What are my reach, match, and safety schools from my list?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Demographics: Asian (Indian) male, upper middle class, large public high school in Virginia (graduating class of 451)

Scores: 1540 SAT (750 r&w, 790 m), 760 Math II

Grades: 91.08/100 avg freshman year, 90.34/100 avg sophomore year, 87.15/100 avg junior year. No available grade for senior year. 89.57/100 cumulative average so far. Downward trend ik, but I took harder courses as well. How much of a negative effect will this have?

Coursework: 0 AP, 4 honors, 2 regular in freshman year; 1 AP, 5 honors, 1 regular in sophomore year; 4 AP, 2 honors, 0 regular in junior year; 5 AP, 1 honors, 0 regular in senior year

GPA: uw is 3.43 and w is 3.9. My school has 4.0 for 100-92.5, 3.7 for 92.4-89.5, and 3.3 for 89.4-86.6. I didn’t have any grades below that. We get 0.5 added for honors and 1 point added for AP.

Class rank: top 40%. Not top 20, ik but my school is extremely competitive. My school ranks on weighted gpa as well, and mine is under a 4.0 which is an oof for me, as everyone in the top 20% this year has over 4.0 w gpa.

Essays: 8/10 or 9/10 on all supplements. 10/10 on my common app personal essay. Verified by counselor.

Recs:

9/10 for APES and honors bio teacher (she taught me two years and knows me well and likes me a lot.)

7-8/10 for AP Stats teacher (me and a friend would always talk about our interests in aerospace and mechanical engineering with her whenever we finished work early in class. She knows me and my interests well.)

5-6/10 for counselor (last minute notification/request for letter which was a mistake on my part)

ECs:

-150+ hours of volunteering, including 110 at Richmond VA Medical Center

-2 online courses through Virginia Space Grant Consortium (VSCS and VASTS). Courses were 6 months long (Nov. - Apr.) and took up a considerable amount of time.

-Performed well enough in VSCS online course to be one of 120 Virginia high school selected for week-long residential internship/academy over the summer. We stayed at Wallops Flight Facility for a whole week. Definitely the best experience of high school so far

-4 years Technology Student Association (TSA), but started in 7th grade so 6 consecutive years. Ik the 2 years in middle school won’t matter much, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

-Student help desk at school, helped students out with laptop issues/repairs on their district issued laptops (Dell Latitude 3380s that break down every other day lol)

-2 years student mentors, lead mentor so I lead a group of upperclassmen that go to freshman homerooms where we mentor the freshman. Basically, we help them adjust to high school, answer questions, and offer advice. Think of it as RA but for high school.

-Will not having the “traditional” ECs hurt? I’m referring to Key Club, NHS, sports, marching band, robotics, subject specific honor societies, etc.

Misc: I am bilingual and can fluently speak and understand both English and Gujarati. Conversational in Spanish. Naturalized citizen because I was born in India and moved to the US when I was 2 (idk if this means anything to colleges).

Colleges (engineering for all): UMich, UW-Seattle, Purdue, UM-Twin Cities, Pitt, VT, UVA, VCU, JMU, NC State, Georgia Tech, Penn State, UIUC

2

VT, VCU, JMU in.
Penn State good chance.

3

What about the others?

4

You have a great SAT but you uwgpa is low. You are applying to oos colleges for eng where the avg hs uwgpa 3.6-4.0.

Normally an OOS applicant would have a GPA above average. Your GPA will be compared to other applicants from your hs.

I’d give you less than 20% chance at Purdue, NC State, Pitt, Minnesota, UVA.

The rest… less than 10%.

5

Have your parents told you that all of the schools on your list are affordable?

3.43 GPA can make it difficult at many of these schools, especially since engineering is more competitive at many of them than overall school stats may imply. Some may admit you to the school but not to your desired major or the engineering division, in which case you would have to face another admission process after enrolling.

Also, some schools admit to first year engineering but may have high GPA or competitive admission to get into specific engineering majors after enrolling.

6

Wow I didn’t realize my chances were that low. I knew UMich, Georgia Tech, UW-Seattle, and UIUC would be reaches and Purdue and UVA would be high target but less than 20% at Pitt, NC State, and Minnesota? Wow, that’s quite an eye opener. Well, thanks for your help!

7

Dude, I’m just a guy on the Internet. It’s an opinion. Trying to manage expectations.

UVA has a regular admit rate of the 26%. Engineering is harder to get into than that rate. But you are instate so it helps.

Purdue has a regular rate of 60%. Engineering is harder to get into… I’d imagine ~30%, plus you are OOS, plus a lowish eng gpa. You have 2 things going against you. That 30% would be a instate, outstate average. Same reason for NC State. NC State is actually a more selective school… higher scores, lower accept rate.

Minnesota and Pitt have smaller programs so they will be choosy with OOS offers.

Now, just think how happy you’ll be when I’m wrong.

8

Georgia Tech is unlikely due to your GPA & class rank.

9

Don’t rely on any chance-me replies on this forum. They’re useless. Do your own research. Analyse the admitted students data published by colleges. What I can tell you though is that UMich Ann Arbor is incredibly selective for OOS students. Almost as selective as Ivies.