What did I do wrong?

[renaissancedad]

The Yale blog from Kristen Greene also mentions the importance of being “personal” in essays and answers to questions:

1. It’s Personal. No matter the question on the application, what we are interested in knowing is more about you. Whether you talk about a favorite historical character or an extra-curricular activity, we want to know what this says about who you are, what you think/feel, and how you think. Don’t put the emphasis elsewhere.

2. Be Authentic. The best applications will have the voice of the person who wrote them throughout the application. When you are authentic to your own voice, it comes alive in the application. If you over edit or write things you think admissions wants to hear, your voice is lost and the application isn’t as compelling.

I don’t know how @Firebolt1176 wrote about his novel and ROTC/sports shooting activities, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that there is absolutely nothing wrong with those topics; however, there may have been something wrong about how he approached them. I think it’s perfectly fine to write about these experiences - including something which may go against the personal values of some people of the admissions committee - as long as you do so in a way that reveals something about yourself. What kind of struggles did you go through? Did you have to overcome resistance or bias? Did you grow as a person through these experiences, and what did you learn about yourself? I think these could have been great topics to distinguish an Asian male STEM applicant from California. Whether the OP was actually able to do so effectively seems questionable given the number of schools were he wasn’t accepted given his outstanding grades and scores, but I don’t think the basic approach was necessarily wrong.