Average Asian hopefully does well? [NC resident, 4.0 GPA, top 10% rank, 1550 SAT, mechanical or aerospace engineering]

Chance Me / Match Me
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Demographics

  • Gender: Male
  • Race/Ethnicity: asian, chinese
  • Residence: I live in rural area, but my school is in a city, do I count for rural? (moderator edit)
  • Income Bracket: 180k+ (def no aid)
  • Type of School: Small private
  • Hooks: does moving around alot for government job count? (lived in 4 different cities and 3 different countries)

Intended Major(s): Mech Engineering or Aero Engineering

Academics

  • GPA: 4.0 UW 4.79 W
  • Rank (or percentile): Top 10%

  • of Honors/AP: 9 AP rest all honors except freshmen year when I was at a different school(will freshman year course load hurt if i transferred schools?)

  • Senior Year Course Load: Calc BC, AP Bio, AP Econ, AP Chinese, AP Physics C Mech, English electives

Standardized Testing

List the highest scores earned and all scores that were reported.

  • SAT: 1550 750R/W 800M
  • PSAT: 1480
  • ACT: None
  • AP scores: None yet taking APUSH, Chem, Stats, Lang in may

Extracurriculars/Activities

List all extracurricular involvements, including leadership roles, time commitments, major achievements, etc.

  1. NASA VIP Intern Research will be published on NASA Scientific and Technical Information (STI) Repository
  2. Science Olympiad Medaled in every event I did and also mentored younger kids
  3. Officer in Debate club Helped lead team to state competition, placed 6th at peak, ethics bowl
  4. Co-chair School Commitee We decide punishments for kids who cheat, pretty time consuming, we need to set up meetings with parents for hearings
  5. Jazz Band I have been doing band since grade 7, but im not that good at it
  6. PC Hobbyist I built my own computer and also help others repair and build, also was secretary of PC building club at my old school
  7. Watch Maker I build watches for myself and also as gifts for other people
  8. Drone Enthusiast Built my own drone from scratch, no kit, fully tuned it myself and 3d printed parts that increased flight performance by over 300%, also built a drone capable of hitting over 200 mph, also have done paid work before, this is a big time consumer
  9. Cross Country Captain Did this for 2 years, made alot of improvement but im not very fast
  10. Student Pilot and Model aircraft Planning on getting my student pilot license this summer and I enjoy building model aircraft
  11. SAT Tutor Tutored over 20 people with average increase of over 50 points, taught students from over 5 different countries
  12. STEM Camp Counselor, Paid to help teach 40+ kids about biochemistry and flight
  13. Fast Food worker Worked full time during summer
  14. Founding member of Finance Club We manage over 80k worth of assets, and have over 10k currently invested
  15. Student Technology Council Educated over 600 students on digital literacy, relating mainly to AI
  16. Hobby Chemist I have synthesized nitroglycerin (a bomb) and also have created numerous pulsejet engines(jam jar engines) that I have optimized for 214% improvement in reaction duration
  17. Crypto Trader I traded some solana memecoins and made over 4x profits, I now invest in safer shitcoins

Need some advice on which ECs to cut, because I think I only get 10, also could i group the hobbies together?

Awards/Honors

List all awards and honors submitted on your application. my awards are def weakest part of app

  1. USNCO National Qualifier
  2. Science Olympiad Regional Awards
  3. National Merit Semifinalist (pretty confident ima get this)
  4. Cum Laude Society
  5. Bausch & Lomb Honorary Science Award
  6. Honor societies? nhs, mu alpha theta, and chinese honor society

Is honor societies better than the bausch award, my counselor nominated me for that one and I didn’t have to do anything

Essays/LORs/Other: Optionally, guess how strong these are and include any other relevant information or circumstances.

Statistics Teacher (/10) - We vibe pretty good during class and im like the only who participates

AP Chem Teacher (/10) - Ive been taking class with her 2 years, and I think she is pretty happy did I did USNCO

Counselor (/10) lowkey i dont really know her that well

For essays is it risky to write about wanting to go faster and faster, and talk about speeding like when driving car or motorcycle? I would talk about how I always try to go faster and faster and it progresses to me working on drones, and then i can relate to future career aspirations

Also is it risky to write an essay about a problem I have not fully overcome yet?

Schools: List of colleges, ED/EA/RD, etc

Planning on doing ROTC (i think this helps?)

What are my chances MIT, G tech, Duke, UCB, Cornell, UT Austin, U Mich, UNC, NC State, Purdued)*

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What are my chances MIT (reach), G tech(target), Duke(reach), UCB(target), Cornell(target), UT Austin(reach), U Mich(target), UNC(safety? instate), NC State(safety), Purdue(safety)

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You will sound reckless, rather than bold and ambitious, in my opinion.

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I would reclassify some of these schools…
GTech → reach
UCB → reach
Cornell → reach
UMich → reach
Purdue → target

Are you in NC? In your original post you said you were in the mid-west. :thinking:

No, unfortunately not. But if you do live in a rural area, that’s a hook.

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State of residency and price limit?

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I live in NC. my school is in city but my home is rural, what do i count as?

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NC and plan on doing ROTC to pay for it

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i would try to relate it to my drone project of going 200mph as the end goal, or would any speeding at all be reckless?

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Ok, so not in the midwest as you originally stated.

Perhaps @Mwfan1921 can answer that.

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ROTC scholarships can be significantly competitive.

ROTC is for those who want to be officers in the US armed forces.

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hopefully i should be able to get it

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So…do you live in NC or do you live in the Midwest?

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NC mb in post

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What does MB mean?

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my bad

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Write about watchmaking and your job. Dump any EC that isn’t meaningful to you (I can’t believe you care about all these things- including Bitcoin).

You sound like a great student and a terrific person. But you need to do a hard rethink on ROTC. It is NOT a college scholarship program. It is preparation for the military. It is hard (physically, time management, etc.) and most of the time, it is not fun.

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You need to establish a budget and select colleges accordingly. Run NPC’s at every school that interests you and see what they say about cost (at some very generous and selective schools, parental income of $180k would still qualify for aid). If you are considering ROTC, be prepared for a big time commitment and, then, to be in the US armed forces. Most of the schools you have listed will be reaches - Purdue and NC state will be targets.

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even if im in-state for nc state, my schools sends alot of ppl there this year that are not as strong applicants, even for engineering. I think my counselor has good connections there

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It won’t really matter. Rural North Carolina really isn’t a hook, especially since your school is in a city.

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Are you currently a junior? If you were a senior then you would already know what schools you had gotten accepted to.

In terms of ECs, to me your list looks too long. This is not a competition to see who can get the longest list. Instead, it is better to focus on the ECs that you care about.

You should find out what your parents can afford without taking on any debt. $100,000/year for university is tough with an income of $180,000/year (before taxes).

UNC and NC State are very good. When I was in graduate school (at Stanford) one of my best friends was a UNC graduate. He was one of the strongest students in the program.

MIT is a reach for pretty much anyone who does not have a Nobel prize or an international award or a parent who is the head of state of a medium sized country. MIT is a “fit” school, and you do sound like you might fit in there. It is a LOT of work, and the desire to work that hard should come from inside the student themselves.

Georgia Tech and Duke are similarly reaches. UCB will be expensive as an out of state student.

My understanding is that Purdue has decent merit aid for out of state students. I think that Purdue and your two in-state schools are your most likely admissions (perhaps either safeties or targets), and most likely to be reasonable in cost, and also all three are very good universities where you can do very well.

These sounds reckless. You should make a point of planning to live long enough to graduate from university. Are you able to fly your high speed drones in a location where they are not a danger to other people?

In terms of academics, there are a lot of universities where you can do very well, and it sounds like you have both the intelligence and the drive to do very well pretty much wherever you end up.

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