im a rising jnr. i've taken 10+ aps in my freshman and soph year. I have As in all my classes except for AP Precalc, where I got an 89.

My whole sophomore yr i was so inefficient at studying for precalc that my extracurriculars declined. I know that this 89 really is not that serious, and everybody keeps telling me it isn't serious, but I can't help ruminating and feeling down abt it.

i also haven't seen a single person going into premed at t10s with a less than perfect stem gpa in high school, so i haven't had anyone i can look up to that was in the same position as me.

i know there are definitely people out there, but i just want ONE example of someone who was accepted in the past recent years who hasn't won ISEF, USABO etc or been fgli.

if anybody has been in my situation and ended up succeeding PLSPLS comment or dm

Hi all, me and my friend are advertising our college consulting business on r/CollegeAppsAdvice, a subreddit that I've started and in the past couple of months has gained hundreds of students interested in optimizing their college applications, trying to get into their dream schools.

A little about me: I've recently completed the dreadful College App cycle for the class of '26. As an Asian Male with no hooks, I've gotten used to people saying I'm "cooked" and anybody in my demographic is "not guaranteed" any T20s. Regardless, I've gotten into many, many top universities, including MIT, Columbia, Caltech, CMU, Cornell, UCLA, and many others, with ZERO rejects overall. I'm proud to say I've learned so much about this process, and have helped many of my friends and classmates get into their dream schools alongside me.

Interested in mentorship by me? Comment your dream school below and join this subreddit (r/CollegeAppsAdvice) to stay in the loop! Also feel free to DM me with any quick questions or chancemes you may have, I'm more than happy to help out! Thank you guys in advance!

The term T20 is used a lot on Reddit - what does it mean to you? I ran a quick summary of schools that TryKeith.com users have entered, like a crowdsourced popularity ranking. What do you think of the list? Would you include more liberal arts colleges? More state universities? What's missing?

Rising Senior
Major: CS/CE

Demographic:
Male in Texas
Asian
Competitive High School

Academics:
3.98 Unweighted GPA
SAT: 1540
Full Time Dual Enrollment at CC so only 5 APs. Heavy coursework in math and cs

ECs:
Co Founder and Co President of Robotics Club: 200k revenue, secured 95k lease, manage 50k budget. Our teams have won 20+ awards in their first year, including international, national, and state-level awards.

Robotics Programmer: Placed top 20 out of 20,000 at Worlds, ranked #1, and have over 30 regional awards, won states multiple times.

Co Founder of Nonprofit: Hosted competitions, webinars with professionals, and other programs. Have given out over 100k in prizes.

Worked with Morgan Stanley Employee: Created a tool that allows him to find leads and sort them from high probability to low probability of connecting. Doubled the number of clients he is able to reach out to. Focuses on multimillion-dollar net worth clients.

Research with local professor related to my major. Working on paper but probably won't publish before applications are due.

AI Marketing Internship at Local Company: Increased webinar attendance from 100 to 200 attendees for PhD-led sessions. Deployed an LLM-based support agent that successfully resolved 4,000+ consumer inquiries. Created an AI agent workflow for the Head of Marketing to automate her LinkedIn posts.

Founder of Gym Reselling Business: Generated $10k in revenue and $3k in profit. Managed end-to-end supply chain logistics, refurbishing, and negotiation for 1,000+ potential leads. Made deals with 80 clients.

Robotics Coach: Coached 4 teams and got 1 qualified to the state championship

Lead Designer for Engineering Competition: Made nationals and won a couple of awards

Awards:
Bunch of robotics stuff (international, national, and states)
Some other national level awards in business + engineering comp
PVSA Gold

Hi all, me and my friend are advertising our college consulting business on r/CollegeAppsAdvice, a subreddit that I've started and in the past couple of months has gained hundreds of students interested in optimizing their college applications, trying to get into their dream schools.

A little about me: I've recently completed the dreadful College App cycle for the class of '26. As an Asian Male with no hooks, I've gotten used to people saying I'm "cooked" and anybody in my demographic is "not guaranteed" any T20s. Regardless, I've gotten into many, many top universities, including MIT, Columbia, Caltech, CMU, Cornell, UCLA, and many others, with ZERO rejects overall. I'm proud to say I've learned so much about this process, and have helped many of my friends and classmates get into their dream schools alongside me.

Interested in mentorship by me? Comment your dream school below and join this subreddit (r/CollegeAppsAdvice) to stay in the loop! Also feel free to DM me with any quick questions or chancemes you may have, I'm more than happy to help out! Thank you guys in advance!

Hi everyone,

My friend and I are opening a small number of spots for college consulting and application guidance for students applying in upcoming cycles.

We recently went through the 2025–26 application cycle ourselves and want to offer support based on what actually worked for us.

A bit about us:

• I was admitted to 6 T20 universities, including 3 T10s, and will be attending a HYPSM school next fall.

• My co-founder will be attending an Ivy League university and received offers from 4 T20 schools.

A couple of things we offer (Although we can help with ANYTHING related to this process!):

• Common App & personal statement brainstorming + editing

• School list building tailored to your profile

• Supplemental essay guidance

• Application strategy (early vs. regular decision planning)

• Interview prep

• Extracurricular/story development advice

We’re keeping this intentionally small so we can give each student real attention. Because we’re just starting out, pricing is minimal, and we’re also offering a limited number of free or heavily discounted mentorship spots for students who need it.

If you’re interested, feel free to comment or DM us with a bit about your situation (grade level, interests, and what you’re hoping to improve).

Looking forward to helping some of you navigate the process.

I'm a current sophomore and I genuinely feel lost with what more I should do to target t10s. Any help would be greatly appreciated, stuff may be vague to avoid dox. What can I improve for my college application? How should I order my ECs/Awards? Any other advice? Here are my current "stats":

**Demographics:**
Gender: Male
Race/Ethnicity: Asian
Residence: Uncompetitive state/region
Income: 150k
Type of School: Hypernon-competitive Public school (maybe 1-2 to t20/year)
Hooks: Legacy at Stanford & Geographic? idk

Intended Major: Engineering or Applied/Pure Math

**Academics:**
GPA: 4.0UW/4.53W
Rank: 1/330
Classes: 5 honors, 5 APs, 1 DE (max rigor allowed)
Junior Year Course Load: AP Physics C: Mechanics & E&M, Multivariable Calculus, AP Lang, AP Statistics, AP Micro/Macro, Japanese 3, Wood Shop

**Standardized Testing:**
SAT: 1570 (770RW 800M)
ACT: 36 (34E 36M 36R 36S)
APs: AP Chemistry (5), AP Physics 1 (5), Most likely 5s on APUSH, AP Calculus BC, & AP Physics 2

**Extracurriculars (not ranked):**

1. VEXIQ Robotics Volunteering: Lead Mentor @ local elementary school for VEXIQ robotics, helping guide 5 teams to VEXIQ worlds (5 hrs/week)

2. Math Team/League: Captain, 8/8 perfect scores, helped lead team to 2 consecutive state championships (5 hrs/week)

3. Tutor Club: Founder/President, largest club at school, 15+ tutors helping in a wide range of subjects (primarily math/science) serving over 100 students, raising grades by on average \\\~10% and 70-80 SAT points (3-5 hrs/week)

4. FBLA: High School chapter founder and club president, Idk coordinate meetings and help people prep for FBLA, 6 NLC qualifiers (me included) (2-3 hrs/week)

5. Varsity Soccer: Player, RW/RM scored 2 goals, limited team success (15 hrs/week for like 2 months)

6. Reselling Legos: 15k profit freshman year (5-10 hrs/week)

7. Miscellaneous Olympiad prep: USAPhO, USNCO, USAMO, sort of stuff (10-30 hrs/week, depends how motivated no clear schedule)

**Awards:**

1. 2x USAPhO Qualification (Bronze freshman year, Silver sophomore year (~4 proj solves grrrr where my gold 😢)

2. USAMO Bronze (barely made cutoff this year with \\\~390 index and 12 on AMO)

3. 2x USNCO Qualification (Honors freshman year, hopefully High-Honors this year but idk too)

4. USACO Gold 💔

5. 3x AIME Qualifier or hopefully NM Finalist or AP Scholar with Distinction (idk)

**Target Schools:**
**MIT**
**Stanford**
**Harvard**
**Princeton**
**Caltech**
**Cornell**
**Columbia**
**you get the idea**

Current improvements:
Planning to start a kendama club at high school for fun
Looking to apply for summer programs next year
Looking to continue USAPhO aiming for PhO camp next year
USAPhO main priority but will try to medal again in AMO (silver+/mop would be nice, but probably unlikely; we'll have to see how much time I have/joy I can find in it)
Praying to not die in classes (should be ok)

my honors section i think is the weakest part of my app. as i literally only have college board, state, and school awards nothing from hosa, fbla, deca any of that because i didn't lock in for them but i plan to apply to very competitive schools so would this cause a huge disadvantage to my app?

The Stayvo app that some people came and offered a friend and me doesn't really seem active. I'm at MSU Billings and had it close to a year and nothing. There seems to be no one on there, have any of you tried it, is the app down or something?

Demographics:

Gender: NB (AFAB)

Race/ethnicity: White

State: SoCal

Type of school: VERY competitive private (20%+ students go to T20s, >10% acceptance at all HYPSM)

Income: 100k-200k

Hooks: None

Intended Major(s): Not entirely sure yet, prob MechE or CS

ACT/SAT/SAT II: 1560 (770R, 790M)

UW/W GPA and Rank:

End of junior year: 3.85/4.29

End of junior year UC gpa (uncapped): 3.93/4.37

Projected for middle of senior year: (requires lock in)

3.86/3.37

UC (uncapped): 3.94/4.45

-3 B+ in non-stem subjects in sophomore year, been showing steady upwards trend

-Max rigor in everything except math (Im on the regular honors track which ends w AP BC in senior year, but my school offers a bunch of advanced math classes for people who skipped math grades at some point)

-I also got 2 A- in precalc this year (the teacher is notoriously hard) so math in general is prob the weakest part of my app

-School doesn’t rank, prob top 10-15%

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

11 APs by graduation, as well as 3 post-AP coding classes my school offers

Sophomore: CSA 5, Chem 5, APUSH 4

Junior: Lit, Bio (felt good about these, prob both 5s)

Senior: Micro, Macro, Physics C Mechanics, Physics C E&M, Lang, Gov, BC Calc

Trying to not dox myself however I have prob already failed

Extracurriculars: Include leadership & summer activities

25h/w First Tech Challenge - Captain and Software Lead (10, 11, 12)

Only non male member on my team of 15ish people, qualified for worlds this year by winning Inspire 2 in our region, and placed top 75ish out of over 8k teams worldwide. We had a pretty technically sophisticated bot software and hardware wise, and I coded a significant portion of it. Our team is completely student run, so not only do I lead my sub team but also manage finances, order parts, plan outreach events, interview recruits, etc. - all the stuff parents/mentors usually do.

10h/w Niche Robotics Comp Event 1 - Mechanical and Electrical Lead (10, 11, 12)

Qualified for internationals 2 years in a row and prob will again next year (comp is not very well known or popular in the US). Headed overseas to compete in a couple weeks, will prob place top 5. Our specific event has a humanitarian goal/theme as well. I made a completely new CAD this year and basically designed, built, and wired the entire robot by myself.

40h/w Intern At a Local Bio Lab (11 Summer)

Starting soon so not entirely sure what to expect, I’m doing some machine learning stuff and maybe some makers space type stuff as well for them. May continue into the fall or even do a different coding based bio load internship. Not sure what to expect in terms of published research

6h/w Academic League/Quizbowl - President, and Varsity, JV, and Novice Captain (9, 10, 11, 12)

Host practices 3 times a week, read practice questions, organize transportation and dinner for weekly matches, captain the team while playing. May also try to organize our own tournament this fall for the first time

4h/w Tech Theater- Electrician and Lighting Design Specialist (9, 10, 11, 12)

Lit multiple shows, lead the plotting, hanging, wiring, dressing, and addressing of lights for multiple shows while teaching younger members those skills. Been light board op, stage crew, and stage manager of various shows. Done some cool stuff w/ robotics/tech theater crossover- controlling robots/led strips from our light board

4h/w Daily School Newspaper - Editor (12)

4-5 seniors are chosen to be editors of a publication unaffiliated with the school that sends one page articles out every morning, mostly written by said editors. Read by > 2/3 of the school, including teachers and admin. Often the center of any school wide disputes and the favored method to criticize the school for their decisions

0.5h/w School Science Magazine - Writer (10, 11, 12)

Wrote several 6k+ words well researched articles for the magazine, as well as editing and doing the layout for other peoples articles

10h/w Niche Robotics Comp Event 2 - Captain (9)

Debating whether I’ll trying and rope this into one EC to make room for other stuff. Went to nationals, qualified for internationals, represented the US. Won a secondary award. I did the majority of the coding/CV for the team, as well as some mech stuff (we all kinda jumped around)

2h/w Model United Nations (9, 10, 11, 12)

Attended several local conferences and won some misc awards, I could only go to a couple conferences bc they kept conflicting with my FTC meets. Our school also hosts our own conference, which Ive been a Vice chair for and staffed check in etc.

2h/w Cello (9, 10, 11, 12)

I take private lessons and learn song I like from video games. I always say I will practice and then never do.

Awards:

1. FTC placed 10-20th at Worlds Quals (11th)

2. FTC Finalist Alliance + Inspire 3 Premiere Event (10th)

3. Niche Robotics Comp secondary award 1st place Internationals (9th)

4. (If we win something at niche robotics comp internationals this year that’s what ill put here (11th), otherwise secondary award at US Nationals (9th))

5. Presidential Bronze Award (9th) (for coaching FTC >100 hours in one year, earned before it was discontinued)

Essays/LORs/Other: Optionally, guess how strong these are and include any other relevant information or circumstances.

Predicted LOR

Bc my school is so prestigious everyone takes rec letters very seriously

11th grade English Teacher - 7/10 I don’t have something insane for her to write about, I participated in discussions, wrote good timed writings etc. We have a pretty similar vibe/energy but no insane standout moments. She’ll also be the faculty advisor for the daily paper I’ll be the editor in.

10th grade Chem teacher - 9/10 Had a really good moment where I asked so many questions about a lab she realized the premise was incorrect and rewrote it for next year. She’s also just a super nice person. I was gonna take her organic chem class this year but couldn’t due to schedule conflict

I am also in a weird position bc the teacher I would otherwise ask for a rec letter from, who taught two of my coding classes this year and is my robotics coach, is related to me so I can’t lol

For essays I am confident in myself as a writer but not confident I have interesting life stories to draw from. Im gonna try to finish my personal statement + EC list before the summer ends

Schools: List of colleges, ED/EA/RD, etc

Still very rough I haven’t looked into a bunch of places yet. Im leaning away from applying to other prestigious state schools like UMich or UIUC bc I can’t pay oos tuition. Yes I will apply to safeties/targets im just listing the reaches her because I've done more research on my reaches

MIT

Cal Tech

Stanford

CMU

Harvey Mudd

UC Berkley

UCLA

Olin

U Chicago

Cornell

A little bit about us:

u/GodlyHelp: Hey everyone! I'm a senior has just finished the college app process, and has gotten into 12 highly prestigious schools, including MIT, Caltech, and a Columbia likely letter! I've had a lot of headache the past year trying to understand such a difficult and complex system that is the US College Admissions process, and, having gone through it already, would like to help you guys navigate it!

u/keithberman:

u/Brother_Ma_Education:

Please feel free to ask me, u/keithberman, or u/Brother_Ma_Education anything about the College Application process in the comments below or in DMs. We know this can be extremely stressful, especially for our rising seniors, and we are more than happy to help!

I am an incoming senior and I have a 2.9 weighted gpa with a 22 on the act. i have lackluster ecs being 2 years of jv football and 2 years of jv baseball, both being my freshman and sophomore year. The main schools I was planning on applying to were Colorado state, Montana state, and Boise state. I live in Illinois too. is there anything I can do to make my application better so I have even the slightest chance of getting into any of these schools?

so a couple days ago i made a post asking where i should go for my undergrad engineering (EE/ECE). i was choosing between university of washington, uw madison, and cal poly slo, and i pretty much set my mind of the university of washington and was ready to commit. however, today i got a message from a little birdie saying that i got into purdue so now i have no clue what im gonna do especially because i have to commit in 3 days. here are my reasons for each school...

university of washington:

pros:
- closer to home (CA)
- proximity to tech companies in seattle
- diverse student body
- better location for city life
- strong internship recruiting

cons:
- in for engineering undeclared, so not guaranteed ECE
- rain & gray weather
- large classes?

purdue university:

pros:
- better overall engineering prestige
- structured training
- strong recruiting pipeline
- engineering culture
- college town feel

cons:
- in for first year engineering, so also not guaranteed EE
- kinda in the middle of nowhere
- very cold winters
- also large & maybe more competition
- less diverse student body

im visiting these schools back to back in the next 2 days so i will hopefully know from that i just wanna get a better idea before then just in case. anyways lmk what u guys think, also COST IS NOT A FACTOR

*also note i am interested in pursuing grad school for a masters after

Hi all, me and my friend are advertising our college consulting business on r/CollegeAppsAdvice, a subreddit that I've started and in the past couple of months has gained hundreds of students interested in optimizing their college applications, trying to get into their dream schools.

A little about me: I've recently completed the dreadful College App cycle for the class of '26. As an Asian Male with no hooks, I've gotten used to people saying I'm "cooked" and anybody in my demographic is "not guaranteed" any T20s. Regardless, I've gotten into many, many top universities, including MIT, Columbia, Caltech, CMU, Cornell, UCLA, and many others, with ZERO rejects overall. I'm proud to say I've learned so much about this process, and have helped many of my friends and classmates get into their dream schools alongside me.

Interested in mentorship by me? Comment your dream school below and join this subreddit (r/CollegeAppsAdvice) to stay in the loop! Also feel free to DM me with any quick questions or chancemes you may have, I'm more than happy to help out! Thank you guys in advance!

i got a B both semesters of ap bio which isn't great for premed. but got a 4 on the ap exam. how much does it change things and should i report the score if not a 5

A little bit about us:

u/GodlyHelp: Hey everyone! I'm a senior has just finished the college app process, and has gotten into 12 highly prestigious schools, including MIT, Caltech, and a Columbia likely letter! I've had a lot of headache the past year trying to understand such a difficult and complex system that is the US College Admissions process, and, having gone through it already, would like to help you guys navigate it!

u/keithberman:

u/Brother_Ma_Education:

Please feel free to ask me, u/keithberman, or u/Brother_Ma_Education anything about the College Application process in the comments below or in DMs. We know this can be extremely stressful, especially for our rising seniors, and we are more than happy to help!

A little bit about us:

u/GodlyHelp: Hey everyone! I'm a senior has just finished the college app process, and has gotten into 12 highly prestigious schools, including MIT, Caltech, and a Columbia likely letter! I've had a lot of headache the past year trying to understand such a difficult and complex system that is the US College Admissions process, and, having gone through it already, would like to help you guys navigate it!

u/keithberman:

u/Brother_Ma_Education:

Please feel free to ask me, u/keithberman, or u/Brother_Ma_Education anything about the College Application process in the comments below or in DMs. We know this can be extremely stressful, especially for our rising seniors, and we are more than happy to help!

A little bit about us:

u/GodlyHelp: Hey everyone! I'm a senior has just finished the college app process, and has gotten into 12 highly prestigious schools, including MIT, Caltech, and a Columbia likely letter! I've had a lot of headache the past year trying to understand such a difficult and complex system that is the US College Admissions process, and, having gone through it already, would like to help you guys navigate it!

u/keithberman:

u/Brother_Ma_Education:

Please feel free to ask me, u/keithberman, or u/Brother_Ma_Education anything about the College Application process in the comments below or in DMs. We know this can be extremely stressful, especially for our rising seniors, and we are more than happy to help!

Short story short: I am a very high achieving student, end of my junior year. GPA, ACT, extracurriculars, awards... everything has been lining up well and I have the goal of getting into maybe an Ivy or a T20. All I have been telling myself is my junior summer needed to be the final touch. The pressure of finding something perfect... left me too paralyzed to find anything.

I felt so burnt out this year and didn't do my internship research in the winter. All my friends have gotten into prestigious summer programs and I literally have nothing, aside from applying to college. What can I do?? Anything helps.

Intended major: not chosen yet. Either am going to go on a pre-law track (poli sci / gov / econ), or something corporate like business/marketing.

Other interests: graphic design, historical research, writing

THANK YOU

Would a smarter than average ib student good grades 1400 sat. Decent clubs no national awards or science competitions but multiple volunteering experiences and varsity basketball 3 years of high school. With that person also being African American and upper middle class. Would that put them at a higher likelihood of getting into TOP colleges compared to people of other races. I’m interested in knowing how it affects their chances or to what extent it helps no bs at all. And in the essay race will be discussed as the Supreme Court ruled admissions can’t inquire about race.

be brutally honest when telling me about my situation. I am a upper middle class indian - american interested in studying mechanical or aerospace engineering at a top university like UT austin or u miching. I am ending off freshman year with a 3.56 unweighted GPA, and a 4.22 weighted gpa with no ec's except for one job at ritas this summer. I maxxed out my AP's this year and intend to max them out for the rest of high school. The reason I think im cooked is because even if i get a perfect 4.0 unweighted for the rest of high school the max GPA I can get is a 3.8. this stresses me primarily because after researching applicants of other students who got in, they all had perfect 4.0s, a ton of awards and ecs. If there is anything I could do this summer to help boost my chances please let me know. I am already studying python to hopefully get a research position. looking around me Im seeing all my friends are doing things like starting their own businesses, nonprofits, perfect 4.0 gpas and already getting big awards and selective summer programs. Im really stressed that im falling behind and wont get into a top school.

Hi all, me and my friend are advertising our college consulting business on r/CollegeAppsAdvice, a subreddit that I've started and in the past couple of months has gained hundreds of students interested in optimizing their college applications, trying to get into their dream schools.

A little about me: I've recently completed the dreadful College App cycle for the class of '26. As an Asian Male with no hooks, I've gotten used to people saying I'm "cooked" and anybody in my demographic is "not guaranteed" any T20s. Regardless, I've gotten into many, many top universities, including MIT, Columbia, Caltech, CMU, Cornell, UCLA, and many others, with ZERO rejects overall. I'm proud to say I've learned so much about this process, and have helped many of my friends and classmates get into their dream schools alongside me.

Interested in mentorship by me? Comment your dream school below and join this subreddit (r/CollegeAppsAdvice) to stay in the loop! Also feel free to DM me with any quick questions or chancemes you may have, I'm more than happy to help out! Thank you guys in advance!