Today's "Chance Me for ED" guy here.

<p>International student applying to MechE (and hopefully an aerospace minor afterwards). From the Middle East (one of the few countries with no conflict...yet), nice diversity aspect if possible. </p>

<p>GPA: 91,83 (Rank is meh, but this is a very selective high school and GPAs have shooted up in the past few years, this would probably be top 3 in 2010, which used to be Harvard/Princeton/MIT caliber. Nobody else applying ED to Cornell from my class this year, so the GPA might look better than it is).</p>

<p>FA: Yes, full aid actually, but if I get accepted without the FA I might find some outside sponsorship.</p>

<p>SAT: None
ACT: 34 (32, 36, 31, 35)
SAT II: Math 2: 800, Physics: 800, Math 1: 770 but I might not report this one.
AP: Physics B: 5, Calc BC: 5, Both Physics C's: 4, Microeconomics: 4
Course Load: AP classes don't exist here, but most classes I'm listing are equivalent, and one is even more advanced IMO; Advanced Physics, Calculus BC, AP Statistics, Modern Physics. Also some advanced English and Turkish literary classes too, mainly in contemporary poetry and writing.
TOEFL (because international): 113</p>

<p>School ECs:</p>

<ul>
<li>Wrote for and managed the music pages in the school newspaper for 3 years</li>
<li>Destination Imagination for 2 years</li>
<li>History club for 2 years, articles published in the history magazine</li>
<li>Film Academy club, basically filmmaking but pretty advanced. Also 2 years</li>
<li>Multiple community projects around the country, one involving teaching music in a village school.</li>
<li>First place in the schoolwide writing competition, more prestigious than it looks, mostly because of the legacy.</li>
<li>A few more minor awards in writing here and there that probably won't make the EC list.</li>
</ul>

<p>Outside ECs:</p>

<ul>
<li>Community project independent from school with elementary school kids with families that have various issues. Since they were very young, it was mostly focused on being a "brother" figure to them if possible. Was supported by the governor of the city I'm living in and many other representatives of the government.</li>
<li>Two very valuable internships, one will be post-graduate. First one was between my junior and senior years at Ford, focused mainly on mechanical engineering, was mostly around the welding robots or the maintenance engineers. The second will be at the government-managed company that produces the military defense systems of the country, mainly related to the aerospace minor (and if it turns out the way I want it, my grad degree).</li>
<li>Summer program here at a university, two very advanced courses, one of them (Advanced Mechanics) given by the current president and former MIT professor. Won't get a rec from him because my performance was pretty meh, the other given by the vice president (studied at MIT but graduate elsewhere) who I might be an assistant for and might get a recommendation from.</li>
</ul>

<p>Honors:</p>

<ul>
<li>High honors, all five years</li>
<li>Clarkson Achievement Award</li>
<li>AP Scholar with Distinction</li>
</ul>

<p>Legacy:
- lol i'm from the middle east, no.</p>

<p>Essays:
Hopefully very strong, I did many things that can't be listed as ECs but are very interesting (i.e. hitchhiking around Iceland at age 17 with a tent and barely any money) I will be talking about.</p>

<p>Teacher Recs:
Math teacher's rec should be decent, history teacher's rec should be great since we know each other very well and have been involved in many activities together.</p>

<p>So, be honest and give me your best guess. Obviously a reach with FA, but I want to know what chances my resume gives either way. Relying pretty heavily on the diversity aspect.</p>

<p>Hi there!</p>

<p>It’s good that you’re applying ED as that’s always a good way to demonstrate interest and commitment. Your GPA is a little on the low side–how have applicants from your school with similar grades done in the past, admissions-wise? You don’t seem to have a lot of engineering activities aside from your internship, and while COE seems to be more numbers-focused than some of the contract colleges, it’s still a good idea to have more of them. </p>

<p>I would write some really good essays and hope for the best, and maybe you’ll end up Ithaca-bound in an aeroplane over the sea.</p>

<p>Good luck! </p>

<p>The thing is, since many countries unlike America prefer to do another elimination process before high school, the GPAs are all considered to be better than they would be in the States. I know people with this GPA that got into higher ranked schools in the UK and the US, plus the course load was pretty demanding apart from the engineering-related courses. I don’t think the GPA is a greater issue than the ECs honestly.</p>

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<p>This is what I’m mostly worried about, there really aren’t many engineering or physics related ECs I can think of. I felt the internships should have a positive effect on the resume overall, but I’m trying to enter this engineering contest before the applications are due, so I can add that as an extra. </p>

<p>Thanks for taking your time to reply, and I’m pretty sure there’s a NMH reference in there somewhere.</p>