DECISION: Accepted
APPLIED TO : Northwestern School of Communication (Theatre)
(Regular Decision)
Objective:
- SAT I (Comp, Essay, CR, M, CW): 1st Try: 1270, Essay: 7 6 7, Math: 590, Reading: 680 2nd Try: 1310, Essay: 6 6 7, Math: 630, Reading: 680
- ACT (Comp, Essay, Eng, Math, Read, Sci): N/A
- SAT II (Type, Score): N/A -WEIGHTED GPA (out of 5.0): 4.22 -UNWEIGHTED GPA (out of 4.0): 3.99 (Got a B+ in flippin' Driver's ED) -RANK (percentile if rank is unavailable):1/66 -AP (place score in parenthesis): US History (3) (There is a total of 5 AP courses in my entire high school) -IB (place score in parenthesis): N/A -SENIOR YEAR COURSE LOAD: AP Calc, AP Lit & Comp, AP Stats, AP 2D Studio Art, Intro to Business, Fundamentals of Art and Design, Digital Design, Recent US History -MAJOR AWARDS (USAMO, Intel etc.): BPA Regional Competition Graphic Design Finalist, Illinois State Scholar, WYSE first place sectional winner in Math and English (Did not put that on CommonApp)
Subjective:
-EXTRACURRICULARS (place leadership in parenthesis): Student Council (President), Student Class Officer, NHS,
Freshmen Mentoring, BPA (President 2 years), Fine Arts Club, Volleyball (2 years), Basketball (2 years), School
play (Lead in 2 plays), Yearbook (Head of Marketing), Spanish Club, Performer in Fine Arts Festival, Voice
Lessons, Volunteer Church Choir (I am about 4 decades younger than everyone in the choir)
-JOB/WORK EXPERIENCE: Summer Corn Detasseler (2 years)
-VOLUNTEER/COMMUNITY SERVICE: 6th & 7th grade math tutor, Feed my starving children, Opera house usher,
FFA Fair petting zoo helper, (I basically have done a lot of small volunteer jobs here and there)
-SUMMER ACTIVITIES: 1 NIU Summer Theatre camp and Detasseling
-ESSAYS:
NU Essay: Talked about how acting is the hardest profession because it is so unpredictable, talked about my love
for theatre, focused on some of the NU student organizations, talked about the laid back atmosphere, I tried to
throw a lot of big words in there, didn’t get into enough detail about the theatre program (7.3/10)
CommonApp Essay: Prompt = a time I experienced failure, wrote about how I failed my driver’s test twice, very
comedic, made it super self-deprecating and entertaining, probably the funniest essay I have ever written, lots
of imagery and like no big words, biggest word = “ineptitude” (9/10)
-RECOMMENDATIONS: I have been pretty close with all of the teachers, faculty, and even the principal and
superintendent in my school since I am pretty outgoing and my school is so small, plus I am the only black person in
my grade so it’s kind of hard not to stand out; I got recommendations from my English teacher, art teacher, and
school counselor, and I am pretty sure they are all (10/10)
Other:
-STATE (if domestic applicant): Illinois
-TOWN: Very small town, predominantly white, more corn fields than people, more pick-up trucks than corn fields,
more American flags than pick-up trucks, tourist attraction is a Dollar General, half-hour away from the nearest
grocery store
-SCHOOL TYPE: Public, small: about 250 students total, has an annual bring-your-tractor-to-school day
-ETHNICITY: Black
-GENDER: Female
-INCOME BRACKET: ~150k
-ASSETS: N/A
-PROPERTY: N/A
-EXTENUATING CIRCUMSTANCES: None
-HOOKS (URM, first generation college, etc.): Minority
Why you think you were accepted/not accepted and general comments:
I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO FLIPPIN’ CLUE HOW I GOT IN. I know that I am a black girl from a small white town, but my stats are not really good…like not…at…all. I mean I guess I did a lot of EC’s, but considering that I have a class of about 66 students, it doesn’t seem that impressive to me. I think they may have let my low stats kind of slide because I was applying to the theatre program. My recommendations were really good, but my essay about my failed driver’s tests was probably the best thing about application. I’m sure it was the thing that made me stand out from the rest. Northwestern probably got a good laugh out of my pain. I am a really sucky driver.
ADVICE TO FUTURE APPLICANTS: Don’t be afraid to be comedic in your CommonApp essay. If comedy is one of your strengths, go for it. I was really hesitant about doing a comedic essay at first because when I read other examples of essays responding to the same prompt they were all very serious and somewhat sad. I considered writing about some things in my life that were more “difficult” seeming, like being the only black girl in my school or having divorced parents, but I thought that would be taking the easy way out. My life has always been really cushy, and I did not want to pretend that it hasn’t been. So, I just took a very minor incident in my life and wrote about that, making fun of how absurdly serious I believed it to be, yet I also found a way to tie it into a heartfelt lesson about failure itself. I showed a lot more personality writing about that than anything else I could have written about. I hope this helps anyone out there who’s not sure what to write about for their CommonApp essay.
OTHER SCHOOLS I APPLIED TO:
Accepted: University of Illinois-Urbana, North Central College, Loyola Marymount University, UC Davis, Bradley
University, Northern Illinois University
Waitlisted: None
Rejected: UCLA