I am planning to apply SCEA to Princeton this fall (Ahhh, deadlines are coming up). I am an Asian female from an upper middle class family. I do not have any hooks (recruited athlete, first generation college, legacy, etc). I intend to concentrate in Computer Science, and am looking to possibly pursue certificates in Robotics and Intelligent Systems, Statistic and Machine Learning, and Entrepreneurship.
Princeton became my dream school when I visited several years back and fell in love. I went an official college visit this summer and confirmed my interest in it. Thus, I decided to apply early action. My public school isn’t anything exceptional, but has sent 5 of the last 10 valedictorians to Princeton, with all the others attending other Ivy League universities.
Academics
ACT - 35 (35S, 36M, 34E, 33R, 7 Writing)
SAT II - Math 2, Biology M, Physics all 800s
Unweighted GPA - 4.0
Weighted GPA - 4.5
Rank - 1/350
AP - Computer Science A, Computer Science Principles, Calculus BC, Physics C Mechanics, Physics C Electricity & Magnetism, Chemistry, Psychology, English Language, World History, US History, European History (all 5); Environmental Science (self study, 4)
Senior Courseload - AP Biology, AP Statistics, AP US Government, AP English Literature; Calculus 3 and Linear Algebra at my local university (Caluculus 4 and a Computer Science class planned for second semester)
Activities
FIRST Robitics Competition - 4 years. Leadership positions since sophomore year. Team captain and programming lead since junior year. (Where all my time goes… building robots and doing STEM outreach here)
School VEX Robotics - 4 years. Robotics supervisor for new and non-senior members. Programming lead.
School App Development - 3 years. iOS development lead since junior year
Volunteer at my church - since elementary school. Pianist, organist, choir member
National Honors Society - 2 years (my school only allows juniors and seniors). Current Vice President. We organize a lot of service and school activities
Mu Alpha Theta - 2 years (again only juniors and seniors). Mainly math tutoring after school
National Art Honors Society - 4 years. Art-based service projects and open art studio
“Jobs”
NASA intern - I was a programming intern for NASA the summer before my junior year. I had a great experience and learned a lot, so I’ve asked my mentor to write a recommendation letter for me. I was asked to come back the summer before I leave for college, and am planning to accept that offer.
Independent app developer (in progress) - I do a lot of personal projects. I am planning to publish some iOS apps in the near future (hopefully before applications, but we’ll see how it goes). I really enjoy learning programming on my own, but have never really published any of my individual projects before.
Notes
I’m not planning on submitting an art portfolio as it does not pertain to my main interests, and I’m really nowhere near amazing.
I have at least 400 community service hours from volunteering at church, STEM initiatives through my FRC team, growing a robotics program in a rural area, math tutoring, etc.
I have some minor local awards here and there for various math and science competitions, but nothing on a state or national level. However, my FRC team is an old Hall of Fame team (hence, all the outreach we do).
Thank you in advance to anyone able to give me any advice or comment!
-a paranoid senior