Demographics
- US citizen, Asian male, middle-class household
- State/Location of residency: California, mid-size Central Valley city
- Type of high school (or current college for transfers): Charter school (public funding but own school district)
- Other special factors: First generation
Intended Major: Electrical Engineering & Mechanical Engineering
GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
UC GPA: 4.48
Weighted: 4.25
Unweighted: 3.97
ELC (top 9% of my graduating class)
School does not rank
Did not report any ACT/SAT scores
My school did not offer many advanced classes until you were a junior but I took as many as I could when I entered my junior year and skipped a year of math to take more advanced math (something I stressed heavily in my essays).
- English: 3 years of high school English w/ 2 college English classes adding up to a year
- Math: Took 2 years of Integrated Math (essentially common core math), AP Statistics (scored a 5), and AP Calculus AB (plan to take test)
- Science: Biology and Chemistry as a sophomore, AP Biology (scored a 5), AP Chemistry, and AP Physics 1 Algebra Based
- History and social studies: US History (College class), World History, AP Psychology (scored a 4)
- Language other than English: Spanish 1 and Spanish 2
- Visual or performing arts: Art 1, Drama (college class)
- Other academic courses: Took two engineering classes at a local university in spring 2024 and fall 2024.
In total, I took 44 A-G classes including college courses.
- General education course work: Most of my college courses were general education classes that didn’t require prerequisites as they were the only ones available. In my senior year, I’m currently taking 15 units with 3 of those classes requiring prerequisites.
- Major preparation course work: The above engineering classes, one was an intro class and the other was a SolidWorks class.
Awards
AP Scholar
Science Olympiad Regional Awards (4th place in Experimental Design)
Extracurriculars
Volleyball (4 yrs) - offensive player of the year and most versatile player for my team
Cross Country (4 years)
Student Council (4 years) – Was elected student body treasurer for 11th and 12th grade. Secretary 9th and 10th grade.
Science Olympiad (4 years) – Coordinator for my school’s team in 11th and 12th grade
STEM Club (2 years) – Treasurer, helped design an escape room for special needs students and built a scorer’s table for school athletics
Science Club (4 years) – Treasurer
Student Academic Mentor Program (3 years) – Providing tutoring for students struggling in math and science and also helped teachers as a TA during instruction.
Chess Club (4 years) – Treasurer
Math Competitions (1 year) – Competed in HiMCM Math Modeling and M3 Challenge
3D Modeling – Designed a volleyball training tool to help players train on their own while reducing costs of existing models.
Essays/LORs/Other
(Optionally, guess how strong these are and include any other relevant information or circumstances.)
My essays are alright but many of them have specific themes that I tried to express myself with that may not have been said in the application. For instance, my PIQs followed these main ideas
- Perfectionism and growing from it
- Skipping a year of math in favor of taking more advanced math my junior year
- Finding opportunities in interdisciplinary learning after taking an engineering class through local university
- My love for reading on Wikipedia and learning new things, learning geography and how it helps me better understand others.
Schools
(List of colleges by your initial chance estimate; designate if applying ED/EA/RD; if unsure, leave them unclassified)
Stanford (REA) – rejected
UC Berkeley – RD
UC San Diego – RD
UCLA – RD
UC Davis – accepted for mechanical
UC Merced – accepted for mechanical
UC Riverside – accepted (BS+MS mechanical)
Cal Poly SLO – RD
University of the Pacific – accepted for mechanical
Cornell – RD
Princeton – RD
Columbia – RD
Carnegie Mellon – RD
UPenn – RD
University of Michigan Ann Arbor – RD
My target schools are UC Davis, UC San Diego, Cal Poly SLO
Safety school was University of the Pacific
UC Merced and UC Riverside were free applications from UC Admissions
Ivies, CMU, UMich, and UC Berkeley/UCLA are my reaches
Most of these schools I applied for as engineering, mechanical/electrical.