<p>Class: 2009 (Female)
School: Private prep
Rank: Doesn’t rank
GPA: 4.2W
SAT1: 2340 (800CR, 800M, 740W), candidate for Presidential Scholar
SAT2: 770 Math2C, 780 Chem, 730 Literature
PSAT: 226(80M,73CR,73W) NMSF, hopefully NMF
Course Load: One of the toughest at school
APs: National AP Scholar after Junior Year
10th: Chem(5), Euro history(5), Calc BC(5), Comp Science AB(5)
11th: Bio(5), Physics C Mech(5), Physics C E&M (4), US History(4), Statistics, English Language (5)
12th: Art History, English Lit, Enviornmental Science
Research: (2 years) Involved in the field of Bioinformatics and done independent research during the junior year and won awards at local science fair for technical paper and project. Selected for summer research at a prestigious university in the field of bioinformatics. Plan on sending paper on it to Siemens, Intel.
Awards:
NMSF, National AP Scholar, JETS, Model UN, Speech, Community Service, NHS</p>
<p>Shall I apply MIT/Caltech for EA or Stanford for SCEA, I’ll be applying for Engineering.</p>
<p>I like all three and will be happy at any one of these 3. I would like to know where will I’ve best shot at getting accepted during the EA. This will cut down my applications.</p>
<p>-Size: CalTech has just over 900 undergrads; MIT 4000. Stanford has about 6500. </p>
<p>-Location: Pasadena vs. Cambridge vs. Palo Alto: which town would you rather spend four years hanging around? Also consider their respective climates.</p>
<p>Selfishly I might discourage you from applying to MIT EA because I am, and I don’t want more competition! :)</p>
<p>umm ur a female entering engineering… LIKE HOLY SNOOZLE THAT SHOUTS AFFIRMATIVE ACTION…</p>
<p>MIT clearly said they are taking more decent qualified women over over-qualified men for engineering… id say EA Caltech/MIT… they will take u just because they need more women in technology field.</p>
<p>And stanford SCEA ull get rejected… one thing they consider is well-roundedness (to a huge extent)… if all u did was research and study, theyll think u have no life in university and contribute nothing to social environment… thats how i feel about it… just my opinion</p>
<p>Ambitiousteen: Thanks for the input but I’ve life other than research and studies. I’m a black belt in Tai Kwon Do and an advanced Piano player. I have been working with a Health Organisation implement Healthy fact tutoring at inner city elementary schools. I’m also a teen critique for book reviews. I’ve also taken 4 years of history and 4 years of spanish. I’m not sure what more roundedness might be required. I was on my school swim team during the freshman year but go sick so never went back. The only thing that I’ve not done as part of the school team is to play a sport.</p>
<p>Also do you seriously think that I lack statistics in comparison to male candidates.</p>
<p>^No! MIT admissions bloggers have said that in many cases, the female applicants outshine the male. It is true that since more males apply to tech schools than females, females technically have a better admit rate, but that doesn’t mean in any way that they are inferior to male applicants. I personally feel that many males feel threatened by the excellence of their female counterparts.
</p>
<p>Yeah, MIT’s always claimed that their higher acceptance rates for women is due to a much more self-selective pool of applicants than anything else.</p>
<p>The girls I was friends with at CMU that were in engineering certainly weren’t admitted through any sort of AA; they all had great scores and did really well in high school (and continued to perform well in undergrad).</p>
<p>That’s not how you should be rationalizing this. I’ve said it a thousand times: don’t try to game the system here; go with the one that’s your first choice. Sure, you’d be happy at any of the three, but which one do you like the most?</p>
<p>Better yet, imagine that it’s April and you’ve gotten into all three of these schools RD: which one will you choose before the May 1st deadline? That’s the one you should apply early to.</p>
<p>In other words, explore these schools more and see which one you like the most; you will inevitably like some more than others. You will not like two equally; you will eventually have to choose.</p>
<p>Here’s one way of determining your first choice: after researching them in-depth, write each college down on pieces of paper (cards, flash cards, whatever). Take two and decide which you like more; put that one down and the one not chosen below that. Then pick up another school, compare it to the one at the bottom of the list, and if you like it more, move it up and compare it to the next one; keep doing that until you’d choose a school higher up on the list over it. Do that for each of your colleges. You’ll come out with a ranked list of your school preferences–and the one you should apply early to (if it even has an early program).</p>
<p>Hm…your profile looks like ParentofIvyHope’s daughter’s…regardless you have a strong shot at these schools, the MathIIc is a small cause for concern with Caltech. If you want to increase your chances of getting in early, the obvious choice would be Caltech/MIT since you get two horses in the race instead of one per se. However, as kyledavid said, you should apply EA to your favorite not the one your most likely to get into.</p>
<p>Edit: This IS POIH’s daughter’s profile. POIH, I really hope you asked your daughter for permission before posting her stats on this board.</p>
<p>It’s important to keep in mind though that the kids who go to Cal Tech are a lot different than the ones who go to Stanford. You will probably find that you like one set of kids a lot more than the other.</p>
<p>You have the best shot getting in MIT EA. Frankly, it is quite likely. Go to the MIT board and read the EA stats carefully, taking all factors into account.</p>
<p>Caltech absolutely does not practice affirmative action. I have talked to admissions officers who said that if two applicants are completely equal in every way except gender, they will flip a coin. MIT, on the other hand, does take gender into account - but I’m sure it doesn’t result in a significant difference in quality. Also like Cervantes said, if you want to EA Caltech, Math IIC should be an 800 and nothing less.</p>
<p>Just too true. I said Caltech, not MIT. Someone from Caltech even agrees with me. In fact, one year, all the kids admitted to Caltech had the not so illusory 800 in Math IIC. MIT is a different kind of university in mission and admission purposes than Caltech. If you don’t believe me, look on the admissions threads on CC to see how many kids admitted did not have an 800.</p>