Chance me for Stanford (REA) and Duke (ED), CA resident, 3.98 UW, 1560 SAT, Mechanical Eng major [4.0/4.21/4.53 GPA for UC]

[ucbalumnus]

@NiceUnparticularMan

Consistent with what other posters are suggesting, California has such a great collection of public engineering programs in-state, it may well be you should just choose your favorite among whichever of those programs admit you. Not a very “exciting” strategy, but in a good way–it will efficiently get you where you want to go.

I think to the extent you varied from such a plan, it would be to either get a significantly different sort of option, or just to have some additional Likelies and Targets given how competitive California publics can be for engineering.

Students at private schools may get more varied suggestions from their dedicated college counselors than counselors in public schools who mostly know about UCs and CSUs (or whichever are the in-state publics in the state the school is in).

[Seanincal]

I agree Michigan is a reach for an out-of-state engineering student. You can’t always assume that just because you get into a Penn/Duke/Berkeley, you’ll get into an out-of-state competitive program - admissions doesn’t work that way. This past cycle, I knew CA kids admitted to engineering at Ivies (including Harvard, Yale and Cornell) who were denied or WL from Michigan. We knew a third CA engineering student who was denied at all selective privates he applied to and Berkeley, but got into Michigan. Clearly there was something about kid no. 3 that Michigan found appealing in his essays.

I also would put Washington engineering in the reach category but not as reachy as Michigan.

Essays/PIQs will be very important. You are standard strong - meaning you have competitive numbers and good ECs - but so do about 70% of the other applicants to the really selective schools. You have a lot of engineering ECs but need to really tie it together in who you are and why you’d be a great fit at XYZ school.

[westeast]

great observation about UMich - I have seen quite a few similar data points. Infact, most top academic credentials seem to get deferred from UMich EA when they were accepted to other competitive programs. I thought it was their strategy on yield or maybe they are looking for some other specific attributes

[thumper1]

@westeast

Yes, it’s a school like Harker (similar results but I think only few schools have the same intensity and pressure as H)

The college counselor at your private high school will have a good sense on how you look compared to other students who have been accepted to most of these colleges from the HS in the past. Please discuss this list with them.

I think your list is top heavy also. Yes, you have a chance of acceptance somewhere, but I don’t see a sure thing on the list.

Please read this thread I’m linking. This was a tippy top student, NMF, class val, excellent ECs and LOR. No one ever dreamed he wouldn’t get accepted to any colleges as a HS senior, but that is what happened. He did a well crafted gap year and landed on his feet very well…but the second half of his senior year was terrible, between rejections, working waitlists, and finally getting rejected everywhere. This thread is old…and admissions have gotten more competitive. Please make sure you have a sure thing.

No Acceptances: One Kid's Story - A year later...

Part I of III Sorry this is long but some posters have pm’d me about our story and I thought it would be of help to re-tell it. One year ago I posted a question here on CC – “We’re Picking up the Pieces …but what went wrong?” My son had applied to eight schools, been rejected at five and waitlisted at three. I expected to get a few responses and see the thread disappear deep into the archives of CC. Little did I imagine that one year later, not only would I still be posting about the progress, but an entire cyber family on College Confidential would still be going through it with me. For the benefit of those of you starting out on college applications, or – hopefully not-- for those of you who may find yourselves in our position, this is the story of one kid’s worst case scenario and how he made the best of it. I’m re-telling it here by way of my own original posts and those of other CC posters whose advice was so vital to the journey. Thanks to all of you! My original post o…

[ucbalumnus]

Pay attention to secondary admission to major at some schools or their engineering divisions. For example, Washington, Purdue, and Minnesota have secondary admission based on college courses and grades. Wisconsin has progression requirements that may require a college GPA substantially higher than 2.0 for some majors.

Would you be willing to attend UCR, UCM, or a CSU?

[Gumbymom]

Congratulations on a competitive profile. UCLA’s ME admit rate was 4.2% and UC Berkeley was 4.9% so both Reach schools. You have a lot going for you as an applicant and should probably consider expanding your UC list since there are several UC’s which be good Target and Safety schools along with a couple of Cal states.

Best of luck.

[Momofthree24]

@ucbalumnus

Pay attention to secondary admission to major at some schools or their engineering divisions. For example, Washington, Purdue, and Minnesota have secondary admission based on college courses and grades. Wisconsin has progression requirements that may require a college GPA substantially higher than 2.0 for some majors.

If you’re looking to add any schools, UIUC is a very good ME school with direct admission to the major.

[westeast]

Yes, it’s on the list. Total colleges to apply will be around 15, so the above list was just a subset but lot good names coming from this forum to add

[westeast]

Yes, understood. The commonly used terms of likely/safety, target, reach and far reach were not used in the template here, so I wasnt sure how to place against these

[westeast]

ELC will get UCR or UCM. Btw, I miscalculated the weighted, capped etc GPAs. Correct numbers are 4.0 unweighted, 4.53 weighted, 4.21 capped

[ucbalumnus]

@westeast

ELC will get UCR or UCM.

Have you verified that your weighted-capped GPA exceeds the ELC threshold GPA for your high school (which your school counselors should know)? Note that “top 9%” is not based on your high school’s class rank, but on a threshold weighted-capped GPA calculated by UC based on a reranking of a recent previous class based on weighted-capped GPA.

ELC usually just gets UCM.

[Gumbymom]

Sorry, I forgot the template has changed. UCLA/UCB and UCSD would be lower to low probability based on the new template.