Potential for Acceptance to WPI?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Worcester Polytechnic Institute
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Junior over here
OOS New Hampshire
Unweighted GPA (Core Courses: Foreign Language, English, Social Studies, Math, and Science): 3.55ish (I used raise . me for this)
Weighted GPA (Core Courses: Foreign Language, English, Social Studies, Math, and Science): 3.8ish
Took all CPs Freshman year, Honors Biology and Honors Algebra II Sophomore Year, and Honors Modern World Literature (0.5 credit), Honors Precalculus, Honors British Literature I (0.5 credit), Honors Chemistry, AP Biology, and AP U.S. Gov (0.5 credit and online) Junior year
Should mention that my GPA has been rising extensively throughout the years, but this year’s GPA did drop a tiny bit due to the more rigorous schedule, though my overall GPA has been improving
PSAT: 1150
SAT: 1190 RW: 590 (Horrible at reading, but aced the writing with a 35, leading to a 96 percentile) M: 600 (Have no clue what happened here because I found the math to be ridiculously easy) I am planning to retake at least two more times, getting a tutor if I find little improvement after taking the second time. My estimated end score is expected to be at least a 1300.
ACT: Still need to take
SAT II: Plan to take Math II and Biology E
APs: Have not taken any exams yet
Possible Senior Year Schedule: CP Calculus (The AP teachers don’t have that good of a reputation), AP Comparative Government, AP Chemistry/AP Psychology (Still debating on which, as the AP Chem teacher does not have that good of a reputation, considering the average for the exam is around a 1.5), AP Physics I, Honors English IV, Honors Choir, and an internship for AP Biology.
In terms of a foreign language, I went up to French III and was originally in Honors French IV, but dropped past the deadline to take Choir (Was too late for Honors). Plan on continuing the language in college.
Planned Major: Biomedical or Chemical Engineering

ECs:
Varsity Tennis (9)
Debate Club (11)
Math Club/Mathletes (11)
Marine Biology Club (11)
Science National Honors Society (11)
I plan to do all of these ECs, including tennis, this year and next.

Community Service: Around 60 hours (Likely 100 by the time I start submitting applications)
Recommendation Letters: Already know of two (maybe three) teachers, all of which seem to love me as a student (You know who you are). If it matters, one of the teachers actually attended here and majored in engineering.

I know a lot can change, but as of now, this is how is it looking

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At this point a bit of a reach as Fall of 2016 showed over 65% of entering class had GPA’s above 3.75.

What other schools are on your list?

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If you have the money you’ll likely get it — if you don’t have the money and you have straight A’s and near perfect SAT
SATII scores you will not get it — this is not a need blind school. You will get a good education, but unless you are of a protected class, or female (they need girls) you will not get in as a poor scholar unless you have an angle. Maybe they want a high yield, so perversely, having MIT credentials and no money will earn you a rejection, but being a B+ student with plenty of cash will assure entry. Good Luck

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Strange, but as it turns out, being a female or of a protected class appears to not be helpful at all at WPI if you are a high achieving student — It appears they are engaging in Tail Clipping — that is weeding out the very best at the top and the ones on the other side of the distribution who aren’t qualified. So it would seem that if you are black and high achieving, WPI would weed you out before weeding out a similar white student, since logically the high achieving black person would be more likely to gain acceptance to an “elite” college. So if you are black you better get into MIT because WPI is likely to wait list you ---- that appears to be the case (another forum). Same goes for females. You would think that WPI would be trying to get the best and brightest females since the m/f ratio is so lopsided — again some uber qualified females according to the stats were wait listed, I guess because they’d be such attractive candidates at other engineering schools at which they would more likely matriculate. So it seems the cut off for “too good” might be lower for females and minorities so the white male who is “more likely” to accept will be accepted instead. Sounds like sexism and racism to me. So, life ain’t fair — being white male and super high achieving will get you wait listed. Being black and super high achieving will absolutely get you wait listed if one follows the logic to its conclusion. Being black and “almost super high achieving” will get you wait listed also (while being white male in the same situation probably gets you in). That’s the way it looks to me, and frankly I think it is shameful. Affirmative action is supposed to uplift and it is as legitimate (actually more legitimate) as the “country club handshake”, but perversely, here, the “country club handshake” it would seem has a better chance and being an affirmative action candidate actually has the complete opposite affect — that is high achieving minorities and females are discriminated against. Seems like some super quality students (particularly minority students) that were excluded from their safety school and didn’t quite reach their “reach” school will be off to community college. So if you had 1500+ SATs and straight A’s you’re in good company on the wait list regardless of your sex or race because WPI appears to be addressing their “yield problem”. If the school wishes to refute this theory, I’d love to see the raw numbers regarding those wait listed versus those accepted. You’ll never see that though ---- I can pretty much guarantee that next year’s yield numbers will improve.

The entire thesis above is an opinion base on limited anecdotal evidence from info collected from forums on this site.

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@fuggettaboutit

There is nothing I can say to the upset parent or applicant which can explain a disappointing outcome. I too am an alumnus and am sure that I would not have been pleased with such disappointing event.

According to the WPI Common Data Set report for the 2016-17 year, $53,200,664 were used to meet financial need from endowed scholarships, annual gifts and tuition funded grants. Federal, State and external sources (like Kiwanis) were not included in these numbers. An additional $21,682,753 in aid was spent on “non-need-based” awards. I would assume that these are merit based as they do not grant “athletic” scholarships. Go to https://www.wpi.edu/search/google/CDS#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=CDS&gsc.sort= , page down to “Worcester Polytechnic Institute: Common Data Set” to see details on page 21 of PDF report.

In the same report you will also find that 65% of the class entering that year were from the top 10% of their HS class and 92% were from the top quarter. As near as I can tell, there has been a great deal of grade inflation as all students seem to have A’s. It is also true that STEM schools are seeing a continuous increase in applications. Even Smith is now offering engineering.

As a general rule, WPI cannot afford the salaries paid to STEM majors to work as college admission representatives. I did note there was one WPI alumnus in the group. Others are from schools such as Bowdoin, Holy Cross, Colgate, Union, Bryant, and Indiana University. You may be interested in knowing that two members of the WPI faculty have their PhD’s from Indiana University AND have received NSF Career Awards, the most prestigious award given to promising young faculty researchers. We should not prematurely judge schools we may not know.

Went to WPI, in part, on the GI bill. WPI would not grant me financial help without a financial aid application from my parents, At 26 years old.there was no way I going back to divorced, retired parents with an FA form. If applied this year I would not have been admitted. My SAT’s were 620/720 after time in the service and in those days that looked pretty good in most places. Don’t know what my “hook” would be unless it became fashionable to admit old men!

WPI alumnus '67.

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@retiredfarmer

Yeah, my son with 780 SATII bio 760m 750v kid didn’t earn his AP straight A’s (inflated) or his class rank (1,2or 3 of 120) at a prep school with a distinguished reputation (regularly sends kids to Harvard, Yale et al).

This year WPI is excluding high achievers (by the way my kid will be fine at as he was accepted at a school of far higher rep than my old alma mater of WPI). I’m not worried about him, I’m worried about destruction of the institution. I think it stinks to high heaven.

And yes, I’d prefer someone in admissions who can solve an ordinary differential equation over someone who “attended college” in NH (flunked out of Keene State?). And sorry, Keene State is an embarrassment to the state of NH until it cleans up its act with respect to the yearly drunken riots. Nothing wrong with Indiana U — I never mentioned IU.

I’m sure the stats you posted are true, but if you think a kid accepted at Yale and MIT (another poster) is not worthy of WPI then I suggest you lay off the kool-aid.

It seems obvious WPI is clipping the distribution to ensure a better yield. THAT is dishonest and short sighted in my opinion.

WPI Alumnus '86

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@fuggettaboutit

Dropped out of WPI, became a working ski bum, got drafted, returned to school years later on GI bill to find the new WPI Plan in its early years. Students seemed very young, but excited about whatever this new thing was.

Got to know admissions very well. There were two WPI alums, one Brown, one Bucknell, one Cornell and one Dartmouth graduate in the admissions office. They were my age and there was a pub on campus. Because kids were fighting in Vietnam, the drinking age was eighteen.

The only admissions personal with the calculus background were the WPI Alums. The Director was from Brown and used to joke with applicants that he would not know an integral if you threw it at him. His field was Anthropology which he had taught while in graduate school on a National Science Foundation fellowship.

Only alums could handle transfer applicants but the rest of the staff could discuss novels forever and were fairly good at oral arguments. Today, one is retired from Director of Admissions at WPI (Dad was proud Alumnus), another is director of Admissions at Wesleyan (CT) and a third is a full professor at University of FL, et al. Lost track of others. Honestly, I always wondered why calculus seamed, so often, to be excluded from their education while we were often judged for not being as conversant about the great literary works.

Intellectual snobbery is a very curious thing as each tribe gathers around its customs as though their customs are the only ones that count. (this line of thought came from the Anthropologist). Still waiting for the traditional engineering schools and the LA colleges to liberate each other!

Very glad that your son has achieved so much, Somebody did something right!

I have heard your concerns about this year’s admissions process. When the data comes out this summer we will be able to do some better second guessing as to what is going on here, but we will still be second guessing. I doubt that the current director goes down to the campus pub and I’m too old to hang around and mine for the truth!

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Apply early action. Those parents are bitter because WPI waitlisted like everyone in RD.

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@retiredfarmer Naviance doesn’t lie — the school changed its admissions practices this year and it seems to be in direct contradiction of the “Two Towers” philosophy. Since you’re plugged in with the admissions folks, I’d recommend you find out who that “mixed race” applicant with stellar credentials was and offer admission. Why? Because it seems like she was rejected for being “too good” and not showing interest — didn’t bother with financial aid. The fact is (according to the poster) that the parents were willing to forgo FA to improve their child’s chances — which may have been construed as lack of interest. So, please, tell the geniuses at the admission office that their big data yield experiment is a miserable failure and may subject the institution to loss of federal dollars since discriminating against protected class student (because of their minority status) is not allowed. Tell them that under MA law clipping the top to the distribution could be considered an “unfair an deceptive business practice” under MA law. Tell them that prestige associated with “yield” is BS. @snowfairy — If I cared about prestige, my kid wouldn’t have bothered to apply to WPI.

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@fuggettaboutit
None of the people I knew in the WPI admissions office are there now. They were still there when you would have applied for admission in the Fall of '81. I have no special connections to the WPI admissions office. On Easter weekend I did send them an e-mail and suggested they read the discussion on this website. To date, no feedback has been sent.

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That’s too bad you can’t connect with them. It seems the whole process for applying to college has become a game of poker. By today’s standards at WPI, looking at my unremarkable high school days, I would never be admitted as my stats are no where near those of the types of students admitted today. It seems back in the day I must have just barely snuck in as it was. In any case the admissions process is “weird” (not just at WPI) and this being the third kid, I paid absolutely no attention to his efforts at applying to all his schools — and I understand lots of folks actually use consultants and the like to proof read essays and present material to put the candidate in the most favorable light. That doesn’t seem honest to me, but what do I know. In any case, I may rage at the admissions process and how it appears to be tilted by big data attempting to read minds and play odds, but that doesn’t diminish from the fact that all those who manage to get thru it and into WPI are super quality students and lucky enough to enjoy studying with world class professors.

WPI Alumnus '86

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@fuggettaboutit
Are you talking about my child? mixed race, skipped junior and senior of HS and passed HiSet.
Thank you for reading my post.
Actually, we have never known that “asking for No FA is considered as a lack of interest”.
However, she has visited WPI 5+ times. We thought she has sufficiently demonstrated her interest.

She still cannot give up her hope. She is going to send a short “essay” to appeal her dream.

Wish us luck.
Thank you very much.

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@Finchmom
You were the case I thought of when forgettaboutit mentioned it. You don’t always get direct responses but it does not mean that people on CC did not read your comments.

The short essay is a good idea, but we are just alums and do not have any special powers without the money to fund a new building. Even there I know of some cases where that did not work.

A lot of kids have the credentials, but credentials with dreams about project studies should be a special thing at WPI. Whatever the admissions process, a high number of applications have become a problem in many STEM programs. Applications have increased four-fold since I was a student there and we felt challenged, but rarely handicapped years ago. STEM programs have grown, but not as fast as the applications.

Best of luck! Please let us know what happens.

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Double posting in error, see above.

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Hi @BiologyMajorHere, it’s so good that you’re planning ahead! My son was accepted to WPI for this coming fall. They also awarded him a nice scholarship. I’m definitely not an expert, but I can share a bit from his experience. Take from it what you think may be helpful (and feel free to ignore the rest…)

My son had a similar course load to you- lots of honors classes as an underclassman, then a total of 6 APs as an upperclassman. (Our district only allows juniors & seniors to take AP classes.) While your GPA may be lower than the typical accepted student, you’ve showed a trend of increasing rigor and success, so that may improve your chances.

I agree your weakness may very well be your standardized test scores. My son’s scores were in the 700-800 range, with 5s on the AP exams. But as you pointed out, you do have time to improve your scores. My son and his friends did well with the Barron’s test books and the Khan Academy online test prep. He just told my sophomore daughter that doing a little prep everyday makes a difference. The key is getting inside the mind of the test creators and understanding what kind of answer they’re looking for. Takes a lot of practice! That being said, WPI supposedly considers test scores to be less important, but better test scores can compensate for a GPA that’s lower than you’d like.

Your Ecs are good, but if you can manage to get a leadership role that would be a big help. Put your name in the running for tennis captain for senior year. Could you (or do you already) mentor/tutor younger students in math or science? My son did that and I think it may have shown he works well with others. That’s a skill that is very important at WPI!

I’ve also heard that it helps to show long term commitment to an EC, so definitely stay on the tennis team this year and next. That would give you 3 out of 4 years for one activity. But if there’s an activity or hobby outside of school which you have been involved in for a long time, definitely work that info on your application.

Have you had a job during high school? That’s less important, but it may help build your image as a responsible, team oriented person. My son wrote up a resume that listed out his jobs, his sports achievements, and all the volunteering work he did mentoring/teaching. It was a good way to showcase his leadership/teamwork experience in one document. There’s a place to upload a resume or a link to a personal website on the WPI section of the common app.

It’s great that you’ve found teachers to ask for letters of recommendation! It’s critical to requests a LOR as early as possible! I honestly don’t think it would be too early to ask for a LOR in April/May of junior year. That way, your teacher will have time to write a personal letter now before the year ends and it won’t be lost in the shuffle of all the LOR requests in the fall. It sounds like your teacher that’s a WPI alumnus would know just what WPI would be looking for, so definitely ask him! My son got LORs from a STEM teacher (AP Bio) and a non-STEM teacher (PoliSci) with the idea that it would show some versatility. (I’m not sure if that was helpful.)

Then you’ll need an entertaining essay that is your own unique story…and definitely NOT about a mission trip. Write something that will be an interesting break from the stack of essays sitting on your admissions officer’s desk. Since writing is your strength, put that to work and let WPI get to know you and what makes you stand out.

And demonstrate interest like crazy: apply EA (don’t wait for you senior fall grades to give your GPA a bump), visit the school officially a few times, and follow WPI on social media. Helps to post pictures of you on your campus visit and tag WPI. Sit for an interview and come prepared to talk about why you love WPI and why you think you’d find your academic home here. (Also…remember that the AO WILL google your name- be sure everything on line, including images, represents you well.)

Good luck with your goals!

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@BiologyMajorHere @LolliCoomassie

LolliCoomassie hit the nail on the head!

On your EC list: Don’t just put on events. Show some growth in the activities/leadership… Show that you can take on responsibilities. Participate in events you can get passionate about. Do you have any interesting project work you are excited about? Test scores help, but WPI also knows that grades, enthusiasm and a love of the field mean even more. Have your WPI alum help you here.

Because your interest is Biology/Chemical Engineering, you might be interested in reading about the new Department Head in Chemical Engineering and her crossover interest in Biology. She is also an alumna who won the NSF Career Award, the most respected NSF award for young faculty. See: https://www.wpi.edu/people/faculty/scroberts.

Read about the great career directions you are headed. Check out: https://www.wpi.edu/academics/arts-sciences/life-scientist/scarlet-shell and other scientists.

A lot of older people would like to be in your shoes now! Have a good time! Love of learning makes for a better school. This is not necessarily measured by test scores. You are applying for a position on the team. The team is bigger than just WPI.