Background:
Current grade: 10
Graduating high school: 2027
Graduating college: 2031
Race: Asian American (2nd generation)
Gender: Male
School in Bay Area, CA. Moderately competitive but somewhat lacking for the area.
Expecting to apply for Economics/Applied Math
Coursework:
UW GPA: Currently 4.0, expecting it to stay above 3.85
Planning to take 7-9 AP courses (school offers 18) and 2 honors.
Currently taking AP Calc BC, going to take the test for Calc BC and Stats this year. AP Lang, APUSH, AP Physics C, and AP Spanish Lang next year. AP Econ, AP Lit, APCS, and APES as a senior. Took a stats course at a community college this past summer, and I’m intending to take advanced Python and R courses there in the future, as well as Linear Algebra, Differential Equations, and Multivariable Calculus. I’m also considering a general education class at community college, such as sociology or psychology, as well as something related to US government and/or politics or an economics course. In terms of standardized testing, I received a 1480/1520 on the PSAT and will take my first official SAT soon.
Extracurriculars:
- I’ve done cross country and track and field at my school both years so far. I am a cross country captain and hopefully will also be a track captain. I am unsure whether or not I intend on doing both sports for the following years based on my workload.
- Currently an editor for the school newspaper, intending on becoming editor-in-chief by the end of high school.
- Lots of volunteer work. Volunteered for environmental causes, as well as in a classroom assisting my former teacher. Won the Gold Medal PVSA (President’s Volunteer Service Award).
- Starting to write a blog about things I’m passionate about, from why we should abolish the electoral college in America to the fantasy cross country league I started at my school.
- The only club I’m part of at school is Mock Trial, which I joined this year
- I have a job as a the scoreboard operator for football and basketball games at my school
- Starting an internship in the coming months. I was accepted to a program which connects high schoolers to internships, and I will be interviewing with companies shortly and finding out my role. Not expecting a large role, and many who are part of this program are given a social media or data entry job. (StandOut Connect)
There is evidently not much cohesion or theme in my activities. I am keenly interested in them though, so I wouldn’t like to give the impression that these are things I’m only doing for college applications.
My future
I’m very interested in topics related to applied math and statistics. I have little coding experience so far, but I intend on building it to work on projects. I am a huge fan of sports statistics and I loved the work FiveThirtyEight did with their sports models and metrics. I am very fond of prediction models and their use, especially in sports and election related fields. I am very curious about how I can expand my own experience with projects or research. I intend on entering the field of statistics or economics, but am not entirely certain what I want to do. I am extremely interested in programs like Wharton Moneyball and different ways to apply math and statistics to sports. I am an avid spreadsheet user, and my new year’s resolution is pivoting from the thousands of cells on Google Sheets to a language like R.
Essays/LOR
N/A mainly. When I have requested LORs in the past they were very mediocre and I intend on strengthening my relationship with more teachers to receive stronger letters. As far as essays go, I have nothing more than a few ideas.
Cost constraints
N/A
Awards
PVSA Gold
Dream schools:
Duke
UMich
University of Southern California
UC Berkeley
UCLA
UT Austin
I will very readily admit that my application as it stands is very lackluster for the schools I intend on applying to. If anyone has any recommendations on how to strengthen it, that would be very much appreciated. Thank you!
