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Hello everyone.
Any and all help would be appreciated.
I've been reading posts on collegeconfidential for a while, and I want to get straight answers from students, parents, or guidance counselors that know what they are talking about. My parents cannot help me, because they just apted to go community colleges and get associate degrees, so they have absolutely no clue what to do. I've visited JHU, Harvey Mudd, Caltech, Stanford, YU (school trip), and CSI (a CC). Over the summer I want to visit Rice, Cornell, RPI, RIT, Bucknell, Lehigh, and Carnegie Mellon.

I am a prospective engineering major if you haven't figured it out by now. I go to a small private school in New Jersey (NY Resident), my grade has about 54 students. We have a long school day; I usually leave my house around 7:00 to start school at 8:00, to leave about 5:30, and to get home at 6:45-ish. I do not have much time for EC's, but I still try to schedule in activities. I'll list all of my stats later. I sincerely want to go a GOOD school. I don't care about prestige or politics, I just want the best undergraduate education I can get, and with my parents not helping (they aren't even trying to help), it has been difficult narrowing down my list, or even looking at colleges I have not heard of. All my father or mother has told me is to go to either GA Tech, which is a few miles away from my dad's house, or Cornell, which is probably the only school my mother has heard of that has a good engineering program.

I would like to know my chances at CMU - CIT, Harvey Mudd, Cornell - Engineering, Rice - Engineering, and any other good engineering school save for Cooper, MIT, Stanford, Caltec, et cetera.
I need to take my SAT II Writing and retake the Math IIc (see below) on the November test date, so I don't know how ED/EA decision will work, and I don't know if I can apply ED and Rice's interim.

Stats
GPA: Soph. 3.67, Junior First semester 4.0, second 3.7-4.0, where a=4.0, b=3.0, no weights, no ranks
SAT Scores: 800 chem, 700 Physics (went in cold from an Honors Physics, where we didn't cover E+M and a whole bunch of stuff)
APs Junior Year: Chem
Senior: Lang/Comp, His (not sure whether US or Euro), Calc BC, Physics C - E+M and Mech
I've taken/will take Psych and Comp Sci at a CC.
We aren't allowed to take APs until Junior year, and we aren't offered many, 10 altogether.

Reccomendations: Counselor - fantastic (she told me, so please don't post the spiel how people just expect good recs), physics and math teachers just as good, and I haven't decided which humanities teacher from whom I will ask for a reccomendation letter.

My SAT story goes like this. I took the SAT Is in May, and I scored a 1290 (690, 600), which was an absolute disgrace, because i was scoring a strong 750+ Math (usually 800) and a 700+ Verbal (whipped the analogies and sentence comps). Then, in June, I took the IIc, Chem, and Physics in that order. I scored a 670 IIc. But while I was taking the Chem, I went over my answers - I had a half hour left and I was bored - I realized that I misaligned or mis-bubbled answers a LOT! (When I did practice tests, I just wrote in the answer, I never used the complex bubbly-charts). So I will practice in bubbling over the summer, hoping for a 700 writing, 700+ verbal, 750+ math, 800 IIc (I always scored 40+/50 on Barrons, and consecutive 45's on the last 4 tests or so). Lame excuses, but whats done is done, and I will prove myself during the October and November testings ;)

ECs (no particular order)
MUN, International Relations Club, Peer Tutoring, Self-taught HTML/CSS, Discovery Program at a cc (I help a post-doc do research, and then I can start my own), lab assistant, Yearbook (I'm the person who is doing everything on our school computer), Sinai Buddies (work with special needs kids), trying to start my own cooking club, Honors Society, Honors Roll since sophmore year, Bnai Akiva (we discuss pertanent historical and current events concerning Israel).

I realize that I do not as many science/math ECs as others, but again, I have a tough schedule and there aren't too many oppurtunities in my school and community and I have a philosophy that, even though one may be strong in one particular subject, it would mean nothing if he cannot apply it to other fields. Though I do not demonstrate it with my ECs, I think everyone should be well-rounded.

I am not a fantastic writer, but I can express my point of view with an essay well enough.

Please, be as harsh as you need to, just don't bash, or unrealistic. Thanks.

I know that I should have a definitive list of colleges and an outline(s) for my college essay(s), but I will take the time and prepare after I have visited the colleges in August.

By Drusba (Drusba) on Thursday, July 01, 2004 - 12:15 pm: Edit

Right now you should consider CMU, Cornell, Harvey Mudd and Rice as significant reaches. Get test scores and GPA up and chances may improve. Even at GTech you are somewhat of a reach but have a much better chance (GTech does not use SAT II's for admission).


You said: "I sincerely want to go a GOOD school. I don't care about prestige or politics, I just want the best undergraduate education I can get."

If that is true, you have more choices than you are looking at as there are many good engineering schools. For example, one for which you are close to being a match is Rose-Hulman in Indiana, one of the best engineering schools in the nation (the school literally has a 100% placement rate for graduating students who seek a job rather than grad school and send students to such grad schools as Caltech, MIT, Cornell, UIUC, and other more well-knowns and is annually ranked number 1 in US News for engineering at colleges that do not have a Ph.D program). Others you could consider a match or safety are(and this is hardly a complete list of those where you can get a first rate engineering education): Va Tech, Purdue, Case Western, Maryland, Penn St., Colo., Texas A&M, NC State, Iowa St, Wis, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

By Jwtullis (Jwtullis) on Thursday, July 01, 2004 - 12:26 pm: Edit

I definitely think you can get in at Georgia Tech. Several of my friends are going there and a few had scores similar to you on the SAT without as much EC involvement as you.

I also agree that, should you raise your SAT score to the range you expect, you would have much greater chances at the top few schools you have listed. I, personally, will be going to Rice, although not to study engineering. From what I know, though, engineering students typically have higher standardized score averages than others there, so it's probably harder to get into with a prospective engineering major. Just get your SAT I up and write a great essay and you'll do fine at most of those schools.

By Joshjmgs (Joshjmgs) on Thursday, July 01, 2004 - 07:37 pm: Edit

I KNOW my SAT Is and IIc scores are low, I said I only noticed them during my second SAT II test (chemistry, and I did well on that and relatively well on my physics). I am going to work on the SAT Is over the summer to try and get my normal SAT range to a 1500+. I am being overly optimistic, but I've always done well (as in getting only one or two wrong) on the math, analogies, and sent comp, I just have to work on the reading comprehension, but that is easy enough. Please do NOT go by my current SAT scores.
I mean, I am still in the 50% middle range for CMU and that was only my first SAT I sitting...

And I just want to clarify that I take 4 mandatory classes (religious studies). And sophmore and junior year I was in all honors or accelerated classes. And for further clarification, 5-6 is really the upper limit of APs that my school allows a students to take.