Accepted
Stats:[ul]
[]SAT: 2330 combined - 800 math 770 cr 760 writing (1 sitting)
[]SAT II: 790 bio m, 790 chem, 750/760 math 2
[]ACT: didn’t take
[]GPA: 104 weighted, 97 unweighted (my school uses a 100-point scale)
[]Rank: my school doesn’t rank but easily top 10
[]Other Tests (AMC, AP, IB): ap euro, chem, physics 1, statistics, us history - all 5
[]Current Classes: (adding this section because i think it’s important and i’ve seen it on other results threads) ap physics c, ap calc bc, ap art history, ap us gov, ap lit, independent study research
[/ul]Subjective[ul]
[]Essays: my personal statement was really good, i wrote about my passion for astrophysics and how i wont let anyone tell me it wont give me a career. my supplemental essays were also pretty good; answers ranged from maintaining academic integrity in the face of peer pressure to cosplaying. my answers were really frank and unscripted, i wrote each answer in one go with whatever popped into my head as a good answer and only lightly edited afterward
[]Teacher Recs: physics teacher - we’re really close, i do very well in her class, and she runs scioly in our school, but her english isnt great since she only emigrated to the us around the time the cold war ended
apush/9th grade history teacher - i did okay but he definitely likes me and we share similar taste in tv shows and stuff so we’re pretty tight outside of class too
[]Counselor Rec: he has high hopes for me even though we’re not particularly close so i’m sure it was fine
[]Supplementary Material: research paper; it wasn’t that great though and i was debating whether i should submit it for a while
[]Hook(recruited athlete, legacy, Nobel Prize): i wish…
[/ul]Personal[ul]
[]Location: ny
[]High School Type: public
[]Ethnicity: chinese
[]Gender: nonbinary (dfab)
[/ul]Other[ul]
[]Extracurriculars: summer internship at brookhaven, school astronomy club (president 2 years), school gay-straight alliance (treasurer 2 years), science olympiad, marching band, chinese dance, columbia science honors program
[]Awards: ap scholar with distinction, national honor society
[*]Advice? Commiserations? Feel like bragging?:[/ul] oh my god i’m shaking. i did not expect to get in at all!! i guess this shows that you don’t need a perfect math 2 score haha. my advice is really just to show who you are in your application! don’t act all stuffy because i think caltech really looks for creative people who know when to have fun while being hard workers! if you’re passionate about something, write about it and make sure everyone knows! especially if it’s a stem-related thing. oh and i have no idea if this played a role but…i answered the gender/sexuality question honestly and even if you’re cisgender and straight i think you should say so, even just to show that you acknowledge that there are more genders and orientations out there and/or that you clicked on the link they gave. or maybe that’s just my active-gsa-member/social justice side talking…