I too fail to see why your parents should be disappointed.
You’re doing a lot of challenging things; it’s normal to have things go well sometimes, and to have disappointing results sometimes. This doesn’t look to me like a reason to join the military. (If you wanted a military career, cool, but if that were the case, wouldn’t you be looking at ROTC? For that matter, West Point has ChemE also, though you’d have to get moving quickly if you wanted to become an Academy candidate.)
Do in-state applicants for UMich with these kind of stats and EC’s really get rejected? I’m finding it hard to imagine that you won’t have the option of UMich as a top-tier university which, at in-state rates, will cost less than half of what any of your other schools cost. If you’re really concerned about what you should and shouldn’t ask of your parents, this seems like the win-win option to me. The Ross business minor is open to all students; why not just go for ChemE with a business minor, and get an MBA later? If you want to work in ChemE after you graduate, you’ll be going for the same jobs whether you have a whole double-major in business or not; you’re not going to jump straight into a management role at 22, because of a second major - you’ll need work experience in your technical field of expertise.
The whole thing about your future looking bleak (because USNCO didn’t go well??) seems like a mental health red flag to me. Perhaps you need more support. This degree of catastrophizing from a ridiculously high-performing high school student speaks to some worrisome distortions in your perspective. Take a breath and find a trusted adult to discuss your feelings with. I understand that some things haven’t gone as well as you wanted this year, but your reaction to this seems out of all proportion to what is really happening.
If you want to get a weight, what seems to be the most common, add .5 for Honors and 1 for AP - but there’s so many weighting systems, it’s really unweighted that matters - so with the 3.99, lots of rigor and a very high test score, you’ve got zero issues from an academic POV.
M&T does not admit by major. Many M&T and Viper (the other Engineering Dual degree) change their majors. ChemE and the very similar Materials Science E are popular at Penn especially in the dual programs, and the Chemistry department is known for being very strong with a lot of cross-research of professors connecting Chemistry to the different Engineering fields and to innovation endeavors. Penn is quite interdisciplinary and the major you select will not likely have any effect on admission to M&T. I do think your course rigor is exactly what the dual programs seem to select, but it is a hard admit for everyone. ED makes it slightly easier than RD. Make sure you understand WHY M&T and can articulate that well.
I know they don’t admit by major, but my assumption is that there is at least some “shaping” done to have some diversity past the usual CS or EE + business. It is news to me that ChemE and the very similar Materials Science E are popular at Penn especially in the dual programs as I’ve found only three M&T alumni on LinkedIn (One Bioengineering One Chem E One Systems) that did not have the normal CS or EE.
What I meant by Penn being weaker in Chem was that I expect the vast majority students who are stronger than me at chem (Top 150/ Top 50 USNCO, maybe research) to not have any interest in business and thus have no reason to even consider UPenn, especially at their level. (UM itself is higher ranked in all types of chemistry and Chem E than UPenn). Thus, giving me (someone with both chemistry and business ECs & classes) a possible advantage and hopefully make up for my relatively lackluster awards
I meant from a ranking perspective. I know that competitive schools will correctly recalculate GPA, but for the internal school ranking system it is nice when class rank takes rigor into account.
I think that is a flawed perspective, for many reasons. It assumes that these national competitions were attempted by all students. They were not. There are many thousands of top students who never had access to these competitions, yet are highly talented in Stem subjects and target top -10 private universities, with resumes that include research and straight As /all 5s and the rest. Significant percentages of rigorous public and private high schools have no access to these competitions, yet have top talent vying for schools like Penn. You are not competing against merely the 150 kids who scored higher than you; you are competing against many thousands who are well above the 99th %ile but did not know about competitions. Engineering applicants are overrepresented in the application pool(for 2023 1/4 of the 59000 applicants applied to Seas, yet seas is only 1/6th of the incoming Penn spots: Penn has far more seas applicants than it needs and does not accept by engineering major). You may get in! But your perspective lacks understanding of the applicant pool you are in.
Interesting. Of course, Olympiads are never a objective measure I may have implied them to be. But I feel in this case, they are one of only a few measures that exist. I completely agree with you that there are thousands with all As and All 5s most likely applying to UPenn, but I theorize that standing out is just as much a, if not more a problem for them as it is me.of course, many are far more talented then me, but without a at least quantifiable metric like Olympiads, I think it would be hard to stand out especially when applying to chemical engineering. Research is something easily talked up and it is hard to discern the intellectual rigor of it.
I think you’re a strong candidate - but I think you’re putting too much weight on the objective-ish ranking of USNCO and assuming admissions officers will do the same. From everything I’ve heard and read over many years, schools like Penn look at applications holistically - they expect rigor and strong grades, but don’t admit only 4.0 students, and don’t admit only students who do Olympiads (or any of the many other competitions that exist). There’s no rigid hierarchy where a science competition, being captain of the soccer team, doing research, excelling at a civics competition, and/or working 15 hours/week have set weights such that one makes you a shoo in.
And as an answer to how you think you’ve disappointed your family:
I would strongly urge you to speak with a school counselor, your primary care physician, or a mental health professional about your thoughts and feelings, as your comments are quite concerning to me.
Like @tsbna44, this does not sound to me like an appropriately selected school for your list. You want to make sure your college application list contains at least one (and preferably at least two) schools where you are extremely likely to be admitted, extremely likely to be affordable, AND that you would be happy to enroll in and attend for four years. If it turns out that a school is your only choice, if you would find yourself dreading putting a deposit down, or trying to find other options at the last minute, or developing your transfer strategy, or figuring out how quickly you can graduate and get away from that school, or plan to enlist instead of attending, then it is not a school you want on your list. You either need to find ways to get excited about the school or replace it with others.
One school that you might want to investigate as a sure thing is the U. of Nebraska. It allows students to do dual degrees across colleges such as business and engineering, including an honors business program (in addition to the regular honors program) (source). Here’s the link to its ChemE major:
Nebraska might not be the first school you think of when you think about finance, but Berkshire Hathaway and a number of other big financial companies are based in the state. It has a cohort group called Investors with Purpose that has a course with mentorship, the Wall Street Scholars program during a sophomore year for internship prep, as well as an investment club. You can read more about its finance program (assuming that’s your area of interest) on its website:
I agree. While this list might be okay for business (I don’t know much about business), it’s not a great one for ChemE.
The first problem, as others have mentioned, is that you’re not excited about your one safety. As a full-pay student, there are SO many possible safeties for you that offer both ChemE and business. If you let us know what you’d like in a college (set aside ranking for a moment), we can give you great suggestions. For biggish and urban, how about Pitt? For smaller, how about U Dayton?
There are lots of great target schools as well, such as UMN and Delaware that were mentioned above, which have notable strength in ChemE.
If you want something smaller, how about Case Western or Lafayette?
Some of the reaches aren’t great for ChemE, also as noted above. In particular, definitely do not ED to Chicago! They don’t offer engineering (except for one brand new program in biomolecular engineering which is pretty niche).
Northwestern is an ideal reach for you, and I’m glad to see it on your list.
I’m confused… do you want to major in ChemE or are you applying to ChemE programs as a strategy to switch into something else?
Yes. Hopefully I have the demonstrated interest to show it. What I meant by “only applying in the hopes that Chemical Engineering is a far less common major” is that given the M&T’s extreme competitiveness I feel that it would only be worth applying too if I could fit an institutional priority.
As already explained, M&T does not admit by major. They do not care. You do not even declare the engineering major until the end of first year and you can change after that too. Many do not end up declaring what they applied as. It will not help you at all to apply with interest in ChemE vs Meam vs CIS. Penn has zero problems filling all the Engineering majors with the rest of the Seas students, and they do not have caps or quotas or any of that. They just fill the total Engineering spots(400ish) and the total M&T(50 I believe). ChemE(more accurately CBE there) is popular, but it varies greatly year to year and its popularity on the app is not a factor because so many declare differently once they get an idea of what each entails. More important may be your backup school to M&T(Wharton or Seas): it will need to be clear on your app why that one is the primary school of interest. Since dual applicants are able to list a single-school backup, there is no downside to trying for the dual.
. I will not have either be a backup school at UPenn for M&T. SEAS is ranked considerably lower and I would not have the professor connections I have already created at UM engineering. I will also not consider Wharton as I will not have the professor connections I have already created at UM Ross. The prestige difference is not worth the cost to me. It is for M&T though. The ED1 will be to M&T alone.
I am thinking about enlisting and becoming an aircraft mechanic or something of the like instead of ROTC because of the relatively shorter time commitment and because it would provide scholarship money for when I do go to college. It is also my understanding that both extremely rejective colleges and various large employers have special programs for veterans, which would many open doors in my career post-enlistment.
Do in-state applicants for UMIC with these kind of stats and EC’s really get rejected? I’m finding it hard to imagine that you won’t have the option of UMich as a top-tier university which, at in-state rates, will cost less than half of what any of your other schools cost.
It isn’t unheard of for CS applicants. Thankfully, I’m not a CS applicant. I am not extremely worried about being rejected from UMich. I think it would be quite hilarious to be rejected (well, hilarious, but not hilarious for me). There is something, however, about the campus and the big school culture that has worn me down in my time here. I am not sure if I would enjoy four more years of it. So even if my best option comes down to UMich (which would be fortunate for me), I may still enlist. But I guess we’ll have to see Your idea with the ross business minor makes a lot of sense but I have heard that being a full BBA student helps a lot more with club placement and networking.
. I will not have either be a backup school at UPenn for M&T. SEAS is ranked considerably lower and I would not have the professor connections I have already created at UM engineering. I will also not consider Wharton as I will not have the professor connections I have already created at UM Ross. The prestige difference is not worth the cost to me. It is for M&T though. The ED1 will be to M&T alone.
Your idea with the ross business minor makes a lot of sense but I have heard that being a full BBA student helps a lot more with club placement and networking.