Chance for Mudd, Berkeley, Caltech

Chance Me / Match Me
1

White male (first generation European immigrant) at private PA boarding school, switched schools between sophomore and junior year for increased opportunities and challenge.

SAT: 1570, first try, single sitting. Also got a 1510 PSAT so certain NMS.

SAT2: 800 Math II, haven’t taken physics yet but based on practice tests 750-800.

GPA: 3.92 on 4.0 scale

Rank: School only tells you if you’re in top 20%, which I am. Very competitive school.

ECs: Three year varsity soccer, one year varsity tennis, one year varsity indoor and outdoor track so far. I only did track/tennis one season each. Quitting soccer for varsity cross country next year with indoor and outdoor track again. DECA (one point away from nationals), Robotics (we placed in several categories at our competition), boarding prefect (basically an RA), honor council representative. A bunch of other small stuff including playing piano/clarinet, math club, STEM club, debate (was on A team at my old school, new school doesn’t offer), snowboarding, and FBLA which is a DECA equivalent. My biggest passion is definitely origami, I can fold anything. Top 1% of playerbase in LoL as well (kidding of course).

Work Experience: Very unorthodox, I decided to be a youth soccer referee. Not a huge time commitment (only on weekends) but it’s definitely a strange experience.

Class history: I self-taught pre-calculus the second semester of my freshman year, and then I took a class designed for AB calc the next year. I self taught BC in the second semester of that class, and got a 5 on the BC exam.

Junior year course load:

AP Physics Mech (Certain 5) AP English Language (Certain 5) AP US History (4 or 5) AP French (4 or 5) Post-AP Multivariable Calculus Speech Class Piano

Senior year course load:

Post-AP Graph Theory AP Physics E&M AP Chemistry AP Psychology AP English Literature Honors Philosophy Seminar Orchestra or Class Piano

Intended major: Some variant of psychology/neuroscience.

Summer activies: Rather lax. Freshman summer was a coding camp at MIT (where I learned it isn’t for me) and a general studies camp in Quebec City. Sophomore summer I didn’t do a whole lot of anything besides a couple of advanced online math classes. This summer I’m doing college visits, a lot of reading, and a lot of running.

2

Your stats are really good. The only thing I see that is bringing your application down is maybe your ECs, which average at best mostly due to lack of leadership and no focus in a certain area. Also, you don’t have anything that really relates to why you want to go into neuroscience. I would say you have decent shot at the schools you listed, but all these schools are extremely competitive and they are all reaches for you as they are for everyone else. GL!

3

CalTech Neuroscience should be under the Biology department but I don’t see any classes/interests that indicate a biology major.

Berkeley might be a target but is it affordable since you’re OOS?

If you had any national/international level ECs, MIT might be more of a reach given test scores and grades.

Cornell might be a school to consider given your grades/stats/ECs.

4

What is your PSAT Selection index?

5

226

6

Whoops yeah didn’t know what I was thinking writing psych/neuro, I’m more interested in physics or chem with probably some side classes in those topics.

7

You are an OOS . Cal is numbers driven. Your GPA might be too low for OOS Cal student

8

Your work as a youth soccer referee can serve you very well in your college apps. Start thinking about how the activity lets you demonstrate leadership, maturity, conflict management, and a whole host of skills that top colleges love. If you were asked to train other referees or if you were invited to officiate at tournaments where the referees were usually adults, be sure to highlight those. Also, while the activity was paid, it is also a community service. If you intend to keep up the activity as a volunteer while in college, be sure to mention that (Berkeley, Claremont, and Pasadena are all in areas with tons of youth soccer activity).

9

Actually the stats needed for Cal are lower for OOS than in-state, but not by a big margin. The bigger issue IMHO is that OOS costs at Cal aren’t a great value compared to private peer institutions with much less competition for resources.

You might like the Neuroscience major at USC; the electives can be tilted more toward physics and chem than toward biology: http://catalogue.usc.edu/preview_program.php?catoid=2&poid=1260 It’s a great place to cross disciplinary boundaries with double majors, minors, etc. that wouldn’t be nearly so flexible in the UC system. NMF merit is excellent at USC so it would likely be less expensive than a UC for you as well.

You’ve got a shot at Mudd and Caltech too but those will be full pay unless you qualify for financial aid.

10

You are a competitive applicant. Your stats and ECs are great. Write good essays and you could get accepted to any of these universities