Demographics
- Arab upper middle class female US citizen living abroad.
- Private high school
- additional info: Parents both went to college in their home countries. Mom is a homemaker and dad is a telecom engineer. I grew up in a really abusive household and have fought to achieve everything I’ve achieved so far because of it. I’m also currently on a gap year.
Intended Major(s) Political Science; Aiming for law school afterward.
GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
- Unweighted HS GPA: 3.8
- Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): 4.11
- Class Rank: Valedictorian, 1/92
- SAT Scores: 1540 superscore
Coursework
- 7 honors classes and 5 APs; AP Bio, AP Lang and Composition, AP World History, AP US Gov, AP Calc AB. For context on AP Calc: I failed AP Calc AB my junior year due to family problems and abuse that made me really struggle to have the motivation to focus and do well on challenging classes. This was the only class I had ever gotten a horrible grade in throughout high school. For the rest of my transcript, I had 4 Bs throughout all four years and the rest is all As (except for ap calc, obviously)–also all As my sophomore and senior years.
Awards
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the President’s Volunteer Service Award (Bronze)
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Third place in the impromptu speaking category of an international public-speaking tournament.
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37th best speaker out of 300 speakers and 18th best team in another international debate tournament.
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Valedictorian
Extracurriculars (most to least important)
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On the university-level national debate team of my country of residence. Was 1 of 5 debaters selected out of 350 to represent the country and participated in over 30 international tournaments and also judged 3 international tournaments.
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Moot court; Mentored (and trained in moot court) by a law student who’s the moot court champion of her country and best speaker in the continent as a whole. Helped organize an international moot court competition and got the supreme court judges of Ghana to be on the adjudicating panel.
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Intern at the continental debate association of my continent of residence; Was a regional debate trainer responsible for training and mentoring high school debaters from around the continent. organized an international women-only debate tournament that was aimed at empowering women from all around the world through public speaking.
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Founder and captain of my school’s debate club. Was responsible for discussing and choosing motions, occasionally judging, and captaining the team i was on when I was one of the debaters. Club had around 23 members and is by far one of the most successful clubs at my school even now after I’ve graduated.
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Volunteered as a tutor and helped guide and tutor low/income students /students from disadvantaged neighborhoods in english, math (algebra 2 and SAT Math), and history. tutored over 130 students. 120 service hours through this which earned me the President’s Volunteer Service Award (Bronze-tier).
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Currently working as an English teacher.
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Freelance digital artist and graphic designer; designed logos for a small business and have been commissioned many times for my painting skills. $2000 in profits, a big portion of which was donated to charities that align with things I’ve advocated for.
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Was treasurer and then secretary during my time at the National Honor Society. My least important extracurricular I’d say.
Essays/LORs/Other
- I haven’t written my essay yet, but I’m very confident in my writing abilities and will be heavily touching on the challenges I faced coming from a conservative, toxic family and how their values clashed with my outspoken nature and passion for debate. In terms of LORs, I’m getting one from my AP history teacher who knows me best out of all my teachers and who is also the supervisor of the debate club I founded.
Cost Constraints / Budget
- No cost constraints
Schools
- Safety: Rutgers (regular decision)
- Likely: Purdue (regular decision)
- Match: New York University (my dream school to be frank) Applying Early Decision I
- Reach: Ivys and UCLA? (regular decision)