Decision: Accepted
Objective:
SAT I (breakdown): Did not report
ACT (breakdown): Math: 36 English: 36 Reading: 35 Science: 36
SAT II: Math: 790 Chem: 800
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 4.0
Weighted GPA: 4.2ish
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): top 1% (not actually reported), class of 900
AP (place score in parenthesis): Euro, Chem, Calc AB, Calc BC, US History, English Lang and Comp., (all 5)
IB (place score in parenthesis): none
Senior Year Course Load: Dual enrollment at state college, Multivariable Calc, Calc 4, Ochem 1, Intro Comp Sci, plus some shite classes to meet my HS grad requirements
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): National Merit Scholar, AP scholar with Distinction
Subjective:
Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): Member of Quiz Bowl team grades 9-12, was made captain as junior and senior
Job/Work Experience: worked every friday night for ~6 hours from grades 10.5-12
Volunteer/Community service: ~50hrs/year grades 9 and 10, literally 0 after that
Summer Activities: Travel, Summer camp thing at Cambridge one year, and most importantly self-taught storm chasing
Essays (rating 1-10, details): 10 for most–spent literally hundreds of hours writing, planning, rewriting, brainstorming, etc. The same teacher mentioned down below has told me that I’m one of the best young writers she has ever met after almost 10 years of being an AP Lang teacher.
Recommendations (rating 1-10, details):
Teacher Rec #1: 10/10: Teach was coach of the quiz bowl team so she knew me since 9th grade, and then also was the AP Lang and Comp teacher (a notoriously difficult grader but amazing teacher) and I tried my ass off in that class. I also overheard her saying that for a few students she writes an extensive 2-4 page rec. (pretty sure she did that for me)
Teacher Rec #2: 9 or 10, was apchem teach, I tried really hard in that class too and was successful, Teach. #1 told me that this teacher had asked for her to help write better letters of rec.
Counselor Rec: 9ish: Wasn’t super close with him; did take a lot of time to fill out a big questionnaire that the councelors use to write recs about kids…
Additional Rec: None
Interview: I thought it went poorly but my person was kinda weird so who knows what was going on in her head.
Other
Applied for Financial Aid?: Yes
Intended Major: Engineering
State (if domestic applicant): Minnesota
Country (if international applicant):
School Type: Public
Ethnicity: White
Gender: Male
Income Bracket: ~100k
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): I’m sure that my “it-factor” was my storm chasing, which I wrote about in my primary personal statement.
Reflection
Strengths: Essays are everything, Leadership position, Work, Letters of Rec., and Unique interests
Weaknesses: Not a lot of volunteering or extracurriculars beyond a focus on quiz bowl.
Why you think you were accepted/waitlisted/rejected: Accepted due to a combination of luck, great essays (by AO standards), teacher recs., and storm chasing (lol, only had to literally put my life on the line to get into Stanford)
Where else were you accepted/waitlisted/rejected: Was going to apply to other places but not anymore. Essays are way too much work.
General Comments: Still wake up in the morning thinking my admission was a dream…