<p>Hi everyone - I kind of avoided posting on the RSI threads, because I didn’t think that I had any chance and consequently didn’t think that it would be very meaningful for me to post. However, it seems that I’m Bear Acceptee No. 3.</p>
<p>My name’s Matthew, and I live in West Linn (suburb of Portland), Oregon. My aim name is civilitas1.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>What did you do the summer after your sophomore year?
For the first 6 weeks, I attended SIMUW (Summer Institute for Mathematics at the University of Washington), a free, admissions-based summer program for Northwest math students. It was really fun, although academically I’m sure it’s not anywhere near the level of RSI. The really good part was that the professors, when you finished all the problems, would come up with new angles to explore - that way, everyone could proceed at their own rate, since there was a pretty broad range of mathematical ability there. This probably helped me quite a bit - I asked one of the professors there to write me a recommendation for RSI.</p></li>
<li><p>What college level courses did you take?
Lol… not really anything. I took AP Calc BC in 7th grade, but after that I didn’t really do much formal math (which I thought would mean a certain rejection). I took a few distance courses from EPGY at Stanford, but I really didn’t like them very much, and I stopped after there was some confusion as to a test postmark date… which led to my grade dropping to a B+, which didn’t make me particularly pleased. Really, I didn’t do much of anything (although I have explored further advanced math on my own quite a bit). My prior APs were AP Calc BC, AP Statistics (8th grade, but I don’t think this really counts as “math”), AP Physics, AP Chemistry, and AP US History, all with 5s.</p></li>
<li><p>Did you submit any additional work to RSI?
No… lol, nothing impressive enough to send.</p></li>
<li><p>Test scores?
Old SAT: 1570 (790M 780V)
(if they looked at the test date, then they would have noticed that this was a middle school score, from when I was 12, which might have helped a bit).</p></li>
</ul>
<p>SAT II Math IIC: 800
SAT II Physics: 800
SAT II Chemistry: 800</p>
<p>(I took the SAT IIs in January, so I emailed them with the results once they arrived in February, before the application deadline but after I already sent in my package; I never received any email response, so I don’t know if they considered these or not)</p>
<p>PSAT: 237 - 77R, 80M, 80W</p>
<ul>
<li><p>What awards did you mention in the application?
Mathcounts state winner in 8th grade (plus our team, from a rather small state, came in 8th at nationals when I was the captain, although I was ashamed enough of my individual placement not to put it - at least, I don’t think I did, lol). Also won a regional fair and made it to ISEF in 9th grade, plus a few random regional math and science contests. I mentioned for the final question (I think it was the last question) on the app that I learned about RSI when I was at ISEF, and whenever I asked the other students around me with really impressive projects how they came up with their ideas, they said that they had attended RSI. Gave it somewhat of a mystique for me…</p></li>
<li><p>Did you do research? How intensive? Summer or during school year?
Not really anything, unless you count the project I did for ISEF freshman year.</p></li>
<li><p>How familiar were you with the topics you picked for your top choices?
I was fairly familiar with them, but I later convinced myself that I would be rejected because I foolishly picked such trite topics as those that I found “most interesting” (I think I said “Riemann hypothesis” for one of them… lol, you get the picture). </p></li>
<li><p>Finally, what do you think was the deciding factor?
I have no idea. The bear admissions theory sounds about right.</p></li>
</ul>