Wondering what is realistic.

Chance Me / Match Me
1

<p>Electrical/Computer Engineering major</p>

<p>SAT 2160 M:770, CR:670, W:720, prob will retake
GPA 3.85 uw, 4.2w
Rank: school doesn’t rank , but at lowest top 3% , likely top 1% out of 100(top 1)
Non-Competitive magnet High School.(officially it is suppose to be competitive, but its not)
SATII have not taken yet. not taking ACT</p>

<p>Engineering courses are all Project Lead The Way, but school is not accredited to do the tests.
Courses: fresh , h. geo, h. bio, C.P. world hist, C.P. English, into to engineering design
Soph h. alg2, h. phys h. civics h. English
Jr. APUSH, self-taught AP.Calc BC, h. English, H chem, Digital Electrics
Sr planned courses. AP physics/w calc self-study, AP micro/macro, Multi-var calc at local community college/ principles of enginering</p>

<p>EC: tennis and snowboarding, but not varsity
Engineering internship ish thing freshman year
Chess club fresh-soph, will do it seinor year, conflicted this year
Summer: Computer Camp since 5th grade, learned decent C++ (wrote a mastermind program) before 6th grade. Councilor in training last year, councilor this year.
Upenn SAAST
prob 50-60 hours community service over the 4 years, just helping out wherever.</p>

<p>Other:
Recommendations/essay will be very good if not excellent.</p>

<p>White/male/upper class/will pay full tuition.</p>

<p>Diagnosed Dysgraphia and ADHD</p>

<p>Terrible pre-calc teacher so I just dropped it and taught myself AP calc.</p>

<p>Realized I actually enjoy math (I’m weird :smiley: ) this year when I self-taught Calc because I could make it as challenging as I want, and was not just bored in a easy class. I’ll write essay about that. Going to take AMC/AMIE next year, not sure if I can make USAMO though.</p>

<p>Wondering what I have a good shot at getting into, what I’m thinking now is
reach:
MIT
Stamford
Cornell
CMU
UC Berkly
Ann Arbor
UPenn (legacy)</p>

<p>Match:
Northeastern
BU
UConn(in state)</p>

<p>Safty:
??? cant find any I like</p>

2

<p>UConn and Northeastern are more safties then matches with your gpa and sats. Some of the others might be tough because you extracurriculars are nothing special.</p>

3

<p>MIT and Stanford are extreme long shots. No major awards or science/math competition wins.</p>

<p>I think your best strategy for getting into a top collge is to ED Penn as a legacy.</p>

4

<p>I agree with hmom.</p>

5

<p>Penn takes a lot of legacies ED, so hmom is right.</p>

6

<p>I was thinking about that, but at the same time I really think I would rather go to just about any school on the reach list over penn. and ED knocks any shot off mit, and the more realistic CMU etc.</p>

<p>Even though it may be unlikely that I get in, giving up on my top choice schools as a matter of practicality is a tough thing to do. Guess I got some time to make up my mind though.</p>

7

<p>Also check into Lehigh, Bucknell and Lafayette. Best of luck!</p>

8

<p>Don’t apply ED if it’s not a high choice, but realize that at Penn you pretty much lose the boost rD.</p>

<p>You need to significantly up your scores for any real shot at Stanford or MIT but the others are reasonable reaches with current scores.</p>

9

<p>Well visited campuses in Boston over the last two days. Northeastern is meh: to much of a party atmosphere, still would be a decent safty. Olin is more of a cult then the peoples temple. MIT I absolutely loved; could relate to all the people there, cool campus even if not as pretty as other places, just awesome nerdy atmosphere etc etc. </p>

<p>Could anyone recommend colleges somewhat like MIT which are slightly less impossible to get into?</p>

<p>yeah, if Computer Camp Councilor as ec didn’t say it. I’m kinda a massive nerd :)</p>

<p>EDIT: I’m also really hoping to keep a somewhat decent boy/girl ratio if at all possible. My HS is like 75:25 and its really no fun at all.</p>

10

<p>i don’t think applying ED to a school like MIT would do you any good. i have many friends who got rejected/wait listed with much better stats than you (no offense). same with “Stamford” (heh) even though they don’t offer ED.</p>

11

<p>Very little shot at MIT and Stanford. Okay to good shot at Michigan and Bekeley. You should get into Penn and probably Cornell. Sounds odd, but the top publics are getting a lot of applications with the slow economy.</p>

12

<p>you got a pretty good shot at UMich and Cornell which are on your reach list (UMich isn’t as tough as it’s made out to be, but still a good school). Berkley and Stanford are in reach and in range, but it might be a crapshoot</p>