u/Hungry-Obligation175

Demographics: female, asian, non-competitive public school

Intended Major(s): Aerospace engineering/Mechanical engineering

ACT: 36 (superscore), 35 (one sitting)

35E, 36M, 36R, 36S, 11W

UW/W GPA and Rank: 3.95 UW

School does not do weighted GPA or class rank

Coursework: AP Scores

4 5's, 4 4's, 2 3's

Awards:

Can't be too specific but National finalist for random NASA competition, got interviewed by local news networks

NCWIT state awards x2

American Association of University Women, Science award

SWEnext community award

Extracurriculars: 

1. Paid Development program/Internship at Boeing - Learning machining skills like drilling, riveting, hi-loks, electrical, wiring. Get to meet with a bunch of  engineers/businessppl/machining techs. Work in the main factory and get an endorsement to get hired at boeing without interview
2. Paid Engineering Intern at local aviation company - I got this by relentlessly cold emailing employees which was wack but I guess it worked 😛🙏 I modeled some fuel tank parts in solidworks and did a lot of excel and making graphs for aircraft testing conditions.
3. NASA SEES Intern (virtual) - Did some programming rando stuff. Related to environmental science and data science. Poster was accepted to American Geophysical Union conference.
4. Flight training - got a full scholarship from my local flying club for 50 hours of ground school and 15 hours of flight time, also spent a lot of time making lessons for the 125 younger members of the flying club. Taught aviation history and assisted with discovery flights. Hope to get PPL before I graduate high school 🤞
5. President of school SWEnext (Women in engineering club)/ NASA Techrise - Held multiple booths at STEAM Fairs for elementary, increased SWEnext club membership by 300%, Invited guest speakers (astronaut), wrote proposals and got selected for NASA TechRise twice and recieved $3000 + in funding. Spent a bunch of time soldering, wiring, 3d printing and building an experiment with my team. Flew experiment on high-altitude balloon last year and will fly on virgin galactic suborbital flight this year.
6. Intern/Research?? at local University lab - hesitant to put this as research because it is more like robotics and programming but kinda niche topic related to lunar rovers. I am programming mechanical movement for a lunar rover prototype robot and also doing some low-energy radio communication stuff. Got this by cold-emailing prof.
7. Robotics (FTC) - spent A LOT of time on this in freshman and soph year but haven't showed up in a while tbh 😬😬 Hardware lead for 18 person team and taught machining and CAD to the rookies, designed some parts that won regional design awards, innovate award etc.
8. Paid job teaching robotics to little jits at private school - Paid SUPER well but was very unfun so I don't think I will do it again next year. Created the first robotics program at their school and they won an award at their first competition
9. Volunteer at local zoo - worked in butterfly habitat, taught visitors about animal enrichment for big cats, created nature/ecology activity for children visitors, and made birthday program for baby gorilla, got to feed the grizzly bears one time which was cool. Did this for two summers
10. Only student member on the Environmental Advisory committee for my town, created and distributed hundreds of local seeds packs and surveyed youth about a specific climate topic and created a research presentation and showed it to my city environmental leaders. Was interviewed by some env educators.

My LORS I feel will be pretty decent, from my Eng teacher and my Physics teacher 

Schools: Guys is the big Tree even possible with a non 4.0 and a (b+ 😰 in calc 3)and no crazy isef awards

I don't mean like research programs that end in a poster or paper or something, I mean like a role where you get paid and produce something for a company. But not necessarily have any output that you can physically show for it.

And I do mean this as a serious question, my friend kept saying I made the wrong choice for pursueing a regular job last summer, and doing a manufacturing/training internship this summer.

Shes doing a research program instead, which ik is good. What does an internship show more than research can? maybe hard work and showing up on time, but research shows academic vitality, creativity, and all that stuff. I just feel like i messed up not trying harder.

I have the college essay guy book, and after reading it I think I should be writing a type "B" essay (montage structure) but I still have a lot of questions about that

How many personal qualities should I be writing about in my essay? The book said 4-5 but my counselor said 2 max so idk.

Should I talk more about experiences that are not fully shown in my activities list?

The examples provided in the book said that the conclusion (what career you want to pursue) should be surprising or not obvious, otherwise the essay would be boring to read. But upon a second read it should be clear how all the personal qualities come together.

I have been trying to write this for like a week, and so far I have a couple of disjointed paragraphs that don't rly relate. I want to be an engineer, and I am trying to write about experiences that made me develop qualities of a good engineer without making it obvious. The problem is that most of my activities are engineering related.

So far my first paragraph is about working at the zoo, but I don't rly know how to relate it to another part of my montage. I think I need a good framing lens as well.

ALSO question for AO's or essay readers, what were the most interesting type of essays you read?

This might not apply to every place. But anytime someone from my state or vicinity gets into a top school, I always look them up on linkedin and 99% of them have research on there.

Most have multiple lab experiences and awards at state and local level, some at isef.

Ik ppl sometimes say research isnt a requirement for stem kids, and sometimes say that its oversaturated and useless now.

I just dont know what to believe 🥲 Obviously doing research for the sake of an application rather than passion isnt good, but why does it seem like its a requirement if I want to get into a good school.

its so wack to constantly see advertisements for "youth-led" stuff on here

why would you want to be a number in someone else's ec

I rarely see this having a positive effect on anyone's application except the founder

has anyone actually joined any of these youth nonprofits? how is the experience compared to joining an established non profit with actual employees and like a board

Demographics: female, asian, non-competitive public school

Intended Major(s): Aerospace engineering/Mechanical engineering/Electrical engineering

I like environmental sciences so I might want to minor in that

ACT: 36 (superscore), 35 (one sitting)

35E, 36M, 36R, 36S, 11W

UW/W GPA and Rank: 3.95 UW

School does not do weighted GPA or class rank

Coursework: AP/IB/Dual Enrollment classes, AP/IB scores, etc

AP Calc AB (5), AP Calc BC (5), APUSH (5), AP World (5), AP Bio (4), AP Lit (4) AP CSP (4), AP Psychology (4), AP Physics 1&2 (3) 😓

Senior year: AP Lang, AP Chem, AP Gov, AP Stats

Some DE in spanish and math

Awards:

Can't be too specific but National finalist for random NASA competition, got interviewed by local news networks

NCWIT state awards x2

American Association of University Women, Science award

SWEnext community award

Presented at American Geophysical Union Conference

Extracurriculars: 

1. Paid Development program/Internship at Boeing factory - Manufacturing internship not engineering but really fun and difficult. Learning airplane machining skills like riveting and whatnot. My shift starts at 5:30am though 🙁 and we lwk have to stand up for like 7 hrs a day. But at the end of the program we get an endorsement to be hired at Boeing without an interview.
2. Paid Engineering Intern at local aviation company - I got this by relentlessly cold emailing employees which was wack but I guess it worked 😛🙏 I modeled some fuel tank parts in solidworks and did a lot of excel and making graphs for aircraft testing conditions. It was cool bc at the end of the summer I even got to fly (and do the takeoff) in the aircraft that the company makes
3. NASA SEES Intern (virtual) - Did some programming rando stuff. Was pretty fun. Related to environmental stuff, got into AGU and presented poster there
4. Flight training - got a full scholarship from my local flying club for 50 hours of ground school and 15 hours of flight time, also spent a lot of time making lessons for the 125 younger members of the flying club. Taught aviation history and assisted with discovery flights. Hope to get PPL before I graduate high school 🤞
5. President of school SWEnext (Women in engineering club)/ NASA Techrise - Held multiple booths at STEAM Fairs for elementary, increased SWEnext club membership by 300%, Invited guest speakers (astronaut), wrote proposal and got selected for NASA TechRise twice and recieved $3000 + in funding. Flew experiment on high-altitude balloon last year and will fly on virgin galactic suborbital flight this year.
6. Intern/Research?? at local University lab - hesitant to put this as research because it is more like robotics and programming but kinda niche topic related to lunar rovers. I dont expect paper or anything to come out of it bc like... i dont think this is like a novel topic but it is pretty fun and interesting. Got it through cold emailing professor
7. Robotics (FTC) - spent A LOT of time on this in freshman and soph year but haven't showed up in a while tbh 😬😬 Hardware lead for 18 person team and taught machining and CAD to the rookies, designed some parts that won regional design awards, innovate award etc.
8. Paid job teaching robotics to little jits at private school - Paid SUPER well but was very unfun so I don't think I will do it again next year. Created the first robotics program at their school and they won an award at their first competition

Those are most of my engineering ecs, my other major interest in environmental type stuff and volunteering

1. Volunteer at local zoo - worked in butterfly habitat, taught visitors about animal enrichment for big cats, created nature/ecology activity for children visitors, and made birthday program for baby gorilla, got to feed the grizzly bears one time which was cool. Did this for two summers
2. Only student member on the Green Action/Environmental Advisory committee for my town, presented a research project and survey about extreme heat that I did
3. Fellow with local climate change org, just gave some speeches and worked with others across my state on a climate project
4. More env advocacy work with another org

And then some misc student advocacy stuff in my district related to student justice and and orchestra 

Essays/LORs/Other: Have not started my essays yet so I have no clue 😕 

My LORS I feel will be decent, from my Eng teacher and my Physics teacher 

Schools: I'm still building my list and kind of open to any schools but my top choices would probably be Georgia Tech, Purdue, UC Berkeley, UMich, Embry-Riddle, MIT, Stanford, Princeton, Harvey-Mudd so lmk if I have a shot at any of these (obv will apply to targets and safeties as well).