<p>lol, very few Harvard engineering students actually even go into engineering jobs. If you want engineering, look elsewhere.</p>
<p>@mystic: PM’ed you.</p>
<p>attending Caltech?</p>
<p>@dilettante: Violator is correct.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>And I always thought Raj from BBT was an inaccurate stereotype. lol.</p>
<p>
Hahaha, me too.
Yes, most people whom I know who went to the above mentioned schools for engineering migrated to other fields of study.
Similar reasons, I guess.</p>
<p>Indeed PD I am. And dilettante I was only advising people against following your flawed reasoning of applying to Harvard even though its not great for eng. In fact, even if you’re going to do something non eng related, Id suggest a tech school and a biz school later on.</p>
<p>heyy guys i m new 2016’er … and m caring to apply to U.S. universities this year … and i really wanna get into some good universities … well i waz not able to read the whole thread but i got through some huge paragraph stuffs and they were actually good precisely impressive … so could any one feed me up with what m i gonna do at this stage … i m a XIIth standard student currently in jaipur … And i really wanted to ask is this one of the chance me threads too ?? i mean is anyone gonna statistically tell my approximate my chances ?? … And plzz guys any sort of help would be highly appreciated … any thoughts,questions or comments would be highly acceptable !!!</p>
<p>P.S. Could any one provide me with the selection data in top 20 universities (engineering one’s would be great )for the ones who got selected from India in the past few years ?? … Even a redirection link would do just fine …</p>
<p>mystic gohan can guide you kamehameha 
Pun intended :D</p>
<p>Well Kamehameha, have you taken the SAT Reasoning Test yet? Or the SAT Subject Tests? If not, these are your first call. To understand more about them, I strongly exhort you to go over to the “SAT Prep” forums of College Confidential (CC).</p>
<p>Then, you’re grades in school need to be at par - this is a highly relative term varying by which college you are applying to. Since you said top 20, I would personally try and keep my grades in the top 1% (to be sure).</p>
<p>Once we know that, we might be able to better gauge your chances at the various universities.</p>
<p>Indeed Kamehameha, im not going to reply to each and every one of your numerous questions on different threads so ill answer whatever I can here. I got to Caltech 2015 and to the best of my knowledge, I dont think any other Indian has. Not sure about MIT. And whats important is that you get your essays right and imperative to your success in that endeavour is good syntax and grammatical etiquette. Right now, your paragraphs are excruciatingly painful to read through and discern what you’re saying. If possible, be more assiduous in formulating your questions because otherwise it’ll turn people off from wanting to answer them. It just sounds boorish. I dont intend to offend :)</p>
<p>What does everyone here think about self-critical essays, combined with teachings from the past, promises of the future and lessons learnt?</p>
<p>That in the most vague sense is the topic of my initial essay draft.
And I would like your opinion on it’s authenticity and appeal - purely based on this limited context I have provided.</p>
<p>If I might take the liberty of being unabashedly frank for the sake of efficacy, those are the most generic and boring essays around. Admissions officers wouldve read so many of these self critical essays that unless they’re very insightful, they wont be too impressed.</p>
<p>The advantage of being anonymous on forums is that one can be sharp. But rather than taking it in a negative sense, I appreciate your honesty.</p>
<p>In my opinion, aren’t these types of essays truly genuine? Providing an insight about the student as well as his/her views, fears and expectations? One’s outlook towards various things.</p>
<p>I have read some ‘atypical’ essays which though in themselves quite ‘unique’ lack a purpose. It was a ‘essays that worked’ section on the website of some school. Though I agree their topic was unique - not one that I would pick up, I also have to point out how shallow the subject matter seemed to me.</p>
<p>If you do not share your own ‘ideas’, what do you share?</p>
<p>EDIT: I also feel the need to point out another thing: isn’t ‘insightful’ a relative term? Something gravely insightful for me might just be everyday knowledge for you. Or vice-versa. Is it not important as to how you present this in your essay rather than not mentioning it at all?</p>
<p>How a particular incident affected you and why? And what makes it so important?</p>
<p>Is it important to be honest in the essays, or is it important build on something else?</p>
<p>Gohan, please don’t read all these questions and think of me as a dogmatic person. I’m just curious and I believe you might be in a better position to answer these questions :)</p>
<p>^ SMH.</p>
<p>10characters</p>
<p>scratching my head or shaking my head.
If it’s the latter, excuse me for being so naive :)</p>
<p>Lol, the latter. 
There’s no single way in which to approach essays. You can PM me if you still need help.</p>
<p>I dont intend to offend anyone and neither should anyone take it that way. I was just abandoning levity for the sake of brevity And to get my point across. As for the essays, PD is absolutely right, there is no one right formula. If you try to approach it systematically its not going to manifest well. An essay is (unfortunately) not a math or physics problem. What you need to do is write about something personal and something that evokes strong emotion, whatever it may be, and express it as lucidly and eloquently as possible. The point is to make it an interesting read for the admissions guy. So write something interesting about your life, something you feel strongly about and that strong emotion will translate into something interesting. Hopefully. Of course my experience is only limited to the colleges I applied to, but from what I know, the super-elite colleges HYPS will usually accept people who have either insane ECs like international olympiads or who seem to be really interesting. Naturally, the latter is something rather nebulous and arbitrary but thats US admissions for you. MIT and Caltech wont really care unless either you show great passion for Sci/Math/Eng in your essays or you’re an olympiad medallist. The “other” colleges usually will be fine admitting you with a “good” essay. Of course this is all provided that you do really well in school :)</p>
<p>I guess more than advise on what you should do. Perhaps I can state the obvious do not’s. You shouldnt lecture and be didactic, keep it succinct as possible. Dont meander too much. Embellish your essay with bombastic language only where appropriate. Incongruously placed flowery language will appear contrived. </p>
<p>Be honest because admissions officers are well trained to spot someone who is obviously exaggerating excessively. Moderate fibbing is alright </p>
<p>And please be humble. The admission officer is only spending 15 mins on your application so dont offend their sensibilities in that short time. Of course you’re right in saying that what is insightful to you may be self-evident or obvious to someone else, but you’ll just have to hope that it clicks with your admissions officer, which is why you apply to many places, to enhance the chances of that happening. Hope this is helpful :D</p>
<p>well I do agree that Harvard is not that reputed in engineering and the recruiters are not fools 
, but I think my parents would be spending a great amount of money to send me abroad for studies…so it doesnt make sense if I study in some okayish college for I could have got admitted into IIT easily (not boasting but I was capable). So I would definitely want to get into the IVY league to make the decision worthwhile.</p>
<p>Also, most of my ECs are science related ( olympiads, science fairs and prizes etc). I understand that it could help me in getting an engineering major in a good college but what if I would want a major in Economics? Would these ECs be considered? Wouldnt they feel that a science oriented student wanting to get Economics in Harvard is a bit weird? (there will be many who have economics related ECs like me who will apply)</p>
<p>Well normally you could double major in engineering and econs. Not sure about Harvard though I suspect its the case that they dont care what major you’re in. They treat everyone equally. Actually a lot of people dont actually do the major they tell the college they intend to do so that shouldnt be an issue. And most of the Ivy league isnt good at engineering btw. </p>
<p>Also, if you could have gotten into IIT, well you probably should have just gone there. The IIT’s unequivocally represent a much better value proposition that the US education. Lets face it, most of us full-pay are here because 1) We’re not smart enough to get a good enough rank in the IIT or 2) We’re not willing or able to work hard enough to achieve the same or 3)We have money to blow and 1 crore is next to nothing.</p>
<p>@mysticgohan … (well i like ur username first of all )</p>
<p>well i’ll come to my thread in next to next paragraph cuz i wanna discuss ur previous post first (not in offending way,u can be sure of that) … and BTW congrats on gettin through Caltech dude it’s like u r a heavenly idol to us (at least me if they aren’t concerned)</p>
<p>First of all u said that we are not willing to go to IIT because of ur above 3 reasons … well i definitely not completely support them … i mean if people are getting in because of those reasons or because they think it is definitely easy or sumthin … then they are completely numb and a total fool ,agreed on that part, (not to offend anyone who has gotten into an ivy)
But to people who are really interested in gettin there … it’s about passion and their interest in studying their field (subject(s)) in extreme practical diverse and varied environment with one of the most experienced faculty available (we can quote that all the major nobles come from there than here in India no matter how genius we call ourselves)… it’s nothing to get angry but the fact that has to be faced here is that Indian education is more and more theoretical than practical (and which is based upon the activities goin on in mere colleges over there)
I m not complaining about the system or anything like that if anyone is probably thinking of hitting me hard by now … but anyone who is anyone “iff” (not if) is completely mesmerized and dedicated towards his studies ,his field of interest to the extent of pondering upon it not just for the sake of gettin money from his job but to actually get his mind box devastated for it … would be definitely attracted by the possible scope and extremely convincing infrastructure that these ivies are providing !!!</p>
<p>(and concluding over the above made statements … they were not intended to offend anyone and please dun take them seriously … and also they were not made just give a false satisfaction to the souls who have decided to take an ivy over IIT … cuz i myself is preparing for bot JEE and SAT !!! )</p>
<p>and now to my own post (if u r not bored by now :P) i definitely don’t intend to bore u people out i mean that’s the main reason i m here to learn these things out and i m extremely glad that i came around you “mysticgohan” who is actually training me from the very first day , (and i seriously admit that i m really goin to get every bit of help from you cuz i have to “have to” be in MIT or Caltech or similar college , so i expect that you dun go mad at me even if i m so bad in the starting cuz there is yet hope left for me getting batter at these things ) … </p>
<p>well i have to say in response to my post that i have been in quite a lot of olympiads (15+ to be precise) … and i currently ranking 3rd in the class so m i in a good position so far ??</p>
<p>well i’ll be givin SAT 1 in October , SAT II in November and again SAT I in december if i m willing to !! … </p>
<p>i m already gettin my teacher’s recs’ being ready and be starting my essays as soon as the forms are gonna be there … </p>
<p>so any more advice ?? suggestions ?? even comments as said before !!! and again thanks for every bit of help that u guys are givin i m deeply appreciated !!!</p>
<p>Well you didnt notice that I was talking about full-pay intls. Implicit in that statement was going to US for UG. People who want good education with good facilities go to the US either on aid for UG or do their IIT and go for Masters on aid to the US. The rest of us, well the 3 reasons cover our disposition. </p>
<p>Also you dont have to go to MIT or Caltech. There is life beyond them. Just as there is life beyond HYPS. The US admissions process is extremely arbitrary and unless you have an intl Olympiad medal, you shouldnt get too attached to a particular school since you’re likely to get disappointed. </p>
<p>Anyway I cant judge your chances because there is a lot more to an applicant than a few olympiads and his class rank.</p>
<p>Narayana Moorthy told 60 minutes that had his son gotten a good rank on IIT, he would nt have gone to Cornell.</p>
<p>Haha yeah though Narayana Murthy’s son did get a decent rank, though not good enough to get CS in the top IITs. Of course, he also had tons of money to blow.</p>