Demographic
*domestic/northeast/asian
*~350k, mid-large suburban competitive public school (around ~1800 student body), sends around 10-20 students to T20 every year
*no hooks!
Intended Major(s)
mechE or biomedE
Stats
GPA 3.85UW/4.4W (4.0 scale) (I know this isn’t great, but for context the valedictorian last yr had a 4.46)
Class Rank: no official class rank, but counselor privately told me im in top 10 among around 400+ in class
ACT/SAT Scores: 1580 (780RW/800M) one sitting
AP Scores: 5s on apush, physics 1, lang, and chinese (self study but fluent)
List your HS coursework
*took hardest coursework available. school has no honors for freshman and no aps until junior yr (unless double accelerated in math). all honors sophomore, three aps junior (school did not offer ap precalc & could not take additionally ap due to language req and band), five aps senior yr (calc ab, physics c e&m, micro/macro, lit, csa)
Awards (very bad)
NMSF (perfect score so guaranteed)
state seal of biliteracy for two languages
honor roll every semester
ap scholar w honor
student athlete award
Extracurriculars
4 yrs of strong Marching Band program. 2 yrs leader
2 yrs founded local org (unregistered nonprof)
3 yrs of dance group. 2 yrs leader.
4 yrs of softball (not recruited)
2 yrs as a tutor @ an international nonprofit. 2 yrs leader
2 yrs of engineering club. leading long term env project
upcoming internship @ stem startup (will be ongoing for early schools. should i include?)
4 yrs playing chess at school club & online in own time. 1900 rated online. 2 yrs leader of club
4 yrs of multiple music ensembles (brass, jazz, and pit)
1 yr of EMT volunteer (soph yr).
2 yrs of working during summer at local family owned business|
also idk where to include but self taught html/css/js, react, & python
(this is more than 10 so please help me cut)
also did not go into much detail for privacy, but these are basically ordered based on time commitment. i actually spent a lot of time on ecs but i recognize how unfocused and not too impressive they are in their title alone.
Essays/LORs/Other
my essay topic is not super unique but im a pretty decent writer (7/10)
LOR1 ap physics 1 - brag sheet (7/10)
LOR2 apush - super close (9/10)
LOR3 counselor - brag sheet (7/10)
Schools (List of colleges by your initial chance estimate; designate if applying ED/EA/RD; if unsure, leave them unclassified)
Reach:
cornell ED (school is semi familiar. sent around ten kids in last two yrs)
nw RD
gt EA2
rice RD
jhu RD
cmu RD
ucb
uci
Target:
purdue EA
uiuc EA
tulane EA
cwru RD
uwm RD
neu EA
umich EA
(last two in target bc my school is very familiar w them, and very likely to get in w my stats)
Does that mean your parents have not told you their budget, or that they have said that the sky’s the limit? You have some UCs on your list. Out of state, you’d be looking at around $75K/year. Would that be acceptable to your parents?
Well you can go to schools like Alabama, UTD, Tulsa, Houston, Louisiana Tech and more for free or near free. In the case of Bama you get 5 years tuition (Masters) and four housing.
Likely the same job.
So do you want to spend $360k plus or $30k or less ?
Sounds like Cornell likes your school. Can you afford it ? Does your family want to afford it given the delta vs others.
I think your targets are ok but maybe a bit reachy but if you say Michigan is a target, you’ve done your homework.
Tulane doesn’t make sense. Doesn’t have MechE if you go that route. Just Engineering physics.
There’s 166 accredited biomedical schools but not all are MechE accredited - hello Tulane.
You might pick from overlap schools but what you have to decide is budget or desire to spend vs what your NMF gets you.
UTD may be that school. It’s accredited in both majors and loves NMFs.
sorry, i might be being super paranoid but i don’t feel really comfortable sharing. it’s a well known school, but not difficult for in state applicants to get into. chose uci because i visited it and liked the feel of it, also would be more realistic than ucla
i’m lucky enough to have parents who would pay full tuition for wherever i commit. also for the uc’s and usc i included them but am 50/50 on applying there bc tuition, col, and taxes are very high there
You have no budget concerns but may not apply to the UCs or USC because of tuition?
What does cost of living and taxes have to do with going to school - especially if you have no budget.
If you mean when you graduate - you can go anywhere to work or school from any school.
My soon went to Alabama. He’s in a leadership program and does 6 month rotations. He’s been in Utah, Arizona and now California.
His 5 offers are in Mass, Iowa, one had rotations - Georgia, Ark, and Illinois etc
He works with kids from Michigan, Purdue (who he turned down), Washington but Akron, W Michigan and many more. What do they all have in common ? ABET. He could end up in SC, WA, NY, OH, FL, TN, TX and more.
Go to school where you want. Don’t assume it’s where you’ll end up. It will if you want to and it won’t if you don’t want to, especially with kids finding jobs on line today.
i’ve heard a lot of great things about tulsa. a friend from another school was a finalist and ended up committing there.
i know umich is super competitive but i based it off of how students at my school did. our school uses a website where u can view the stats of all the students who were accepted, and based on that i thought i had a pretty decent chance of getting in (like 70% w my stats). obv w holistic admissions this is hard to say. again, i would love to go to umich, and would be incredibly ecstatic about going there. i just think that it’s much more likely that i’d get in there than the other reaches.
also about my gpa, i thought a lot of state schools only offer aid for 4.0uw?
What unifies your list? You have small schools like Rice and CWRU and giant schools like Cal and Illinois. You have a wide distribution of locations too. Your experience will be quite different among schools you’ve named.
I suggest that you decide what you want your 4 years to be like and make a list from there. Do you want big classes or small classes? What are the undergraduate facilities like? What weather do you like? Do you have hobbies like skiing or surfing that are location dependent? Add whatever else is important to you.
My son has a BS/MS in ME. He’s been fortunate to have been on two elite teams. I can tell you the people around him at both jobs were educated all over the world.
I won’t say that it doesn’t matter where you go, but for ME, it matters a lot less than you’d think. By that, I mean there are a LOT of VERY solid programs. Iowa State and Missouri S&T have very good engineering programs.
Because of this, you can, and should focus on other factors that are important to you.
A lot of state school don’t offer ANY aid to OOS students. The UCs are a great example. Some, like Alabama offer guaranteed high aid based on your stats.
As for ABET, it’s the accreditation body for programs.
honestly, there’s nothing really that’s unifying it. most of these schools were recommended by counselors as great engineering programs. i think i would just like to go to a school that’s well known and has a culture of hard work.
You will work hard at the lowest ranked ME program in the nation. There’s no way to make it easy. Your average class will be on par with the class chemistry majors dread…Physical Chemistry.
How important is class size? Big time sports? Weather? Living arrangements? The surrounds?
Who recommended Tulane as having a good engineering program? After Hurricane Katrina all that many years ago, the school cut out most of their engineering majors, IIRC.
sports i dont care about, but could be nice addition. weather isn’t an issue either. size i don’t mind unless it’s ginormous like a&m, but i think like around 4k-30k is ideal for me. location i also don’t mind either, but preferably in a state with large cities (like ny or tx).
I’m hoping others might chime in. Tulane has cut back significantly on merit awards, and does more need based awards. And really. Check their engineering courses of study:
Illinois, Purdue and Michigan are almost the same size as A&M, all over 50,000. Cal is close, just under 50,000.
As for weather, do you live where it gets as cold as Ithaca? As hot and humid as Houston? It’s hard to understand bad weather if you haven’t experienced it.
she said i can get a lot of aid there