Decision: Accepted
Objective:
SAT I (breakdown): N/A
ACT (breakdown): 35C (36E 35M 35R 35S) 8/12 Essay
SAT II: Math II (800) Bio-E (760)
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.87
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 6/529
AP (place score in parenthesis): AP Bio (4) AP World History (4)
IB (place score in parenthesis):
Senior Year Course Load: Most rigorous, but I dropped hard classes to take choir and theatre lol
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): Boys Nation Senator, Questbridge Finalist
Subjective:
Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis):
Chess Club (founder, President)
NHS (Officer)
Book Club (Officer)
SkillsUSA (Officer)
FBLA (Officer)
Concert Choir (Unofficial section leader, I helped restart the club and grow it from 7 members to 100 in 6 months.)
Choir also has sung at district banquets, and we went on tour in LA.
Lead role in school musical
Job/Work Experience: I work 20 hours a week with my Dad.
Volunteer/Community service: 10 hours a week at church, with various events.
Summer Activities: FBLA National Conference
Mission trip to Nicaragua
Boys State and Boys Nation
Essays (rating 1-10, details):
Questbridge Essays -
8/10 - It compared my life to a wooden desk I’ve owned since I was little. I scribbled on it and wrote down my thoughts when I was going through bad times, and the desk became an extension of my personality.
6/10 - I wrote about how chess was an underappreciated art form. I went on to say I found people at school to create a club with.
Common App Essay - 7/10, it was about how I visited my Grandma before she passed from terminal breast cancer. She was playful and humorous even in her last moments, so I wrote about how she didn’t let her condition stop her from having fun with her grandchild for the last time.
Recommendations (rating 1-10, details):
Teacher Rec #1: English teacher, pushed me to pursue politics. 8/10
Teacher Rec #2: Bio teacher, I was funny and over-excited in her class. I wasn’t the best student, but I got close to her as a person. 8/10
Counselor Rec: Generic, I got a new counselor starting junior year. 4/10
Additional Rec: None.
Interview: None.
Other:
Applied for Financial Aid?: Yes
Intended Major: Political Science
State (if domestic applicant): AZ
School Type: Large public, 2500 students total.
Ethnicity: Asian-American (South Korean Immigrant)
Gender: Male
Income Bracket: 35k
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): First gen, poor (?)
Reflections:
Strengths: Test scores, ECs
Weaknesses: Dat GPA, holy balls I should’ve tried harder for all 4 years.
Why you think you were accepted/rejected/deferred? I just got lucky. Plain and simple, don’t read too much into your decisions because it can seemingly be random at times and they do not determine your worth as a person.
General Comments: I didn’t care at all about school in my freshman year, so my GPA took a beating. I started to wake up and realize that I didn’t want to go to my state school (no offense ASU!) and end up with a desk job, working 9 to 5 and not accomplishing more. I was entitled - I thought I was such a smart kid, and that I was destined to rule the world, cure cancer, marry Emma Watson. So I involved myself in a bunch of clubs that I didn’t care about, started studying for tests that I hated studying for, all in an attempt to pad my application. In my senior year, I took a look at myself and I didn’t know who I was. I was a phony, a hack, who did what he had to do to get to a place that he thought he had to get to. I embraced my quirks and my love for music during this past year, but I regret that it was too late. When I look back on my high school life, I realize that I wasted my time doing things that I didn’t like doing. I can’t think of more than 5 memorable experiences I had in my high school years. I just wish I had accepted myself earlier. Then I could say, “Oh I don’t regret high school. I had a ton of fun!”
Anyways, I’m blessed to be accepted to these institutions. I just feel weird, knowing that they didn’t accept me, per se - they accepted a bluffed-up version of me.
Other College Decisions: Amherst (Accepted), Wesleyan (Accepted), USC (Accepted), Vanderbilt (Accepted), UChicago (WL), Northwestern (WL), Pomona (WL), University of Virginia (WL), MIT (Rejected), Columbia ED (Rejected).