Too late to apply anywhere but chance me anyway!

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Senior here freaking out about my lack of safety schools. Hoping to major in mechanical engineering. Here are my stats/ecs and schools ive applied to.

Umich (deferred)
Georgia Tech (denied EA)
UT Austin (denied)
Northwestern
Cornell
UCLA
UC Berkeley
Duke
Carnegie Mellon
Purdue (applied second week of january, lower chances than most bc of this)
Penn State UP (applied around feb 20, significantly lower chances than most bc of this)
University of Minnesota (twin cities) (applied around feb 20, same as penn state up)

State: KS
School Type: Public (only top 20 students are competitive) (330 in class)
Race: Indian (asian)
Gender: Male
Income Bracket: around $100,000
Hooks: 1st college student in family

ACT: 34 (35 E, 33 M, 31 R, 36 S)
UW: 3.89 (including first semester of senior year)
W: 4.45 (UC: 4.16) (including first semester of senior year)
SAT II Math L2: 790
SAT II Physics: 760

Rank: not reported but top 10%

AP:
AP European history (4)
AP Physics 1 (4)
AP US History (4)
AP Language and Composition (4)

Current classes:
AP Physics 2
AP Statistics
AP Calculus BC
AP Government
AP Literature and Composition
AP Spanish Language

(By the time I graduate, I will have taken all advanced/honors course for all other core classes prior to this year, such as Pre-Calculus, Algebra I & II, etc.)

Major Awards:
National Merit Commended
1st place doubles in Table Tennis at regional competition in Chicago, IL
multiple 1st place medals for local table tennis singles tournaments
Presidential Service award gold (not sure if this counts)
Kansas Honor Scholar (top 10% in class)
AP scholar with honor
received 4th place at state technical drafting competition
principal’s honor roll (pretty sure this doesnt count)

Extracurriculars:
table tennis club (outside of school) (all 4 years)
President of Math honor society (member during 11th)
Project leader for NHS (member during 11th)
member of SciNHS (12th)
member of Spanish NHS (11th-12th)
member of technology student association (11th-12th)

Job/Work Experience:
None (does this hurt me?)

Volunteer/Community service:
Coordinator for classes for kids aged 3-6 in local mosque, teach basic spanish (numbers, greetings, etc.) (10th-12th)

Summer Activities:
went to Chicago for 6 day camp as a counselor (went 3 weeks early for training)

Recommendations:
AP stats/precalc teacher: 8/10 (didnt read but shes known me for 2 years and written recs for me before)
AP physics 2: 9/10 (counselor said it was the best one)
AP Lit and comp: 7.5/10 (he showed me and i thought it was alright)
Counselor: 8/10 (tbh idk about this one but she helped me a lot throughout my 4 years)

What (hopefully) makes me different: strong focus on math (i hope) and physics. Took most difficult classes offered. Maybe ACT but probably not. First gen? diverse extracurriculars.

Strength: leadership, stats maybe,
Weakness: Not a huge amount of depth in extracurriculars compared to other applicants (most are 11th-12th) no work experience

Essays: common app: 8/10, worked on it for at least a few weeks and revised a lot with teachers
supplements: 6-9/10, for tough schools spent a lot of time but the safeties kind of threw together

2

Stats are great! 34 ACT and a strong GPA. The only place that I think might affect your chances are your EC’s. Nothing really stands out and there isn’t really any consistency with interests. You seem like a very academic applicant, but remember that these too school want to see a personality too! What are your essays about? Maybe your essays will help portray your personality and other great characteristics!

3

I’m really baffled that you were straight up rejected from UT Austin. Even Georgia Tech’s rejection surprises me. You seem like a very strong applicant.

My guess is that there is some huge weakness in your application. It’s the only explanation. Maybe you got bad (worse than you realize) recommendation letters? Did you not put time into your app (this would be feasible. I don’t know you, but it looks like you applied to many schools later in the rolling admission timeline. Are you unorganized or very busy or what?) ? It looks like you at least have a few EC’s, so that is good.

I bet you will get into one of the good schools that you listed. I can’t say for sure which one, but here’s my guess (like I said, I’m sure you will get into one of them):
Umich- accept
Cornell- reject/waitlist
Duke- reject
Northwestern-reject
UCLA- accept
UC Berkeley-accept/waitlist
Carnegie Mellon-waitlist

*edit- I just reread your stats and I think your EC’s are the weakness. Luckily, these don’t play a huge role in the UC’s admissions process.

4

You have a great ACT (99th %).

You should be good for all of the public Unis other than Berkeley and UMich.

5

@DreamforIvy
common app was about a childhood story fixing a part of a computer and curiosity (not as complicated as it sounds with youtubes help)
others were about my culture (cliche i know) and volunteering

6

@DryMango appreciate the honesty, hard to find these days. I realized i had no safeties so i tried to add some late but youre right thats ones on me. I spent at least a week on the schools that i applied to before the rolling process (all but Penn state, purdue, UM twin cities). Tbh ive looked and looked for that weakness but cant find it. Most of my recs should have been good, not to sound proud but i had a good relationship with these adults and mutual respect is apparent.

7

Despite the harshness of my comment, I DO think you’re a great applicant, and you will end up at a great school. Best of luck!

8

@londondad I hope so but these past two rejections have made me think otherwise considering i believed they were matches.

9

Yikes! That really sucks. Your academics are equal to mine, but the ECs, as you mentioned, seem a bit thin. I could be wrong, it’s all a matter of how you project them in other parts of the app. You look to have a good shot at the public schools and the private schools are a reach for you and everyone else. A good question is… what GPA did you apply with? That might provide some insight on your EA rejections.

10

@mdchang99 i applied with a 3.88 and a 4.40

11

I think more than anything the issue is your very competitive major, anything in engineering is a tough admit. It stinks, I’m sorry. I’m sure you’ll get into a great school. There are still schools taking apps for March 1st if you wanted to throw in some safeties… http://www.collegesimply.com/guides/application-deadlines/

12

@socalmom007 I figured. Thanks for the list, will look into it!

13

What about University of Alabama Huntsville or Rose Hulman?

14

hmmm would those have spots left for engineering or would they be mostly filled up?

15

Wow…I’m shocked with those stats that you are not getting more admits. You will!
Please keep us posted.
Curious, what is your high school rated on “Greatschools”?

16

first time on the website but it says 10/10 lol

17

I don’t know @rhhssenior22 , but they are still taking apps. Your stats are excellent, it wouldn’t hurt to throw in a few apps if you’re concerned about a shut out. I read a thread a few days ago from last year, a student talking about applying to 17 schools and being admitted to only two. His stats were also excellent. He ended up at Berkeley, so one of his two schools was top rated, but I imagine he was stressed when the rejections kept coming.

18

@socalmom007 i think ill apply to Rose-Hulman, seems like a good fit

19

^ please stay optimistic as these decisions are NOT correlated to each other. IMHO, UMich and GT are public Ivies and UM defers lots of kids EA. Texas is really weird as they don’t have many slots london left after the 7% rule gets taken care of.

The UCs are your friend here as admissions are less holistic than other public Ivies and your GPA is competive by UC standards (in hindsight you missed a trick by not applying to UCSB,UCD, UCSD as there was no more work involved!)

I would be very surprised if you didn’t get into PS, UMN and Purdue. Plus, a KS kid with your grades/scores is very
competitive for Norhwestern.

20

@londondad thanks for the support, will keep everyone posted :slight_smile: