Decision: Accepted
**Date applied: ** 12/1/16
Date decision postmarked/received: uhuhuhuh it’s in the living room i’m kind of lazy sry evry1
Which school/major at USC: Viterbi/Chemical Engineering (Polymer Science)
Scholarships: LOL
Objective:
SAT I (breakdown): CR780/M 800/W780 Essay: 9
ACT (breakdown): 34 (didn’t submit)
SAT II (place score in parentheses): 800 Math II, 770 Chem
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 4.0
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 10 @time of application
AP (place score in parentheses): World History (5), Chemistry (5), Biology (5), Lang (5), US History (5), Calc AB (5)
IB (place score in parentheses): nah
Senior Year Course Load: Debate, AP Gov/AP Econ, Advanced Choir, AP Physics 1, AP Spanish Language, AP Lit, AP Calc BC
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): lmao
nothing major
Subjective:
Extracurriculars (place leadership in parentheses): gu4jfidkmg this takes so long to write but i know little CC stalkers wanna see and this is what i read religiously last year so **in no particular order
- Debate
- Choir (Librarian, Section Leader, Secretary)
- Basketball (Frosh–don’t think I put this on apps)
- Piano
- Independent Research
Job/Work Experience: Worked as a boba shop cashier for a summer
Volunteer/Community Service: - California Scholarship Federation (Tech Coordinator, Treasurer)
- Volunteered in Taiwan for a summer teaching English to underprivileged students
- Freshman Focus (help freshmen get used to high school and such)
- Local science academy
- Library stuffz
- Playing piano at the hospital
That’s all I remember tbh
Summer Activities: Church camp, SAT prep, the Taiwan things
Essays (rating 1-10, details): honestly quite meh, i wrote about Yelp when writing about my favorite website; that was a buttload of fun! My CommonApp essay in general was about the reasoning behind the different phone passwords I’ve had (all molar masses of chemical compounds important to me)
Teacher Recommendations (rating 1-10, details): Hm, I only read 1 and I thought it was good, but what do I know?
Counselor Rec (rating 1-10, details): p good, again, can’t assign a rating as a I don’t know what makes it good
Additional Rec (rating 1-10, details): didn’t read my research mentors!
Interview: none bb bc i looked at the website a week after deadline LMAO
Other
Applied for Financial Aid? Yeah but I’m not going to get it lol
State (if domestic applicant): CA! :^)
Country (if international applicant): -
School Type: Public
Ethnicity: Chinese
Gender: Female
Income Bracket: v high
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): female in engineering??
Reflection
Strengths: Objective–scores
Weaknesses: Subjective–ECs, essays
Why you think you were accepted/deferred/rejected: Strong scores mostly, and essays that didn’t scare them away.
Where else you are applying or have already applied:
UC Berkeley (admitted early for Regents’ candidacy), UCLA (regents), UCSB (regents), UCSD (regents + jacobs full ride scholarship), UCD (regents), MIT (rejected–mmmmm yes music to my ears), CalTech (also rejected!! :^)), Northwestern (waitlisted yeah boy), Rice (also waitlisted yeah boy), Cal Poly SLO (invited to apply for some scholarships and honors but didn’t apply), Georgia Tech (admitted)
Stanford, still waiting for that $90 rejection letter !!
General Comments/Advice/Hindsight: Don’t let CC freak you out! Whether you’ve already applied or are thinking of applying, you can never be sure that you will be rejected (or accepted, for that matter) from any school. Wherever you end up, you’re going to do amazing things, so calm your nerves!
Also if anyone tells you scores don’t matter they’re lying–I personally believe they’re the most important factor in admissions (note: this doesn’t mean other things don’t have any weight).