Just got accepted into SAMS today by email!
My psat score was bad it was a 1180
Weighted GPA 4.16
Unweighted GPA 3.91
Activities: Associated Student Body throughout High school, Water Polo throughout high school, ceramics sophomore and junior year, swim freshmen and sophomore year, volunteered with my church and I volunteered at the local adult citizenship class, National honors society, AP club treasurer, key club my freshmen year and a little bit for my sophomore year
Awards: Varsity Water Polo
Varsity Most Improved Player
Gold Honor Roll
Junior Varsity Water Polo Team Captain
Junior Varsity Water Polo Most Valuable Player
AP classes currently taking: AP Calculus AB (online), AP Spanish 4, AP Physics 1, AP Studio 3-D Art, AP English 11
Past AP classes: AP Statistics, AP Biology
Congrats @mathnerd1. Ethnicity? Income?
@joaco59 Thank you 
! I am Hispanic (Mexican American, both parents came from Mexico) and our income is from like 45k to 50k
@mathnerd101 Wow, you’re stats are great, plus being a minority helped. Do you think your essay or LoR helped a lot too?
Honestly, at the point, I think I’m just going to give up hoping to get into these competitive summer programs. I’m asian, and my income seems high but only because I live in LA which inflates everything a lot more. I literally don’t have any STEM EC’s. The only thing good is my 4.0, kinda-ish high SAT, and I take hard stem AP’s. I submitted everything by mid Feb, so I’m basically rejected. (2nd time in the past 2 weeks bc I got rejected by TASP too which kinda sucked because I literally poured my heart into the essays). However, best of luck to everyone else!
@kly2019 Which program did you apply to?
@kly2019 ouch this hits close to home… in nearly the same situation, except that SAMS was the only academic program I applied to for this summer
@kly2019 it’s not over until the fat lady sings
Does anyone know if they read applications/send acceptances on the weekend? Thx
Congrats to those who got in. Did you guys apply to other programs?
@zanabou I called them a couple days ago and they said they’ll try to send out all the SAMS/Pre-College acceptance/waitlist/rejection emails by the last week of March.
@zanabou Thank you! I also applied to MITES, John Hopkins EI, Yale Young Global Scholars, USC Bovard Scholars, and Cornell CATALYST
@mathnerd101 I also applied to MITES, and am wondering if/when you get into any of these others what decision will you make. If I get in, that the hard part I’m afraid of.
I also applied to MITES. I really wish we all get accepted. This is so stressful. What is everyone’s top choice? Mine is MITES, but I’ll be great full for anything.
Hi Guys, congrats to everyone who was accepted yesterday! More acceptances are definitely coming and will continue to keep pouring in until mid-to-late April, so don’t lose hope!
- Source: SAMS 2017 Alumni, Voted Most Likely to Dye My Hair at CMU :))
Also, for those who also applied to MITES/MOTSEC, remember: you have month from the day you get the letter to accept the offer. To make sure you keep your spot, as I know OEP releases decisions in April, I would accept the offer now, but not pay the $100 deposit. This is optional anyway, and you receive the money back onto your CMU card, which will help if you plan to buy anything from the bookstore. Once you receive the decision, you can shoot them an email to decline their offer, if you do get accepted. There is little to no way that one could do SAMS and MITES/MOSTEC at the same time, and frankly, no program will guarantee you a spot when you apply in the fall. A friend I know who did MOTSEC applied EA to MIT and was rejected, so keep that in mind. She was recently accepted to UMich and UChicago, so there’s that.
PSAT was really good: 1500
SAT was good I guess: 1480
GPA wasnt that good. 3.6 UW 4.34 Weighted
Race: African American
I reported a family income of 250k so I wouldn’t be worried about applying without a low income.
EC:Computer Programming Team Captain. Compete through out the year in various Computer Programming contests, cyber forensics competitions, and hackathons.
Mathletes Officer
Varsity Soccer 2 years, JV Soccer 1 year
Varsity Basketball 1 year, JV Basketball 1 year
AP Scores:
AP BC Calculus:5
AP BC Calculus AB subscore:5
AP Computer Science A:5
AP US Government: 5
AP US History: 3
Courseload:
Hon Spanish 5, Principles of Engineering, AP Computer Science Principles PW, AP Physics 1, AP English Language and Composition, AP World History. Differential Equations online through a local college. Took BC Calc as a sophomore.
Awards:
Won the Congressional App Challenge for my district for an App I made.
I also had a link to my website with information on some other coding projects I’ve worked on.
@CSman12 You’ve given me so much hope lol, I have weirdly similar stats (similar test scores, also won CAC, similar classload, middle-class income) except I’m Hispanic and not African American.
@CSman12 wow, your stats are crazy. mine are nothing close ;-; Congrats!! also, nice to know about that high incomes have a chance.
@Esguito tbh, not that many bc I really don’t want to ask my parents to pay $3000+ for a summer program away from home that won’t do that much on apps. I applied to SAMS, TASP, Young Women’s Institute, and a music festival, already basically rejected from SAMS TASP and music festival.
I think my top choice out of the ones I apllied to was definitely SAMS. my school barely offers any STEM EC’s and classes, so it would’ve been nice to be able to explore stuff like that at SAMS.
@kly2019 Yeah, my parents are not willing to pay anything. Everything I applied to, I made sure it was either free or had something along the lines of sufficient financial aid. Thankfully something worked out but I’m sure something will also work out for you.