a Somali cultural center in my area and assisting a group of girls who had recently migrated to the US. The assistance composed of teaching them how to use Microsoft Word and PowerPoint and helping them with improving their grammar and basic school work.
-I had a one week internship at a local university, I helped in the IT department and assembled and cleaned computers.
-Lots of volunteer work at my Turkish cultural center; I taught a water marbling class and set up booths at various festivals.
200+ hours of Volunteer service that doesn’t include my work at my cultural center.
- School Ambassador: Give tours to freshman around our school
- Presented our robot at ISWEEP, an international science fair. I described the functions of the robot and answered questions individuals may have.
SUMMER PROGRAMS:
Over this summer I stayed by myself for 8 weeks in Austin, so I could attend these programs:
I attended Create@UT over the summer, where over the course of 5 days, I got to meet members of UT’s Women in Engineering program, visit the buildings for each Engineering Major at UT, meet engineering professors at UT, attend a Computer engineering lecture, and do various hands on activities to learn about 6 different majors( Aerospace, computer/electrical, Petroleum, Chemical, Biomedical, and Civil).
I attended Girls Who Code’s summer immersion program at the nearby Austin Community College, where over the course of 7 weeks, I learned essential computer science concepts (conditionals, while loops, classes, etc) and applied them to Python, Pygame, C++ programming, and HTML/CSS/Javascript creating a 2D scroller game, a robot on wheels that avoided walls, and a web portfolio using Bootstrap amongst other projects. My final project composed of a text adventure/visual hybrid game (think Oregon Trail) using Pygame, with interesting visuals and 4+ different endings. I’m including links to the game and its code on my resume.
The summer before Junior year, I was given an opportunity to travel to the Balkans, otherwise known as old territory of the Ottoman Empire. I was able to visit Bosnia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia , and Albania and visit old historical sites of the ottoman empire and learn more about each countries cultural history! After the trip, I returned to my hometown of Turkey and got to stay in the dorm of a local high school and attend a few religious classes over the course of a month! (Not sure if this counts).
I know computer science is very difficult to get into, and that my stats are very low. But UTCS is my dream and Im wondering what my chances are. Thank you in advance!