STEM/Engineering Club Leader/Founder, Participated in Illinois Science Olympiad and FIRST Competitions
Math Team, Lead and Contributed to High Achievement in ICTM Competition
Varsity Football, Starter and Played at a Recruitable Level
DECA, Competed in State Level Competition and Contributed To Significant Fundraising
National Honor Society/Key Club, Racked Up 150+ Hours of Volunteer Time
Personal Engineering Projects, Documented on a 10k+ Sub YouTube Channel
Research on Guidance Algorithms, Accreditation/Publishing In Progress
Essays/LORs/Other
Extenuating Circumstances: A combination of concussions from football and an undiagnosed chronic condition led to a severe drop in GPA fresh/soph year, including 3 Cs between Honors Geometry, Honors Chem, and Honors English 1 (Big Ouch!!!).
Upward Trend: Perfect 4.0 for 3 straight semesters in AP exclusive schedules.
LOR (Guidance Counselor) 9/10, have kept in close contact with her and she has admired my growth and overcoming of circumstances, and praises me as capable despite the past. I was the only junior in our entire class in AP Calculus BC, via extra course work qualification. She is willing to explain my health issues.
LOR (Math/STEM Team Coach/Sponsor) 9/10, originally met when I joined math team. He will recall that I got a 0 in my first competition, and then went on to place Top 5 next competition among a pool of dozens if not hundreds of students. He praises me for my openness to new subjects and learning. I came to him to sponsor my founding of our schools STEM/Engineering club, and praises my leadership there as well.
LOR (Football Coach) 8/10, simple honest guy to be fair and will likely only say good things. He likes that I’m doing so much academic stuff and keep strong involvement on the field. Says I hold myself accountable and stay humble, and put great effort when I can. Will probably fry me for being injury prone lol.
8-9ish Essays, I think im a good writer and teachers tell me im a good writer? Suggest narratives here please.
GPA by Year: 3.38 —> 3.5 —> 4.0
Schools
Feel free to correct my chances and suggest others!
Extremely Likely: NC State, Penn State, CU Boulder
Likely: UIUC (Instate), Virginia Tech, Texas A&M
Toss-up: UT Austin, U of Maryland, Purdue
Lower Probability: Northwestern, Michigan
Low Probability: Cornell, Georgia Tech, MIT (For the Fam)
YOu say you are a recruitable athlete, but are you looking to continue to play in high school? I also don’t see a true safety on your list (considering you are applying for engineering).
I’m perfectly fine with rolling the dice. If all else fails I will continue w/ CC and transfer. What do you mean by continue to play in HS? I will have done football all 4 years.
If you’re a junior, you are not a National Merit Semifinalist. Presumptive one maybe, but do not put this on any applications until it actually happens.
UIUC is not a likely for you for Engineering. UT Austin, Purdue, and UMD are lower reaches. Your “lower probability” are high reaches.
Are you being recruited anywhere? This can be a major admissions hook if you are.
I’m not sure you have a safety school on this list. For example, Penn State’s acceptance rate for engineering is around 24%. And your OOS there so it’s lower.
My advice: find at least two schools that you like that have a 70%or higher admission rate for engineering. Good luck to you!
And your rank shows that - you’re easily top 10%.
Why doesn’t budge matter now? Will it at some point? Budget is priority item #1, #2, and #3. You don’t build a list without a budget.
Are you a Junior or Senior.
I disagree with your guesses:
NC State is a target at best. CU Boulder is a likely but not for engineering. You’d get exploratory - which frankly, has the same requirements as being in engineering so people take offense, but it’s less tuition so not a bad deal. I’ll agree with Penn State.
Likely - only A&M but not to engineering.
Toss Ups are all reaches - all 3.
No shot at your lower probability and low probability.
As you know, you could go for free - to fine schools - so you should find your budget and then decide, is a school that you deem a better name worth $250K+ more than the freebies/low cost - and outcome wise that answer is an absolute no, short of maybe the low probability schools and I’m not sure even the first two would be a yes.
Yes I just responded after I saw your note. I thought it was the template - I was wrong.
So how do you know you’re a NMF semifinalist.
Only Penn State seems likely to me - and frankly, you can go to a peer school for $250K less - someone else said it wasn’t likely for you though. CU is a definite - but you won’t get engineering - but it’s easy enough to transfer in.
so you better talk to your parents - because if you can go to Bama and get the exact same job (as Purdue and Michigan btw), are they willing to spend $250K more?
There’s others - Tulsa (full ride), Houston (full tuition) and more.
UIUC ME or CSE is a reach for everyone. UT Austin is a reach for those not in the top 5% of a Texas high school, and engineering majors are additionally competitive. Texas A&M has highly competitive secondary admission for some engineering majors, including ME, CE, CS. NCSU, PSU, VT, and Purdue also have secondary admission, although not as difficult as the most competitive majors at Texas A&M.
Cost Constraints / Budget Not Important At the Moment
That’s always #1, #2, and #3 unless you are full pay, and they are willing to do so - even though it will be $250K plus vs. other options taht will be like in outcomes to anywhere you can get in.