How am I looking for March decisions?

Chance Me / Match Me
1

I guess I’ll start with the decisions I’ve already gotten. MIT, Michigan, and Case Western I got deferred EA. Georgia Tech rejected me. SUNY Buffalo and Stony Brook (instate) accepted me with scholarships. The schools I have yet to hear from are as follows:

Reaches:

-MIT
-Michigan
-Stanford
-USC
-Rice
-Northwestern
-CMU

Matches:

-Northeastern
-Rochester
-Case Western
-McGill (no idea where to categorize this, I’m an American applying for A&S if that helps)

Safeties:

-Syracuse
-SUNY Binghamton

Now for my stats. I’ll start with the objective:

SAT: 1570 (780 M/790 V)
SAT II: 800 Physics and Chem, 790 US, 730 Math II
GPA: 97/100 UW. Pretty sure that’s a 4.0.
Course rigor: high. 7 AP’s, 6 DE’s, the rest honors. Senior grades are good
Demographics: white male, no hooks
Major: CS (where applicable, secondary is math, tertiary is physics)

Now the subjective:

EC’s: they are as follows. In parentheses is the grades I did them in. No leadership or accomplishments unless otherwise noted.

-Math Team (11-12)
-Mock Trial (11-12), Vice President, qualified for regionals (by default but still qualified)
-Spanish National Honor Society (10-12)
-GenYES (9): technology club, got cancelled freshman year

Work Experience:

Summer Camp (summer after 8th to the summer after 11th): worked the first two summers as a volunteer, the second two as a paid counselor.

Essays: hard to judge so let’s just say poor to moderate in quality

Recs: ditto

Thanks in advance for the answers

2

I think you should get into your matches. I think you’ll get into Case if you showed interest, otherwise its questionable. Like you said, your reaches are reaches. I don’t think you’ll get into MIT Stanford or CMU CS (might get into math), at other reaches you have a shot at.

3

TBH I think you should get into at least one of your reaches. Possibly USC or Rice?

Even though your EC’s are fairly plain, your standardized testing and grades are really good. It’s just that your applying to an extremely competitive field at most of these tech-oriented schools like MIT, and your a male.

4

Your chances at the matches are very good while your chance at some of the reaches would be above average applicants to those schools. I am a little bit surprised by the rejection of GT. I wonder if there is some info missing, or your essays are as poor as your thought.

5

@billcsho

I think a lot of factors were at play for GTech. I agree that it’s surprising since MIT is a much more selective school and they deferred me. But that may have been because MIT has about a month between the EA deadline and decisions, while GT has three. Being OOS, male, and applying for CS all definitely hurt me. Also, I submitted the app at the last minute since the deadline was so early, so a lot of my essays may have been rough around the edges.

6

you got deferred from MIT because it has an insanely high deferral rate (>80%) while GT only defers about 22% of applicants. I applied to both myself (got deferred at MIT and accepted at GT)

7

You will probably be accepted to all your matches/safeties so I’ll predict your reaches.

MIT: Reject
Michigan: Accept/waitlist
Stanford: Reject
USC: Accept
Rice: Accept
Northwestern: Reject/waitlist
CMU: Accept

8

I think you have a relatively good chance of getting accepted to every school on the list besides MIT, Stanford, and Northwestern

9

At this point, OP and others should not be surprised by a GT rejection. It is the same tier as Stanford and MIT as far as CS and Engineering goes.