Hi,
I am a student with a GPA of 4.0 and a 32 on the ACT. I was class and school president when I was overseas in the Middle East, but now I came to resume my education (junior year) in the US. I didn’t really have much opportunity over there and so I have nearly an empty résumé. I am African with American citizenship and I am planning on studying chemical engineering. I currently live in Iowa. I am planning on doing chemistry research but I need more background info and so I listen to speeches at famous universities, e.g. Stanford, and I laugh at the dumbness of the students there. Nevertheless, I know I can’t make it there (ironically) and so I was just wondering, where can I apply too.
Dream schools: Cal-Tech, Berkeley, MIT
To* ( autocorrect error)
State flagships?
There’s drake university which I’m not really interested in. I want something out of state
There are thousands of colleges that would admit you. There’s 50 states, so out of state is definitely possible.
Just fyi, Stanford isn’t an Ivy.
Carnegie Mellon,University of Illinois Urbana Champlain,University of Michigan Ann Arbor,Northwestern, Ren Poly, Drexel,Cal Poly SLO, Worcester Poly,UC Santa Barbara,UC Davis
Safeties-University of Iowa, Iowa State,Drake
@koolguy654 remember: the Ivy League is an athletic conference.
There are tons of great schools that are not part of the Ivy League.
What do you mean?
I kind of meant the top universities, but I meant where do students who may not have “leadership positions” or may have not had a chance to get those “leadership positions” go to, other than the highly competitive schools
Are the students you are referring to “smart” as in the topic title, or “dumb” as in the post itself?
Many top students go to schools that offer merit scholarships because they might not be eligible for financial aid at the HYP type schools which do not offer merit scholarships.
@merc81 I see many people are starting antagonize my statement. I referred to the dumbness of their questions, but maybe I over exaggerated. Still, I am generally talking about the qualified students who get rejected from extremely selective universities and where do you think I should apply to.
“so I listen to speeches at famous universities, e.g. Stanford, and I laugh at the dumbness of the students there”
with an attitude like that, it won’t make much difference what school you go to
@koolguy654: OK, then. We probably also wanted you to clarify a couple of your points.
Just keep digging that hole deeper…
Your dream schools of CalTech and MIT are as difficult or more difficult than the “Ivies”. Stanford and Chicago are equally selective. 32 on the ACT is good but will not get you into any of those schools (or UCB).
Beyond that, there are many great uni’s that smart kids go to, too many to list. Since you mentioned you want to study ChemE, my D is now a ChemE freshman and these are the schools she applied to last year: Chicago (Molecular Engineering, they don’t have ChemE), Stanford, Cornell (those were her top 3), Carnegie Mellon, Rice, RPI, UC-Berkeley, UC Santa Barbara (excellent ChemE program), Princeton and Penn. If she could do it over, she would have dropped UCB, Princeton and Penn (none of which she had much interest in going to), and instead applied to Harvey Mudd, UT-Austin, and Northwestern. Other good choices would have been Georgia Tech, Case Western, Michigan. (Like you, she attended high school outside the US. Her scores were good.) She ruled out applying to CalTech or MIT (not that she had much chance, they’re long shots for anyone) as she didn’t want the pressure of such a competitive environment.
Budget? Rural/urban? Regional preferences? The SuperMatch function on the left could also help you.
In terms of your specific interests, Rose-Hulman may be a good place to start. Your ACT score would place you in their middle range, the same as it would, for comparison, at the mentioned Stanford.
I am amazed at the audacity of the tykes at CC. So if I sound harsh, I apologize to those who this post is not intended to offend… but to those that I address this post I offer no such thing. Anyways…
- An ACT of 32 is ok, but not necessarily good enough to make you competitive for admission to the top colleges/universities. I suspect your communication and comprehension skills might need some work. I would also guess that your ACT sub scores in Math and Science are ok but not in reading and English. Brush those up.
- You are a high school junior, with very limited experience of or exposure to anything material at this stage. Calling anyone who has already achieved what you dream of is, well, asinine. They have already made it. You have not. Once you are in their shoes, you are welcome to have opinions. Until then, remember the saying goes "a wise man said nothing"
- Focus on challenging yourself with AP/IB classes. Take chances. A 4.0 in a non-challenging curriculum is worth nothing. 4.0/2400 kids get denied routinely at top colleges. There are enough of those. They also want to know what is unique about you. There is enough material here at CC for you to research and figure out how to make your own path. Put in some effort to get a summer job at a Chemical factory as an intern or a lab or do something to show actual interest for example.
- A true leader has a positive attitude and is not dismissive of anyone. Being class president and school president sounds nice but we could also be dismissive of it being in a region with lower academic standards. If you want help, ask for suggestions politely.
Try using the supermatch function to the left.
Some to consider: Johns Hopkins, GA Tech, URochester, Carnegie Mellon to name but a few.