Hey, I’m a Canadian high school student in Ontario, and I’m wondering what my chances are for these universities.
Stats:
SAT: 1450
SAT Subject Tests:
Math 2 - 790
Physics - 800
My high school does not offer any AP courses, and all my grades ranged from 92-98, with the exception of biology which is sitting at an 86.
ECs:
- Esport club: I am president of the club, built it from the ground up. We host bi-monthly tournaments, gaining 100+ participants per tournament. We also create and send teams to participate in national tournaments to compete for enormous prizepools.
- Orchestra: I am a member of one of my school’s select orchestra, and we were invited to compete at nationals in upcoming festival.
- School Swim Team: I am the captain/coach of my school’s swim team, I create sets (practice schedules) for my team on a weekly basis. As a result, we have qualified for our provincial championships.
- Local Police: I volunteer with my local police community, I provide secuirity detail during major events, and one every month, my group and I get sneak peaks at some of their equipment.
- Astronomy Club: I volunteer at my local astronomy club. I introduce newcomers to our programs, and during events I set up telescopes for visitors to set their eyes on the starry sky.
- Scout Canada: I am an assistant leader for my scouts group, and my scouts group has taken home gold in every regional challenge camp for the past 4 years.
- Swimming Instructor: I am a swimming instructor at my local community centre
- Swimming Team: I am a competitive swimmer at my local swim team, and I’ve qualified for international competitions.
Summers:
- DEEP (Da Vinci Engineering Enrichment Program), this is offered at a university near me: University of Toronto. This is where I get the opportunity to be exposed to the majority of the engineering fields.
- Hackathon (Hack the North)
Awards/Accomplishment:
- Duke of Edinburgh Silver Award
- 2015 Pan American Games Torchbearer
- Top 50 in Canada for swimming, in my respective events
Letters of Rec:
- Physics teacher, achieved a 97 in his class, we were tight and had vigorous conversations about physics topics
- Calculus teacher, achieved a 95 in his class, he knew me as an active and curious participant in his class
- Music teacher/school swim coach, she is one of the teachers that I am closest to due to multiple occasions together in different environments, it’s very rare for a teacher to see you in an academic environment, as well as an athletic one.
As I said beforehand, I am from Canada, and if any of you need favours, I could attempt to chance back, or if any of you are interested in Canadian universities, I could provide more insight on them. Thanks!
Your SAT is below the admission average for UMich. You may want to bring it up a bit higher.
Good ECs but low SAT. Try to retake SAT if possible? Building a club ground up is definitely a plus.
What major do you have in mind? If it’s any sort of engineering, all 4 schools are very high reaches with your current SAT score.
If you are considering EECS the SAT is too low. CMU CS acceptance rates are on a par with Ivy League acceptance rates.
Also as an OOS/international applicant to Berkeley, you will be at a disadvantage GPA wise since your school does not have AP courses and only AP/IB courses have the GPA weighting for OOS/internationals.
What are your Canadian safety schools? I assume you should be good for the University of Toronto and possibly McGill.
Since you mention swimming, are you recruitable? Berkeley would not be an option since their team has all international level/Olympic champions on their team. Same with Michigan-too many international level swimmers.
You might want to contact CMU’s coaches. They are Division 3 and probably the best option if you want to try that route. Check with Cornell about their swim team as well even though are Division 1.
@Hamurtle Aha thanks for the insight, at Berkeley I plan to major in mechanical engineer, UMich for aerospace, Cornell for aerospace, and Carneige for CS. And you guessed correctly, U of T is my safety school, as well as Waterloo. What SAT score should I aim for to possibly secure a match?
You will need to score 1500+ for those schools and they would still not be a match. All a good SAT would do is to get your application considered. IIRC CMU Computer Science has about a 6% acceptance rate. Cornell had its lowest acceptance rate this year (about 12%) and Berkeley/Michigan engineering reject students with better scores/grades than yours.
If you want to study engineering in the US, add the following schools:
UIUC
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
University of Wisconsin
Purdue (well known for aerospace engineering)
As long as you have a Canadian safety, that is good. The quality of the education is just as good and at a cheaper price than in the US for an international student.
As I mentioned in my previous post, if you are recruitable as a swimmer (a possibility since you mention swimming in the Ontario provincial championships), talk to a coach to see if he is willing to advocate for you. Obviously that will not work for Berkeley/Michigan just because of the world class swimmers going there, but you might have a decent chance for CMU/Cornell if your times can impress a coach.
@Hamurtle Thank you very much. Besides getting impressive times for swimming, what could I have done better to increase my chances of getting into these universities?