<p>Decision: Accepted</p>
<p>Objective:[ul]
[<em>] SAT I (breakdown): 2340 (800 Math, 740 Reading, 800 Writing, 12 Essay)
[</em>] ACT: 36 (36 Math, 35 English, 36 Science, 35 Reading, 9 Essay)
[<em>] SAT Subject Tests: 800 Math, 770 USH, 770 Chem
[</em>] Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.99
[<em>] Weighted GPA: 4.5 (irrelevant)
[</em>] Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 7/421
[<em>] AP (place score in parenthesis): Stats 5, Comp Sci 5, Calc BC 5, AP Physics C Mechanics 5, AP Physics E&M 4, AP Eng Lang 5, AP Chem 5, AP Gov 5
[</em>] IB (place score in parenthesis):
[<em>] Senior Year Course Load: 5 APs (most possible)
[</em>] Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): None, though NMF and National AP Scholar
[/ul]Subjective:[ul]
[<em>] Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): Academic Challenge/Quiz Bowl (Varsity Co-Captain, JV Captain), High School Orchestra (Concertmaster), Asian Cultural Club (Secretarial Officer), Newspaper, Piano, Tennis
[</em>] Job/Work Experience: Computer Business/General IT
[<em>] Volunteer/Community service: >200 hours, hospitals, teaching, soup kitchens, etc.
[</em>] Summer Activities: Two internships.
[<em>] Essays (subjects and personal opinions): ? As in the Common App? Fine, I think. Wrote the main essay on topic of growth.
[</em>] Common App Main Essay: Decent, maybe even good, but not great. I had it looked over by my counselor, four teachers, and a close friend, but it was still largely my construct.
[<em>] Additional Essay: Nothing spectacular about my interest in both biology and engineering, but it was pretty well polished at that point.
[</em>]EC Essay: A bit rushed, but not detrimental. Can’t say it helped too much.
[<em>] Teacher Recommendation 1: AP English Comp teacher, knew me well and held a high regard for my writing and class participation.
[</em>] Teacher Recommendation 2: AP Chem teacher, knew me well and helped me with an internship, a little unknown.
[<em>] Counselor Rec: Solid, or at least it should have been. My counselor has known me well for four years.
[</em>] Additional Rec:
[<em>] Interview: Ummm…what?
[/ul]Other[ul]
[</em>] State (if domestic applicant): OH
[<em>] Country (if international applicant):
[</em>] School Type: Public, competitive but not overly so.
[<em>] Ethnicity: Asian
[</em>] Gender: Male
[<em>] Income Bracket:
[</em>] Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): None
[/ul]Reflection[ul]
[<em>] Strengths: Strong test scores, and that’s just about it.
[</em>] Weaknesses: Everything but test scores. No strong ECs, no strong awards, lacking profile as a whole. Essays certainly were nowhere near as good as they would needed to have been to outweigh the downsides. And a cookie-cutter Asian applicant. I guess everyone gets lucky sometime.
[<em>] Why you think you were accepted/waitlisted/rejected: I AM LEGION. Evidently, they do have to take a number of generic applicants each year. I have no clue how I got into BME with my complete dearth of engineering (except bridge building), but who knows. Our school actually has a handful of students accepted to BME, so it seems like they opened up the program quite a bit this year.
[</em>] Where else were you accepted/waitlisted/rejected: Ha ha ha…
Accepted: Cornell, UChicago, Carnegie Mellon, Tufts, CWRU, OSU
WL: Northwestern, WUSTL
Rejected: UPenn (no surprise there, terrible application overall), Yale (Ouch.)
[/ul]General Comments: To those who were accepted, my congratulations! You represent those chosen from a strong pool of hopefuls, and I wish you the best (maybe I’ll see you around)! To the waitlisted, well, you still have quite an accomplishment on your hands. JHU doesn’t boast a huge waitlist, so you just had some bad luck; it is not a reflection of your ability. And to the rejected, you will be heading to strong institutions anyways, maybe not JHU, but other excellent places. Yes, you tried and missed (as I have many, many times), but in a year of extraordinary competition, that can only reflect positively on your motivation, ambition, and drive. My best wishes to you. And to all, live long and prosper!</p>