[ color=green]Decision: Accepted, fall 2017[/color]
Date applied: November 30? idk it was right before scholarship deadline
Date decision postmarked/received: Postmarked 3/23, received 3/24
Which school/major at USC: Mechanical Engineering @ Viterbi (first choice!)
Scholarships: no merit scholarships but prayin 4 some need-based aid
Objective:
SAT I (breakdown): 1500 new SAT (770 math, 730 reading)
ACT (breakdown):
SAT II (place score in parentheses): only submitted math II (760) to USC since they (engineering admissions) told me that they won’t even look at subject test scores
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): long story short, my school’s gpa system did a 180 halfway through my high school career so it’s technically a 3.8 even though I should have a 3.9
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): top 10%
AP (place score in parentheses): Calc AB (5), Physics 1 (5), Eng lang (4), Spanish lang (4)
IB (place score in parentheses): n/a
Senior Year Course Load: Calc BC, AP Comp Sci A, Economics, AP Eng Lit, AP Physics C (mainly E&M but it’s technically both)
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): nah man
Subjective:
Extracurriculars (place leadership in parentheses): Publications photography (member for two, assistant leader for one, leader for one), VEX robotics (leadership board member for 3 as team photographer and publicity manager), math club, varsity lacrosse for 4 years (my school’s so small that we technically only have a varsity team but shhh), and technically Spanish Honors Society and Cum Laude don’t count but imma put them here anyways
Job/Work Experience: my school paid me to take pics at an event once?
Volunteer/Community Service: 500+ hours at the Orthopaedic Institute for Children
Summer Activities: MechE research @ USC last summer
Essays (rating 1-10, details): ¯_(ツ)/¯ sorry I generally don’t like my essays at all so my ranking won’t be v helpful, was more confident about UC ones
Teacher Recommendations (rating 1-10, details): 9 or 10; my physics teacher really liked me and my college counselor said that she writes really good letters of rec so I think it was pretty good
Counselor Rec (rating 1-10, details): ¯_(ツ)/¯ at my school it’s a board of teachers that write this so idk who exactly wrote it, but most teachers at the very least are indifferent about me/don’t hate me lol
Additional Rec (rating 1-10, details): 7 or 8; my spanish teacher is super chill and pretty nice (and my advisor) so it couldn’t have been that bad, but I know she also was also mad at me for not talking much in class
Interview: lowkey effed that up because verbal communication isn’t my thing, esp when I’m stressed ^__^;;
Other
Applied for Financial Aid? mhm
State (if domestic applicant): CA
Country (if international applicant):
School Type: Small, Private
Ethnicity: Mixed Japanese/White
Gender: Female
Income Bracket: ~150k
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): female in STEM (when I toured there, engineering really stressed that they want more females at viterbi), double legacy
Reflection
Strengths: EC’s, test score(s)
Weaknesses: GPA
Why you think you were accepted/deferred/rejected: I wanna say it was my passion n my high commitment to a few activities throughout high school but idk (I’m not sure how much legacy had to do with it either bc neither of my parents are super involved in alumni stuff)
Where else you are applying or have already applied: UCB, UCI, UCSD, UVA, CMU, WashU (in st. louis), UMich, Purdue, UIUC, Hopkins, Stanford (rip)
General Comments/Advice/Hindsight: honestly I had no clue usc admissions were this wild; going into this, I expected that a lot of my friends with similar stats and involvement would be an easy in but so far nearly every admission/denial has been a big surprise.
Also just a tip that even if you think your interview wasn’t that great, you still have a chance!