What are my chances? (Thanks for reading/commenting!!! :) )

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hi! I’m (obviously) a current high school senior who has started the process of applying for colleges. Of course, with college admission becoming so competitive, this time of year gets stressful easily. I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on my admission prospects?

I am planning to apply as a female mechanical engineering major to Stanford, Caltech, MIT, Harvey Mudd, Harvard, USC, various UC’s (UC Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, UC San Diego, UC Irvine, and UC Santa Barbara), Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, UT Austin, Cooper Union, etc.

Weighted GPA (9-12): 4.432
Weighted GPA (10-12): 4.480
Unweighted GPA: 4.0

“Advanced Courses”
Honors: Honors English 1-2 & Honors Geometry (9th Grade); Honors English 3-4 & Honors Pre-algebra (10th Grade); Honors Precalculus (11th); Honors Physics – combination of AP Physics A&B (12th)
AP’s: AP Chemistry, AP Spanish, AP Language and Composition (11th Grade); AP Literature and Composition, AP Calculus BC, AP Government (12th Grade)

Test Scores:
SAT (old format): 2330
PSAT (out of 1520): 1490
SAT II’s: Math II - 800; Chemistry - 790
AP’s: Chemistry - 5; Language and Composition - 5; Spanish - 4
AMC 12: 102

Leadership Positions:
Director of Activities for Club #1 (3 years)
Director of Activities for Interact Club (1 year)
Director of Activities for Club #2 (1 year)
Vice President for Club #1 (current)
Vice President for Club #2 (2 years including current)
Event Captain for Science Team (current)
Event Captain for Speech and Debate (1 year)

Teams:
Math Team (2 years including current)
Science Team (3 years including current)
Speech and Debate (5 years)
Tennis (JV - 3 years; Varsity - current)
Badminton (Varsity - 2 years)

Other Extracurricular Activities:
Girls Who Code
Robotics Club

Other Notabilities:

  • qualified for AIME
  • won a few awards in Speech and Debate
  • passed Piano CM Level 10 with Honors
  • AP Scholar Award
  • Alternate for Girl’s State
  • former member of NHS (before school discontinued program)
  • Team Player of the Year (Science Team)

I chose to major in mechanical engineering as I enjoy building and crafting (I’ve tried tons of different crafts) various creations immensely.

I also expect to have strong letters of recommendations from two of my favorite teachers.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read all this!

2

By the way, my school is pretty small and doesn’t offer too many AP’s – maybe under 15 total possibilities?

Also, does being invited to apply early admission to USC as a junior mean I am in a favorable position to apply to USC?

3

So you are applying to 15 colleges, etc? How many more does that mean? Applications are a lot of work, and expensive. Let’s say each app will cost $70. That’s a lot of cash, and a lot of time writing supplements.

I suspect you are being a little disingenuous asking if you can get into any of these colleges. You know you can. My question is why are you applying to so many? Unless you live in California, I don’t see a single definite match or safety school. If you aren’t in CA, I suspect you will possibly only get into USC. All the others have an under 10% acceptance rate. And there will be a crackdown on OOS students at the UCs this cycle because of state mandates on accepting in-state students.

If you are in CA already, then I say welcome to the Class of 2021 at UC__.

If you are OOS for CA, then you only have one potential match school, USC. UT Austin accepts 8% OOS, but your chances are probably okay there. As long as you are happy with two choices, that’s great.

Regarding all your reaches, don’t be surprised if you don’t get into any of them. It happens all the time. At least you have a couple of schools you will probably get into, but there is no true safety school on your list at all. You should absolutely be applying to at least one college with a much higher acceptance rate than all the ones listed here. Colleges turn away high stats students if they suspect they are being used as a safety. Don’t be one of those people posting in April saying “I didn’t get in anywhere.” Swap out two of these colleges for ones that have a higher acceptance rate, and hopefully merit aid. Don’t apply to all 15, (etc.) of these colleges unless you can come up with good reasons why you want to attend and are a good fit for them. Not talking about the UCs.

If you have an Achilles heel here, I would say it’s your ECs, which are pretty ordinary. Stanford and Harvard are not looking for ordinary, and kids with stats like yours are a given. You of course have fantastic stats, but if you have done your research, you should realize that stats are not everything at most of these colleges. Good luck.

4

Ur stats are fantastic and so are your ECs (sry @Lindagaf). U shud be looking to write a really good essay and also applying to MIT and Caltech for Early Action and probs Harvard too. Harvey Mudd is in the same league as those but only offers an undergrad program which might pull a few people away. Stanford is really hard for a non CA resident and they only offer Restrictive Early Action meaning you wont be able to apply EA to any of those other schools. I say u hv a very good chance at Caltech bcos they r looking to even out their gender distribution which gives an upper hand over guys with the same stats as u. Hope this helps and good luck with ur endeavours! Stay positive :slight_smile:

5

@Lindagaf Thankfully, I do live in California XD. Thank you very much for your advice! I’ll look more into other potential schools.

@theofficialdev Thank you so much for your kind support! I’m trying to stay realistic as I know that a lot of other applicants have similar or even more impressive achievements than I do, but your words mean a lot (especially about “staying positive”). Thank you!

6

AIME qualifier, debate (if award is regional / state, not just school) , and piano CM 10 are very good.
All 6 UC’s are one application. Then you have 9 reaches.
All in all, you’re competitive everywhere . Yet as was mentioned above, it means you may not get into anybody our favorite schools - and then ounre missing ‘match schools’ beside ucsd, ucsb. Fortunately you live in California and definitely qualify under the 9% rule so you’re sure to get ucm if nothing else works. I’m guessing you’ll get into a few UC’s beside, but you may want to apply to asu Barrett or u Alabama honors forbade true safety purposes may like better than ucm. Also, I’d add a couple universities with an acceptance rate in the 30-40% range. What about Case Western for instance? RPI?

(run the NPC)
What’s your budget? Have you run the NPC on these colleges, could your parents pay net price at all?

7

@MYOS1634 Thanks for the advice! My family isn’t really struggling financially, so I (or rather my parents) expect to be able to pay for college. I’ll definitely look at Case Western!

Update: I’ve also added Georgia Tech (applying for Honors Program) to my list as it’s a pretty good engineering school :).

8

Check with your parents as to what budget they have in mind.
(nowadays only top 1% families can afford any college dull pay… And even many of those who can afford to be full pay, have a budget, a limit, or simply refuse to be full pay. It’s very important you being NPC results to your parents and check with them that they’re OK with the costs).

9

Thank you for posting! I asked my family if they could cover my college costs, and thankfully they have no problems supporting me financially. (It definitely helps that I’m an only child!)

Thanks :smiley:

10

Did you provide them with NPC results and ask them if all of them were affordable?
(sorry for insisting but so many students start like you, only to find out in April that their parents hadnt realized costs in real numbers, and are stuck with no option but community college.)

11

Sorry for the late reply! I’ve been really busy lately . . . :confused:

I haven’t completed the NPC, but I asked my dad if we would be able to afford paying $70,000 a year (though I certainly hope that’s not the case), and he said it’d be okay.

And no problem! I appreciate you wanting me to be aware of such real problems!

12

Excellent. Now you’re free from that burden - make sure to thank your parents once admissions roll around, because it’s a huge commitment on their part that few parents are willing or able to make.
You’re likely to choose between UC’s - are you fine with that? If not, add URochester and CWRU.