Hey guys, its late March again and I’m a senior, so I’ve been getting responses to my college applications now, and I have been pretty disappointed to say the least. I know a good majority of people who apply to college are disappointed when the acceptance rates are as low as they are, and that I really am at the mercy of admissions counselors. Anyway, I was just looking for some advice as I really don’t know who else to go to.
I applied to 13 schools, and have been accepted to 4 and rejected to 5 so far. I don’t high expectations for the rest because they’re Ivies. I was rejected to UC Davis, UCLA, UC Berkeley, Harvey Mudd, and Cal Poly SLO. I applied Mechanical Engineering
Here are my objective stats:[ul]
[] SAT I (breakdown): 2110 (750 CR, 690M, 670W)
[] ACT: 34 (35E, 34M, 33R, 34S)
[] SAT II: 790 Physics, 760 Math II, 720 US History
[] Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.96
[] Weighted GPA (out of 4.0): 4.69
[] UC GPA: 4.25
[] Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 2/329
[] ELC?: Yes
[] AP (place score in parenthesis): 5 Eur. His., 5 US His., 5 Eng. Lang., 5 Physics
[] Senior Year Course Load: AP US Gov, AP Eng. Lit., AP Calc BC, AP Psychology, AP Art History
[/ul]
Also I’m white, but my family immigrated from Eastern Europe when I was very young. We’re ,middle class, and my high school is a small school in the suburbs that isn’t very competitive.
As for ECs, I was in Boy Scouts for 10 years and I am an Eagle Scout, and I had a lot of leadership positions and service hours through it. I also played water polo and swim for all 4 years, and I was captain of both my senior year. I went to CIF with both sports, and placed pretty high in swim for someone who didn’t do club for a long time. I started swimming for a club year-round after sophomore year. I also am very involved with my church. I have been a part of my church’s youth group all through high school and I was VP my senior year. I have also served in our services as an acolyte for 6 years.
I felt I was a pretty well-rounded candidate, but I definitely didn’t have a great SAT score. As I am in state for the UCs, I was hoping I’d have a little bit better of a chance. Now that I am on this other side of the application process, I’m pretty disappointed. I understand that these schools are all “holistic” and I have seen people here on CC that have gotten in for engineering with lower stats, but I’m not even one of those people who only did well on tests (I didn’t even do that great). I was wondering if you guys thought it would be a good idea for me to appeal either UCLA or Berkeley. I know these schools are really tough to get into, but I really am disappointed I didn’t get into either.
I did apply for Mechanical Engineering to both, so it was heavily impacted. My ECs did not reflect my interest in engineering really because until the end of my sophomore year I wanted to be an architect so I took the architecture class my school has, but I realized it wasn’t for me. Only in the last year and a half have I been interested in engineering, and my school doesn’t really have that many options for students like bigger schools do; only like 17% of the kids take AP classes.
One of the few things I can think of other than my ECs that would hold me back from engineering is my SAT and SAT II Math scores. As for the SAT, I took it back in March of my junior year and never improved it from there. I found the ACT was a better test for me, and as you can tell from my scores, it showed. However, I did send both scores to the schools I applied to. I just didn’t do well in the SAT Math format. I do, however, perform very well in my Calc BC class and I did well in Physics last year, arguably skills that actually mean something for becoming an engineer, not SAT Math.
Basically I’m a little shocked I have so few options, but perhaps that was my own fault for applying to too many reaches. I’ve been accepted to UCSD (in my first choice college), UCI (CHP), and SDSU (Honors), and then Macalester because they had a free application.
So should I write an appeal to either Berkeley or UCLA (or both?) asking them to reconsider my application and include more information on how I didn’t get on the path to becoming an engineer until my junior year, mention my family’s immigration, and how I have been performing much better in Physics and Calculus versus SAT Math? I would really like to attend one of these schools, but otherwise, I’ll be attending UCSD.
Thanks.
