<p>Before you get too involved with this, let me inform you that this entire thing is going to be pointless. By pointless I mean, extending to you all that I am about to will not help you much. But I suppose most instances people use this forum just to bring relief to themselves. After 3 months of some minute activity here, I too have submitted before the tradition.</p>
<p>I saw brown for the first time at this very place. No it wasn’t love at the first encounter. In fact the name disgusted me. How uncreative and easy it was to name something after an alum in view of his gift of a $5000. But gradually I fell in love for all the right reasons except for the Emma factor. Though I researched thoroughly and knew my chances, I made the proposal anyway. I did in time though. 30th December 2010.
So what’s so interesting about this?
Well for one, I am an international(Pakistani). You know that doesn’t help. Secondly, I am not a rich kid. Instead of assuring great sums of money which most of my rivals did, I demonstrated the audacity to request for her aid while expecting an acceptance of the proposal. I understand that is not gentlemanly, but there is nothing much I could do. As a kid I always fantasized how money couldn’t determine the quality of one’s education. Unfortunately I do even now. This detachment from reality is actually disturbing. Getting an acceptance from brown is difficult, let alone with little financial contribution.
Obviously I couldn’t do much about the money and international status. But there was a thing still in my hands- The Proposal Itself. </p>
<p>Essays, Transcripts, Sat Scores, Recommendation, Interview, rank, Extra Curricular Activities together constitute the proposal for a darling such as Brown( pardon my choice of words). Through hard work, planning, and some appropriate decisions, I could use these factors to strengthen my chances. Now here’s what I did.
Transcripts: My schooling until O levels was pretty good. Through good study habits, I managed A’s in all of my 10 rigorous courses for the three years. (maths, English, Islamiyat, Pakistan Studies, Urdu, Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Additional Mathematics, Commerce). Consequently, I graduated from the school as a Salutatorian. For my A Levels I moved to a new school. For some reason or the other, I let go of everything. My grades deteriorated and as a result of severe procrastination, my mental sharpness and concentration for exams just didn’t remain the same. All of my good work of the previous years was negated with a relatively weak second transcript.
Sat Scores: Though I managed to get both my Sat Subjects above the 700 mark(730 maths 2 and 710 physics), I gave my SAT reasoning at a time when my capability just wasn’t the same. A normal brown seeker would look to attain a 2100 to feel safe. I aimed at 2200. Scoring a 2250 in the last practice test, I felt good for the exam day. But it wasn’t to be. A year wasted in Procrastination and laziness was going to come back to haunt me. And it did right on the test day. I panicked like I never did before and just couldn’t deliver the goods. I felt short of my target. 220 points short.
Extra Curricular: Again, I didn’t do much here. All I have in my EC’s is dancing, tennis, acting. These things I love doing and Have been doing since I was 4. But other than that, I haven’t done what most students do to secure a place in a good university. I know all that grooms them. I know all those activities, those competitions, those forums, those experiences help them prepare for their future , But I always preferred doing little things that are beyond the scope of recordation. Simply put, If somebody was to ask me an achievement of mine, I would tell them ‘I have stared at a clock dial for an entire one hour’.
Interview: My interviewer was a brown alum and his family was one of the 50 richest families of my country. We found common ground through our fascinations with lawn tennis. He said he was pleased with the amount of information I had regarding brown and would write a good word for me.
Essays and Recommendations: This Part is unarguably the strongest of my application. My recommendations I suppose are up to the mark. In my essays(or love notes I should say), I have been myself- A dancer cum prospective engineer. But Days after I submitted them, I realized I had made a couple of punctuation mistakes. I immediately rushed to this forum to see if I wasn’t the only one. To my relief, I wasn’t the only one.
For the supplement question that asks prospective engineers the reason why they want to do engineering, I gave an idea in which I said this, ( directly quoted from my supplement)
‘I want to learn engineering, and create what engineers are renowned for; a bridge. but the one, no engineer has created before. The ultimate bridge between societies, communities, ideologies, so that we enjoy every progress we make to the fullest and most importantly, together’. This was an idea completely original and something I wholeheartedly wished to do. Days later I was just going through brown’s site and I read almost the same thing under the school of engineering tab. ‘engineers at brown create bridges-between disciplines, concentrations…’. A Complete coincidence. Though It made me feel that I was actually a fit for brown, Adcoms would surely see it as a case of plagiarism. At first I thought I should contact the admission department saying how this was unintentional. But It was like bringing notice to something that could have possibly been missed. Again it turned out to be an imperfect segment of my application.
This is not a chance me thread. I believe I am sound enough to understand where I stand. If I have to quantify, I’d say my chance is 0.1. but you know, “In Deo Speramus”.
I have so much to do with likely-ness. My acceptance is too unlikely and my rejection is too likely, so I might receive a third response. ‘The Likely Letter’. (wow!! kill me for my optimism)
sorry this is long and boring, But I just wanted to write something. Something dear to me. Brown is for now the love of my life. Looks like it will also be unrequited.
Best of luck everybody. Do well. (Just wanted to share all this)</p>
