My Son rising senior has following stat . What are the chances for Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) in
Georgia Tech,
Cal Tech,
Perdue
RPI
GPA - 3.91unweighted/5.21 weighted
SAT 1510 ( 800 m, 710 r) , SAT math 2 ( 800)
AP - 16 plus ( AP physics C,AP calc 2 etc)
Rank Top 7% out 430 in Top Rigorous College Prep school
Ecs
chess club president
USChess rank U1800, won several regional competitions
Unpaid internship in Civil engineering
Science museum volunteers
Built Robotics , programs Drones , Rasberry PI etc ( no competition)
Participants of 24 hour coding Hackathon
Demographic
Asian Male , OOS for all colleges , high income
Cal is a reach (for everyone) and I would say the others are matches.
It’s Purdue, as in John Purdue the founder, not Perdue the chicken company ; ).
Be sure he has some true safeties on the list since your son’s intended major is very popular and he’s out of state. Strange things happen but again, I think he will most likely get into GT, Purdue, and RPI
Nice chess rank. My son was a competitive chess player in high school also. Admissions won’t understand the ranking but will understand chess for analytical thinking.
Purdue and Rpi I would think but Cal and Georgia Tech are reaches for anyone out of state. Georgia tech does like a lot of AP classes and I can’t figure out how he has so many… Do they start as Freshman?
I would expand his search a bit. It’s becoming harder each year for out of state students in general.
Admissions might not understand the chess rating but if you can get to 2200 and get a National Master title, then it becomes very meaningful. Maybe even a hook at some places. Also being ranked in the Top 100 in the country for your age is something documentable and is good on the college apps too.
CalTech will be almost impossible. The rest are very doable.
@ProfessorPlum168… I have to laugh… (not at you). It’s really hard to do what you say in such a short period of time. He most likely would need to play national tournaments like our school team does. Our chess team had 2 kids go to MIT the last two years. The other seniors all went to great schools like Michigan and Illinois for engineering etc. Love to hear chess success stories.
@Knowsstuff 1800 to 2200 obviously is very hard but I’ve seen it done before in a year or two, but usually by kids in elementary or junior high where they could play in a lot more tournaments. We live in an area where there are good adult tournaments going on almost every weekend. High school kids probably don’t have the time to play in many tournaments, but there was a kid at my kid’s HS who went from beginner to 2000 in a year all while in 9th grade. My kid himself went from 1600 in the middle of 5th grade to 2100 by end of 6th grade. The sad part is that at least 10 players in his age group in this area had a higher rating than him. This year’s HS graduating class throughout the US is awesome, 2 Grandmasters (maybe more) plus numerous IMs and FMs. A couple of them are going to Berkeley along with my kid.
Nice. We’re from Illinois and chess is pretty competitive here locally and nationally. But 2100 in 6th grade isn’t even fair ;). Lol. Good luck to your son. My son’s at Michigan and can’t find the so called chess club… There are meet-ups though but realistically he doesn’t have the time to devout to it but a game every now and then wouldn’t hurt.
For the OP… I would add both Michigan and Illinois to your list.
Ah, yeah Illinois actually has chess as a sport in HS. I wished we had that here in California. Your kid isn’t from WY is he? They always have great teams. I grew up in Chicago, played as a 1st Board on my HS team for 3 of my 4 years in HS, but by the time my kid was in 3rd grade he could already beat me. :((
GT is unpredictable especially for out of state applicants as their acceptance rates keep declining. Its not so simplistic to change majors at GT especially in popular majors. There is a waiting period to change majors and other restrictions such as gpa and the like. Some classes are especially difficult to take as they are essentially closed to non majors only available after first round of registration.
If it results in easier frosh admissions, it is likely that changing into the actual desired major requires another admission process, which may be highly competitive.
Caltech might be too hard, considering that you need to have around a 1560. I know people that have gone for ECE at Purdue (other Asian males) with worse stats, so that’s not a problem.
GT combined SAT average for instate and OOS accepted applicants was 1480, 11APs, 4.0. OOS acceptance rate 19%. Instate acceptance 40%. Combined acceptance rate 23%.