I recently received my admissions decisions back from UNC and State (EA) only to find that I’ve been deferred from both schools. I don’t know if I should give up now or if it’s worth it to stay hopeful for when RD results come out, so I figured I’d try to talk about it here to get a better understanding of where exactly I stand.
Gender: Female
Ethnicity: White
Intended Major: Chemistry/Biochemistry (Neuroscience minor)
School Type: Small charter school
Class Rank: N/A
Scores
SAT Composite: 1410, Essay: 7/6/7
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.85
AP Classes: WHAP, AP Calculus BC, AP Language & Composition, APUSH, AP Government & Politics, AP Literature, AP Physics I, AP Calculus BC
Honors Classes: all remaining classes freshman-senior year; Honor Roll for all 4 years
Additional: I also took an online Intro to Neuroscience course through Brown University during the summer between my sophomore and junior year
Extracurriculars/work/volunteer experience
- 6-week Summer Research Internship at UNC-CH in the Dept. of Chemistry;
- Designed my own experiments and gave poster presentation of my findings at my school
- Data is expected to be used in upcoming academic article currently under review for publication
- Began volunteering once a week after internship ended
- I included my abstract from this research project in the “Additional Information” portion of my Common App
- Yearbook, 2016-2018 (Editor-in-Chief, Creative Arts Director, Photography Editor)
- Photography Editor/Creative Arts Director of 2016-2017 yearbook; yearbook won National Award of Excellence
- Editor-in-Chief of 2017-2018 yearbook and creator of cover design
- Varsity Basketball, 2016-2018 (Co-captain)
- Recognized as North Carolina Scholar Athlete and received varsity letter
- Childs Rights and You, (CRY America)
- Contacted local businesses requesting donations for annual walk to raise awareness for the organization’s cause
- National Honor Society, 2016-2018
- Completed over 60 volunteer hours per year involved
- Science Olympiad, 2015-2016 (Treasurer)
- Organized fundraisers to help jumpstart the club as it was the first year it was offered at our school
- Won first place in first division events and qualified for states
- Student Government Association, 2014-1018 (Member)
Common App/Supplemental Essays
- Common App: About my struggles growing up with anxiety and depression and how this has affected my ability to succeed in school. Personally, I felt that this was fairly well-written and I feel pretty good about it overall, but I understand how the topic may not resonate well with some people.
- Why do you want to pursue (intended major): For this prompt, I spoke again about my struggles with my mental health, but I focused more on the process of getting a proper diagnoses/treatment and how I later wanted to pursue a Ph.D. in neuroscience to study psychopharmacology. I chose to major in chemistry, though, because I wanted to have a different background that could still be applied to neuroscience later on in my education, and also because if I happened to change my mind about what field of study I wish to pursue in grad school, it would be easier to transition from a more general area of study.
- What do you hope will change about the place where you live: I wrote about how people, in general, are relatively unwilling to expand their social groups outside of people that are similar to them. I focused a lot on how discrimination, whether it be deliberate or subconscious, is the result of ignorance and the unwillingness to understand concepts we aren’t yet familiar with, and how I wanted to see this change within my community.
- What is one thing we don’t know about you that you want for us to know: For this one I wrote about how I was really passionate about photography and journalism although I’ve always wanted to pursue a career in STEM and research. Looking back, there are so many things I wish I had written about instead, but you know, hindsight’s always 20/20.
Recommendations (3 Total)
- Math teacher that has had me for 3 out of 4 years in high school
- English teacher/yearbook advisor that’s had me as a student for the past 2 years. She was also named the North Carolina Charter High School Teacher of the Year – not sure if that matters so much, though.
- P.I. of the research project I worked on at UNC – he’s also a Kenan Distinguished Professor and teaches a lot of the chemistry courses at UNC.
I’m assuming I was deferred because of my essays or because of choosing chemistry as my intended major, but if anyone is able to offer some insight as to whether or not I’ll be accepted in April, I’d greatly appreciate it!