GPA - 4.0 W 3.7 UW(Most rigorous course load. Took like 7 aps and got 5s and 4s)
Percentile - Top 10%
SAT - 1500 (770 Math /730 Reading) Will retake and get 1550+
Ethnicity - South Asian (International)
SAT2 - Math 2 - 790 Chemistry - 770 History - 760
Intended major - Finance
Financial aid - can afford 25k per year might take out loans aswell
ECs
Started an unofficial business (Can't start an official one due to laws) where I repair and build computers. Managed to earn over 500 dollars so far. Assembled 40 computers in a 3 month period. Going to continue to expand this during breaks
Started a business in CSGO in trading guns and keys which is highly profitable.(Not gambling if anyone is wondering) More than 10k trades total. Made a lot of money. (Might not mention)
Maintaining a couple crypto currency miners. Made a huge cooling setup and everything. The money earned goes to my parents to help pay for expenses. Earning ~3k per month for my parents. Also trade various crypto currencies in my free time but haven't made any significant money.
Managing "munchies" at our school. Munchies is a small snack bar where we sell popcorn and other snacks. Profit made goes to our student council which then implement in buying resources for our school. Also I'm the VP of student council.
Learned some basic web development and created a photography blog for bird photography. Uploaded pictures every week. I usually get 10k unique visits weekly. Also incorporated Google ads to make some side money which helped fund cameras and the website itself.
Member of MUN. Helped organize a few conferences in which 5-6 schools attended. Also attended a large regional conference where I got an award.
Volunteering at an autism center where we played with kids and shadowed therapists. We also helped build and setup their sensory integration room.(2 hours everyday over 1 month)
Founder and president of the 3d printing club. Taught a bunch of kids how to 3d print. Also joined the enable the future program where you 3d print prosthetics for young amputees and send it to them. Also sold some 3d printed stuff earned like 150$ total.
Went on a community service trip to Jordan where we volunteered at Syrian refugee camp and lead projects with Syrian refugee children on what their view of the world is. Also came up with an action plan for our school.
Bought machines that turn waste food into fertilizer on behalf of student council. I maintain them. (10 minutes everyday) We got enough fertilizer to create a small garden in our school.
Made an app that is currently on the play store but it got like 0 traction. It's an app that helps you monitor how much money you are saving by not smoking. Lots of other cool facts and statistics pop up once in a while Like 400 downloads. Made it particularly for some family members who were quitting.
Resold streetwear locally. Hard to get access to hyped clothing unless you buy online. Made like 5k in revenue. (Probably won't mention this)
Member of the coding club in my school. Lead lots of projects in our school. Created a forums app specifically for our school. We also created the website for our school.
Work Experience-
Internship at a small private wealth management fund.
Might get an internship with a local professor
Awards-
-AP Scholar with distinction
-Best physics chem and physics student in grade 10.
I just like the overall vibe of Brown and I love the open curriculum but I haven’t completely decided yet as I’m still a junior. Why, is there something odd with my ECs? And also thanks for letting me know I can’t SCEA at Princeton while EDing at Brown.
“Started an unofficial business (Can’t start an official one due to laws)”
Number one on your list is an under-the-counter business? And you’re an international applicant? I think that’s likely to make adcoms wonder if you’d breach the terms of your student visa tbh. (It limits the work you can do. Due to laws.)
Oh damn didn’t think the AOs would think in that manner so I guess I won’t mention it then. What I meant by that statement was that expats in my country can’t start a business at all unless they were to get a sponsor who is a citizen but thanks for the advice didn’t think of it in that way.
Along the lines @SJ2727 alludes to - #1, #2 and #3 of your ECs might serve to imply to a college that you’re a hustler or scam artist, which would not be helpful for US college application purposes. Surely that’s not the case and some of this is just a misinterpretation due to cultural differences, but understand that creating this impression might be an issue for US college apps. US Colleges want to admit the next big business inventor or leader, not someone who’s going to hustle the other students out of their spending money or create an illegal gambling ring on campus.
I’m guessing instead of a scammer you’re a true entrepreneur at heart and those were just the opportunities available to you. Most successful entrepreneurs start young, they have a series of small ventures and are continually working on a new idea. Think about how you can rephrase the description along those lines; you don’t even have to mention the product or service your venture sells (and in fact, I would specifically avoid mentioning illegal businesses, gambling, guns or crypto currency). Instead, describe the business aspects and overall lessons learned to show how you are a budding serial entrepreneur.
It’s very hard to be objective enough about your own app to understand what overall impression it creates in a stranger (especially a stranger from another culture) because you know all the other details, the complete picture that makes you… you.
But college AOs only see a very, very tiny summary of who you are. They often spend less than 10 minutes on the first read, so every word counts. Every word creates an impression and the totality of the words creates their mental picture of who you are. Heck, even the order in which you present data influences their impression.
It can help to start from the end. What are the top 3 characteristics you want to convey? How can you arrange your app - word choice, order of description, etc - to best convey those three characteristics?
First of thanks for spending the time assessing my post and giving me very insightful advice.
Also I didn’t start a gambling ring lol the only reason I mentioned that is because many businesses related to CSGO are in some way related to gambling, but instead what I did was making it easier to trade skins through the use of bots. But I’ll definitely not mention that because it doesn’t sound any better.
How do you think I should phrase my ECs? You mentioned not revealing what my venture actually sells. How would I go about with that? #1 was me posting ads online looking for people who needed a computer built. Also did some very unique things with this eg made a couple water cooling loops and also base a computer with an oil cooling system which looks like the computer is in water. #2 I implemented an improved and faster system for trading skins. #3 I made a large cooling setup with my miners. I get what 2 and 3 will imply so I probably won’t include them.
What do you think about my other ECs? Do you think they can get me into a decent college because I’ve spent a lot of time in some of them. The 3 characteristics I want to portray are determined, entrepreneurial and opportunistic.
Your ECs definitely give the impression of entrepreneurial and opportunistic. Not sure they show determined, just because none of them seem to be a thing you stuck with or overcame a barrier to succeed. But I suspect some of this is just in how things are being presented and you’ll just have to expand to help readers make that connection.
Instead of focusing so much on the details of each individual venture, paint the big picture. The big picture might be that you are living in an area without much economic opportunity, yet you needed to figure out how to make income to ______ and have done so through a series of interesting ventures, including:
a service to assemble and service electronics
hosting a forum for gamers to trade and sell upgrades
reselling consumer goods
That may not be how you want to order or describe things, just some examples of how you might be able to convey your work without mentioning red flag phrases like gambling, guns, illegal, etc.
Also, when you choose which colleges to apply to - each of the very selective colleges are looking for certain key characteristics in an applicant. You will have the most chance of success when you figure out which college is looking for exactly what you are - determined, entrepreneurial, opportunistic.
You could be the most determined, entrepreneurial and opportunistic person ever to live and if that’s not what the college is looking for they will politely decline.
If you do some homework on each of the colleges you’re interested in and figure out what they’re looking for, that will give you a good idea on your chances of success. It’s not how badly you want them, it’s about how badly they want you. Figure out which one(s) value what you offer and apply there.
This says exactly the same thing as you said before: the law didn’t suit you, so you flouted it. If any hint of something like that gets into your application, it’s dead in the water. I agree with the way milee30 suggested you present it in post #8.
Of course, you’re aware that the colleges you are planning on here have very low admit rates, with many stellar students with stellar ECs applying. I trust you have some matches and safeties in mind too? Are you applying in countries other than the US as well?
Yes I’m also planning on applying to IU Bloomington, Purdue, Penn State, Drexel, ASU, and Hamilton. Still a junior so I’m still not 100% sure about all the colleges I’ll apply to. Would you say that my ECs (with a few tweaks) are competitive enough for a T20?