Stanford Class of 2022 RD Results Thread

drelyk
Mon, 02 Apr 2018 02:53:02 +0000

Hopefully the acceptance letter I saw wasn’t a glitch! (and the fact that I could sign up for admit receptions and eventually pay my deposit)
Decision: Accepted

Objective:
SAT I (breakdown): 790 Math, 750 English, 19/24 Essay
ACT (breakdown): 35 English, 35 Math, 35 Reading, 34 Science, 8 Essay
SAT II: 780 US History, 790 Math II, 800 Bio
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.9
Weighted GPA (by my high school): 4.83/5.33
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 13/301
AP (place score in parenthesis): US History (5), Biology (5), Human Geography (5), Stats (5), US Gov (5), Calc AB (5), Macroeconomics (5), Comparative Gov (5) [accidentally told Stanford I took microeconomics instead of Comp. gov], Chem (3)
IB (place score in parenthesis): N/A
Senior Year Course Load: Music Theory, AP Latin, AP Lang, AP Lit, AP Calc BC, AP Physics I, Band
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): National Geography Olympiad Champion (2016, 2017); iGeo silver medalist (2017); won 5 medals at State Science Olympiad (if any of these count as “major awards”)

Subjective:

Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): Geography Olympiad, Science Olympiad, Academic Challenge (Team Captain, 2017-2018), Marching Band, Symphonic Band, Swim Team, Model UN
Job/Work Experience: Busser at Olive Garden. Fun times.
Volunteer/Community service: Hospital over summer of 2016 (about 80 hours)
Summer Activities: Hospital volunteering (2016), iGeo (2017)
Essays (rating 1-10, details): 8 - the essays I wrote were pretty personal but I’m not sure they were the most well written (especially because I wrote them last minute).
Recommendations (rating 1-10, details): idk truthfully

Teacher Rec #1: idk
Teacher Rec #2: idk
Counselor Rec: idk
Additional Rec: idk
Interview: N/A

Other

Applied for Financial Aid?: No
Intended Major: Political Science?? (i forgot)
State (if domestic applicant): OH
Country (if international applicant):
School Type: Public
Ethnicity: Asian
Gender: Male
Income Bracket: 250k+
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): nope

Reflection

Strengths: I feel that my application was very personal. I explained what I’m interested in and showed the admission officers what I thought about and how. My scores were good enough and somehow my extracurriculars tied in with what I wrote about.
Weaknesses: Lacking in leadership positions and my grades are a bit low compared to what I could’ve done… oh well… that’s what I get for not caring about college until the end of junior year.

Why you think you were accepted/waitlisted/rejected: I was me. I probably seemed ambitious in my essays. Also, not applying to anything engineering related (especially CS) (not that I’m interested in that, but I’ve seen all the top students at my school who want to be engineers get rejected by top universities).
Where else were you accepted/waitlisted/rejected: ACCEPTED: OSU, UCLA, Georgetown, Dartmouth
WAITLISTED: Cornell, UC Berkeley
REJECTED: Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, UPenn, Brown, UChicago

Final note: This will sound cheesy but don’t worry about what you think colleges care about. If you do activities because you think colleges care about them (looking at you, NHS) and not because you care about these activities (ahem NHS), then you’re doing it wrong. Do things you love and if you do them well enough, you will be recognized and awarded (but don’t chase recognition either! If you can’t be recognized one way, oftentimes there will be many other ways which come to you.) Write about things you care about. Don’t try to write yourself into a doctor if you don’t even care about anatomy (hypothetical example). Find yourself and write about yourself.

Here’s a long-winded personal anecdote about just that and how it is important (feel free to skip if you know yourself):

For the longest time, I thought that I was destined to be the next big TECH MOGUL (I swear I thought this until the beginning of Junior Year… I was a dang fool). So I yearned to go to Stanford. I denied that I was really more of a social sciences/geography type person (despite the fact that I had way more achievements in these fields). Thankfully, my parents never really pushed me to learn code, do engineering or doctor stuff, or anything that I wouldn’t really like to do. In fact, my dad knew I really wasn’t into computers and tech because I couldn’t bother to make myself learn code, and whenever I was given the opportunity, I simply brushed it off. Fortunately, I came to my senses during Junior Year. I wrote instead about what I truly cared about (social sciences and how humans interact with the Earth). If I didn’t, I am 100% sure the admissions people would be able to tell. I was a bit too witty and not focused on myself enough on my UChicago essay and as a result, (although it was quite witty), the essay probably didn’t do me much good.
NOTE: if you truly care about technology or being a doctor or being witty or anything really, go ahead and write about that. I’m not in the business of crushing people’s dreams. That’s what selective college admissions is here to do.

And don’t be afraid to apply (and, if you don’t have the money, find ways to get fee waivers)! You might not think you’re the most impressive person ever and may get rejected by a lot of colleges (ME), but it just might be worth your time!