Demographics
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US Citizen
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State/Location of residency: North Carolina
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Type of high school: Charter (40 minutes away from me)
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Other special factors: URM, Low income, Have a single parent with Lupus (if that counts)
Cost Constraints / Budget
(Still figuring this out. My parent wants to do what they can but its a little tight so were still unsure)
Intended Major(s)
Nuclear Engineering, Energy Science/Engineering, or Mechanical Engineering.
GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
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Unweighted HS GPA: 3.89uw (currently, but should be 3.91 by senior year)
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Weighted HS GPA: (unsure for right now)
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College GPA: 4.0 Duel enrollment GPA
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Class Rank: (unsure for right now but i have a small class of 93)
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ACT/SAT Scores: 35 ACT (taken this year) 1540 SAT (took sophomore year I plan on retaking soon I scored a 1580 on my practice tests so we’ll see)
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Im a current junior btw yall
List your HS coursework (
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(I dont remember everything but ill list what I can)
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English: English 1-3 honors (taking an AP lang next year)
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Math: Math 1-3 Honors, AP Precalc(5), AP Calc AB(5), AP Stats (4), (taking Calc BC senior year.)
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Science: Earth and Environmental Science Honors, Biology Honors, Chemistry Honors, Psychology Honors, AP Bio(5), AP physics (ongoing yearlong), DE in Comp Sci, DE in Electical E, DE in Mech E, AP Environmental Science (5), AP pychology(5)
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History and social studies: World history, Honors American history, AP US Gov (5), (2 more I took freshman year I forget but they were economic related.)
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Language other than English: Spanish 1
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Visual or performing arts: Visual Arts 2, Honors Visual Arts 3, Honors visual Arts 4 (currently taking)
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Others (just filler electives we need for graduation requirements. Nothing honors or ap related)
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I’ve taken 8 APs so far and will have taken 8-9 by the end of high school (my school says we offer 11 but in reality we offer about 6 altering every 2 years due to funding so most of them I did online with my counselor approval through NCVPS they still show on my transcript.)
Awards
(most of them are related to out of school STEM events because again my school doesn’t offer much) (I think they’re my weaker part of my application I just didn’t have much time to compete in anything I worked a lot.)
AIME 1x
Regional fair 1x
USAMTS Silver 1x
Basic School Awards
(I am a junior rn, but ive been competing in some new competitions so hopefully more awards should be coming before college app season.
Extracurriculars
1.Work Experience: I work for a construction company 2-4 days a week afterschool. I also worked at GameStop over the summer and McDonalds to earn money for my family.
2.Teaching English: Some of my friends in construction including my parent, don’t speak English that well so just as like an unofficial thing Ill usually teach them English. Ive been doing it since I was in 8th grade I just sit down with a dictionary with them and we go over words together.
3.Community Framing: In my construction company job I learned how to handle different tools as well as building structures so i often build things for free for neighbors. I built a shed, treehouses, fences, bird houses, gardens etc. Speaking of gardens I manage a spicy pepper garden in my backyard.
4.FRC: I’m the lead programmer for my FRC team and our sub team meant for training new members. Over the summer time I managed 15-25 kids each weekend in summer camps we hosted where I taught basic code and Java to the more advanced kids. I learned how to code here and would later use it in energy system projects.
5.Internships: Interned with North Carolina School of Science and Math Students in developing an App leaned towards those with autism called Glow. Interned with my local solar plant in developing panels and learning about them. Interned with a nuclear plant in research and analysis. Interned with wind turbine manufacturing companies. Interned with 5 other entities in energy related fields.
6.Founder of Science Olympiad at my school. I pretty much just used it as a way to get time for my energy science projects and research while in school. I managed 10-15 members and also receive grants for the club.
7.Research on optimization of energy systems: Sorta unofficial but ive used this research in a few science fairs and science competitions. I used CAD models, simulators, code, and 3d printed models to show how we can optimize things like turbines, Biofuels, or nuclear reactors. Its hard to explain without showing you but basically i made a project for each subject of energy, wrote about it, researched it, did my own simulations, explained theoretical stuff etc.
8.Local community college research: I’m not even really sure if its research but I sent out a cold email and got into a lab studying energy so I guess it works. The professor even aided in my personal research.
9.Entrepreneurship: I like money so i did a lot of things that got me money. I do reselling of Jordans, Sp5der hoodies, Bape, etc. and made 8k so far. Im also running a small clothing brand with some friends we only made about 1.4k but its moving up slowly. I also invest and have a portfolio that coming up a little bit.
10 Community Orgs: I was on my towns youth council, I was a mentor in a group that aids single parents (I later went on to found my own group.) I started some general communtiy orgs that did food drives and I did an environmental org. All the money my orgs generated either went back to local businesses in my community or to Lupus research since that’s something that affects my family
11 Taekwondo: i’m probably not going to include this but I was a high red belt at a small dojo in my city. I did that for about five years and high red was one belt before black in my dojo.
12 App and Web development: Made some small games, apps and websites with a few teams over the years. Ill breifly mention them in my other ecs though tbh.
Essays/LORs/Other
LORs: I’m planning on asking the CC teacher I did research with along with some of the people I interned with. I’m also planning on asking my English teacher.
Essays: Im not applying til next year but Ive began typing essays for some of the schools I want to go to along with looking at what I might have to type for applying for Quest bridge. I think my essays are really good I tell the story of my struggles and my life in a way that its clear why I want to do what I want to do and what inspires me. I try to avoid a pity story.
Additional info: I plan on talking about my schools lack of resources briefly but I really want to refocus on my grades as on my transcript i did retake some foundational classes over the summertime. Beginning a demanding job like construction in 8th grade made the transition into HS difficult and I received lower grades initially until I found a way of scheduling. I retook courses and earned As that factor into my gpa however the og grade still shows up. (I think.)
Schools
If I make into Questbridge these are my rankings. They really arent by strength of major its just by which school I want to go to the most.
MIT (Nuclear engineering)
Harvard (Mechanical engineering)
Stanford (Energy science and engineering)
Caltech (MechE)
Princeton (MechE)
Columbia (I need to do more research)
Yale (I need to do more research but I think I heard about something energy related here)
Brown (Mech E or Environmental Engineering)
Cornell (need to do more research)
Upenn (need to do more research)
Duke (I did some work in their energy department so Ill definitely go for energy if I get in here.)
(if i dont get into Questbridge, Ill still apply to those schools)
For outside of Questbridge:
WCU: (Mechanical Engineering)
UNC Chapel hill(I know this sounds weird but Economics)
NC State (nuclear engineering)
ECU (mechanical engineering)
APP State (Science in renewable energy technology)
NC A&T (MechE)
RPI
Florida State
Florida institute of technology