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1
4 years ago
Admissions Advice

How are my EC's? And should I do more?

I want to major in computer engineering, but what i'm focusing on now is programming.

How imprssive do you think these EC's are?

- 3 Apps featured in playstore

- Created a website with 1,000 participants where they could upload applications that helped solve a range of problems

- The founder of summer coding camp aimed to teach primary students the foundation of programming and application programming, they designed applications that helped people in my town, such as an app that suggested bike routes (15 kids went to the workshop).

- Programming club at school - Founder

other things that didn't make in impact

- shadowed a computer scientist

- shadowed a computer engineer

So i have 6 extracurricular activities with 4 with some sort of achievement. Do you think i should compete in USACO (computing Olympiad) or should I aim to earn awards in applications like Technovation(would that show that i'm good at what I do?). I want to solve real world problems but if proving that i'm good at what i do is a better idea i'll do that. I'm having a hard time deciding on what do.

extracurriculars
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2 answers

1
4 years ago

So if you want to go to an Ivy League school don’t just have coding relating ECs try having a job or something that shows you aren’t for lack of a better term a one hit wonder. It can be a club or something else but don’t just have it be volunteer hours as they are approaching cliche but if you are with an organization for extended periods that good. Any sort of holistic school that are top 150 but aren’t ivy caliber you have a great shot at.

Also I’d need more details regarding the apps being featured as tangible impacts are a near must for these types of things. Try looking at downloads hours spent etc.

So beyond basic for Ivy League try to diversify your ECs a bit as you have 4 leadership/quality ECs you should likely have 3 other impactful ECs such as a job or you have familiar reposibilities any sort of EC or hobby is good. If you are starved of ideas a coding related blog could be highly impactful.

The computing Olympiad is not a great idea but a good one as you already have quality ECs in coding. For techovation it depends on what sort of level you get recognized on if you are recognized by let’s say

National Organization as a Young Upcoming coding superstar that’s is phenomenal if your local organization says Bob is a techovator that’s is not impactful and isn’t worth the time.

Hope this helps and comment for clarification.

1
-1
4 years ago

It’s always good to add more extracurricular activities to show colleges what you’ve done. Just those alone are wonderful and would impress admissions officers. Ultimately, it’s up to you what you wanna do, but if I were you, I would add on some more activities to impress admissions officers further.

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Unweighted GPA: 3.7
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SAT: 720 math
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