

Ask HN: How to get into a good university - namanyayg

I&#x27;m a 16 year old international student. Early admission happens at November. My goal is to get admitted at one of the top CS universities; MIT, Stanford, Harvard, and the likes.<p>I&#x27;ve won my continent&#x27;s space settlement design competition. I&#x27;m a winner of Google Code-In. I&#x27;ve freelanced as a designer and developer and have worked for over a year with a known technology blog among other clients. I head my school&#x27;s computer club.<p>My current plan is to get good a good score in the standardized tests, then start developing apps and webapps and hope that they get popular.<p>Will letters of recommendation from people like my old boss, or important figures from NASA&#x2F;Google help? What else can I do to strengthen my application?<p>- A confused kid
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jervisfm
Hi,

It's good that you're starting to think about your applications early.
Applying to college is a lot of work and one way you can help yourself is by
starting early. Do not procrastinate on this. Starting early, gives you more
time to prepare and ensure that you have the strongest possible application.

In my experience, Top schools look at your application holistically as a
package so there isn't just a single particular thing that will guarantee
admission. For example, it is possible to for a candidate with perfect SATs to
fail to get into Harvard. That's not to say SATs/test scores are not important
- a high SAT score does, all things being equal, improve you chances. But
rather, it is to show you that it alone is not sufficient.

So how do you get in ? You make sure each aspect of your application is as
strong as possible. This includes things like your SATs test scores, letters
of recommendation, application essay and the like. For SATs, one way to get
high scores is to just take many practice exams. This is hard work (the exam
is 3hrs+) but most of the question there follow a certain style and after
doing it a few times you will naturally get good at answering those questions.

On recommendation letters, my suggestion is to get letters from people who
know you really well and can speak candidly and accurately on your current
intellect as well as your potential for college-studies. The contents of the
letter matter much more than who writes it. For example, you say you lead your
high school computer club. I'd imagine that you have had a lot of interactions
with the computer instructors at your school in that capacity and so he/she is
really familiar with you and your skills at an intimate level. Such a
recommender is more likely to write a strong letter since they've seen and
know your work first hand.

One strategy that may help you determine if a recommender is a good fit is to
ask them: Can you write me a _strong_ recommendation letter ? Most would be up
front if that's not the case and politely decline if they cannot write you
such a letter. So if you can get _strong_ recommendation letter from someone
at Google/NASA, go for it. Otherwise, I'd get one from people who know you
well.

The other part of this is your application essay. Do spend time crafting that.
Unlike most of the pieces of the application, this is one part where you have
total control and you should use this to your advantage. Most top schools give
you freedom as to what you can write about, so put some real thought as to
what you'd like to focus on. Suggested topics to touch on include, why are you
passionate about CS and how did that happen. It's a good idea to have a close-
friend or instructor to review your essay. It helps to get a second pair of
eyes give you feedback. Make sure though that your voice and personality still
shines through in your essay after incorporating any feedback and making
adjustments.

I hope some of this is helpful.

Good luck!

