Striving to get into some of the top engineering schools. Chance me? Will chance back.

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

I am currently a senior at a competitive high school in MA and planning to major in engineering, probably mechanical. I would greatly appreciate input on my chances at these great engineering schools. Thank you!

Colleges (acceptance rates increase going down):
UCLA
UCBerk
Carnegie Mellon
University of Virginia
Georgia Tech
UCSD
University of Rochester
UCSB
Northeastern
WPI
Purdue
UMass Amherst

Gender: Male
Ethnicity: White
Income: Upper class
Cumulative weighted GPA at end of junior year: 93.75/100 (no unweighted or 4.0 scale)
UC GPA: 4.29
ACT: 28 (11 on essay) Taking again next month to get above a 30
Rank: Unknown
Honors Courses: 7
AP Courses Junior Year: AP US History (4 on exam) (Not many AP offered for juniors)
AP Courses Senior Year: AP Computer Science, AP Literature, AB Calculus

Extracurricular Activities:
Freshmen soccer, 1 year
JV Soccer, 1 year
Varsity Soccer, 1 year
Community Service Club, 2 years
Robotics Club, 2 years
Math Team, 1 year
NHS, 1 year
Peer leader, 1 year

Achievements:
Honor roll, 4 years
Participant of Samsung Mobile App Academy at MIT, devised and created application concept
Probably will be AP scholar by end of Spring
NSHSS member and ambassador (if important)

Leadership:
JV Soccer captain
Soccer referee
Job at local library
Lead robotics club at local library for children
Protector of local lakes for my Lakes Association
Assistant coach of youth soccer team
NSHSS Ambassador
Peer leader

Community Service:
Assisted in baseball game for special needs children
Occasionally care for neighborhood pets/plants
Assistant coach for Youth Soccer League
Soccer evaluator
Compile music playlists for local spinning and yoga studios
Run robotics Club for kids at library
Stock book shelves, arrange events for local library, 40+ hours right now
Volunteer at organization that gives furniture to those in need, 40+ hours
Member of Lakes Association, Weed Watcher Program, 30 hours
Run local concession stand during youth soccer games
Planted trees at my high school
Assist in town dog care
Refurbish computers at local shelter

Sorry for any generalities. Thank you for your time!

2

In case anyone is wondering, my recommendation letters are very strong and so is my essay. Also, another strength of mind is that I layered my highschool career by starting with normal classes my freshmen year and steadily increased course rigour to show momentum. I even increased performance with difficulty.

3

As an OOS student, you will pay $55K per year.
Plus, Berkeley, UCLA and UCSD are currently out of reach for you with that ACT score.

Because these schools are funded by California taxpayers, priority admission goes to the children of those residents.

If you can get your ACT up to a 32, your chances might be slightly better.

Adcoms may note that your EC’s are good, but may be at the expense of your test scores.

Don’t list “occasional care of plants and animals”, everyone does that. Some of the other activities sound like “padding”:

You’re competing from OOS, with Eagle scouts/Girl Scouts who have put in hundreds, if not thousands of hours building and designing: pathways, bridges, buildings, parks, homeless charities, etc. (Berkeley has a history of funding instate scouts.) Putting something like occasional care of neighborhood pets? Sounds like you’re stretching your EC’s to fit a profile.

4

Ok thanks for the input. I won’t list things like that on my resume. Just wanted to put that out there just in case. I’m working on my ACT as well!