Decision: Accepted
**Date applied: ** November 30th
Date decision postmarked/received: March 25th via portal
Which school/major at USC: Marshall, Business Administration
Scholarships: N/A
Objective:
SAT I (breakdown): 1470 M:750, E: 720
ACT (breakdown): N/A
SAT II (place score in parentheses): N/A
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): My school uses a weird system in which 92-100 is an A and 84-91 is a B. By my schools scale, 3.65. By a standard grading system using a 10 point scale, 3.87.
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): School doesn’t rank. (All I know is somewhere below top 10% and somewhere above top 50%)
AP (place score in parentheses): Psychology (4). School doesn’t offer AP courses though supposedly almost all classes are at the same level. (As hard as AP’s, but not focused on taking the exam)
IB (place score in parentheses): N/A
Senior Year Course Load: English 12, Physics 2B, Advanced Chemistry, Political Science, Calculus BC, Alternate History (1st sem), Broadcasting and Communications (1st sem), Advanced Statistics (2nd sem)
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): N/A
Subjective:
Extracurriculars (place leadership in parentheses): Entrepreneurship club, Robotics Club, high school French exchange program, Varsity indoor/outdoor track 4 years (Captain 11th and 12th grade, won two MVPs across 10th/11th grade), Tutoring with very low rates (really just enough to pay for gas) for financially challenged families.
Job/Work Experience: Zip
Volunteer/Community Service: Zip
Summer Activities: Zip
Essays (rating 1-10, details):: 10. Started these suckers in July, had multiple college counselors look over them before submission. They all said my strongest part was being creative and having my personality being very prominent.
Teacher Recommendations (rating 1-10, details):: 8ish?. My only actual teacher recommender straight up told me he wasn’t sure what to write about a week or two the recommendation deadline. I suppose it went better than expected.
Counselor Rec (rating 1-10, details):: 10. I think she put in a lot of effort when she started realizing how much effort I put in with my essays.
Additional Rec (rating 1-10, details):: Got a track coach to tell a funny story about me and reflect on parts of my personality that weren’t as prominent as other traits in my essays.
Interview: I think I did very well in the interview; I think this is how I was able to get in Marshall. I talked little about expertise in finance/business in my actual application, but my entire interview revolved around it.
Other
Applied for Financial Aid? Yes
State (if domestic applicant): Virginia
Country (if international applicant): U.S.
School Type: Independent
Ethnicity: Mixed Asian/White
Gender: Male
Income Bracket: <30k
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): Do divorces count anymore? If so, than that. Also live with a schizophrenic grandmother that’s been pretty rough to deal with.
Reflection
Strengths: Essays/ HUGE upward trend with grades and course rigour
Weaknesses: Tests (decent SAT, didn’t take anything other than that really) and (Lack of) summer/community activities
Why you think you were accepted/deferred/rejected: Everyone I’ve run my application by told me that if I were to get in, it’d be because of my ability to showcase creativity/personality in my application.
Where else you are applying or have already applied: Indiana (Accepted), Virginia Tech (Accepted), JMU (Accepted), UVA (Waitlisted), UCLA (Rejected), U-Michigan (Pending)
General Comments/Advice/Hindsight: Bruh…