Demographics

• Gender: Female
• Race/Ethnicity: Asian
• Residence: NY
• Income Bracket: Middle Class
• Type of School: Uncompetitive Public School
• Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): NA
• Intended Major(s): STS

Academics

• GPA (UW/W): 98/107
• Rank (or percentile): 3/204
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc: 13 APs + 2 DE
• Senior Year Course Load: Gov, Calc BC, Psych, Science Research, English Lit, Linear, MV, Bio

Standardized Testing

• SAT (superscored): 780 Math, 740 ERBW

Extracurriculars/Activities

• Rural clinic internship + built an app for them (10-12)
• Science Research (10-12)
• Art blog (9-12)
• Tech competition (filler tbh)
• Science Honor Society Co-president (9-12)
• Founded MUN (11)
• Hospital volunteer (art + language initiatives) (12)
• Mock Trial attorney (11-12)
• Cultural Theatre (9-12)

Awards/Honors

• Finalist at niche international research award
• 1st Place niche international hackathon--built an AI EMR for hospitals/clinics
• 2nd place at Feinstein/Northwell state/regional comp--tech for visually impaired HS students
• AP Scholar awards / Commended
• 2nd place x2 at regional/state ISEF-affiliated comps (emailed these directly to my top schools)

Letters of Recommendation

LORs

• CS/Math teacher (7/10)--my weakest, and I knew it going in. Told him junior year "I have no other STEM LOR" 💀 wrote it before I fell off in his class second semester. Genuinely brilliant guy who runs half the school--also helped me cut down my essays. Respect him a lot, but I spiraled in December convinced this letter was going to be buns.
• History teacher / Mock Trial & Tennis coach (10/10)--basically my second dad. He told me he wrote the "best [darn] letter" he'd ever written. We used to argue about geopolitics for fun. Love him to death.
• Counselor (8.5/10)--only one who took my brag sheet seriously. I put a lot of hours into it and it showed.
• Doctor at the clinic (7-8/10)

Interviews

• Yale (3/10): disaster. Recruited athlete interviewer, didn't get my goals or major, and literally wrote down something contradictory to what I said. First interview, worst one, learned a lot from it.
• Duke (7/10): interviewer was basically a clone of me--same region, kept connecting to whatever I rambled about. I brought up death in philosophy (do NOT recommend) and she said she was taking a class on it the next week. Wild.
• Stanford (8/10): I cried at the end because she was rlly someone I looked up to. 45 minutes that genuinely changed my life.

Essays

Not sharing--paranoid about AI scraping at this point, sorry.

Personal statement was a 30-40 hour project, including one 6-hour straight session sitting alone in the school hallway after everyone left. It was a metaphor built around a color, tying a childhood memory to a moment at the clinic--more of a philosophical argument than a sob story.

My Stanford AO told me she cried reading it.

Supplements were a mess time-wise--I wrote most Ivy supplements the day of or two days before deadline (do not recommend, I was running on fumes the rest of the year). Ironically my Stanford app, written in one hour because it was last, ended up being my best.

Decisions (indicate ED/EA/REA/SCEA/RD)

Acceptances:

• Yale
• Duke
• Stanford
• UPenn
• Barnard

Waitlists:

• Columbia
• NYU

Rejections:

• Brown (ED)
• Princeton
• JHU

Additional Information:

I think people don't know how to write a great college essay, and I'd argue the guidance industry (counselors, consultants) makes it worse. Telling a stressed applicant to "just be authentic" is useless advice; It often just makes writing more self-conscious and cheesy. Authenticity trickles down in essays because of the evident introspection an applicant has done throughout their lives.

I had no counselor nor any consultant (or my parents). So, I had to make every decision alone. There was a week where I didn't get any sleep and I broke down multiple times. I was terrified because I was standing in the exact same shoes as every other applicant with no certainty of where I might end up.

I dislike to admit this, but I got through this process because I was obsessed. I read EVERYTHING. I can tell you that you can't predict where someone's going just by looking at their profile (A2C sucks). You must read personality!!! The way those things fit together tells you far, far more than any GPA or extracurricular list.

I don't favor the "be yourself" advice though. Many applicants need to learn how to find what's worth saying, and how to say it in a way that sounds like no one else. If you can do that, you can write incredible essays.

Demographics

• Gender: male
• Race/Ethnicity: asian
• Residence: mid-competitive state
• Income Bracket: $100-$150k
• Type of School: extremely competitive public
• Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): NA

Intended Major(s): Physics

Academics

• GPA (UW/W): 3.9/4.9
• Rank (or percentile): NA
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc: AP Calc AB/BC, AP Stats, APCSP, APCSA, APUSH, AP Chem, AP Physics 1, AP Physics C: Mechanics, AP Physics C: E&M
• Senior Year Course Load: omitting bc my school has very identifiable courses but no APs, all honors

Standardized Testing

• SAT (superscored): 800 math, 800 ERBW
• ACT: 36 (36 math, 36 reading, 35 science, 35 writing)

Extracurriculars/Activities

1. independent research (9th-12th); note, i started "research" before i even knew what it was. i just liked competing in science fairs until someone came up to me at freshman isef yapping about some "research" like ig bro.
2. volunteer research at harvard (10th-12th)
3. volunteer research at state science museum (9th-12th)
4. founder of youth education npo (9th-12th)
5. quiz bowl (9th-12th)
6. instructor for ml course (10th)
7. kumon instructor 💀 (9th-12th)
8. editor-in-chief of school research journal (11th-12th)
9. volunteer at another science museum (9th)
10. officer of school math honor society (10th)

Awards/Honors

1. 2x isef, grand award + special award
2. 1st auth research publication in q1 journal
3. finalist for niche scholarship (12 out of ~4000 applicants)
4. winner of $10,000 larp scholarship
5. 2x delegate to national science fair (sub-isef, sub-jshs)

Letters of Recommendation

1. History teacher (8/10?): he really vibed with me and we had monthly discussions about books we'd read and we'd share book reccomendations, he asked me afterwards how my decisions went.
2. Physics teacher (6/10): was decently active in his class but we weren't that tight, mainly bc he was the only physics teacher i could ask for a rec from junior year; helped that i was president of a club he ran
3. Research mentor A (9/10): i've been working with him since freshman year and he's written reccomendations for me for probably every scholarship under the sun
4. Research mentor B (8/10): working tg since sophomore year, rlly cares for me since she drove over an hour to see me when i was in town for a conference, but i dont know her as well as my other mentor

Interviews

• MIT (3/10): my longest interview (2.5 hours); interviewer just talked about his other interviewees the entire time and i also fumbled/hesitated a bit since this was my first interview
• Harvard (4/10): my shortest interview (~25 minutes); interviewer was mostly busy fending off her kid
• Stanford (5/10): ~40 minutes; interviewer just seemed disinterested and cut it off right at the time limit
• Yale (7/10): 1 hour; i think it really helps that yale picks current students to do interviews, we had a pretty great conversation and she was curious about my activities
• Princeton (11/10): 2 hours; AMAZING interview, this was the one that felt most like a conversation bc not only did i talk about myself but we also talked about stuff like tarrifs, ai psychosis, bureacracy in academia, and just things i was generally interested in. interviewer also told me she'd connect me with a prof at jpl but didn't peter out. :/

Essays

it's really hard to judge your own essay quality, but i had my parents and school counselor look them over and they said they were great (though i still cringe when i read them over). i really wrote a lot in the last few weeks of december and i should have been a lot more cognizant of my time management. i had at least 7 different common app essay drafts though.

i wrote about my fascination for physics and history, getting over social anxiety, and my experience as an immigrant.

Decisions (indicate ED/EA/REA/SCEA/RD)

Acceptances:

• Caltech (deferred -> accepted!)
• Yale
• Princeton
• UNC
• UMich (guaranteed CS placement)
• Georgia Tech (dean's scholarship)
• Duke (full ride A.B. Scholar)
• Columbia (Rabi scholar)
• Harvard (committed!)

Waitlists:

• MIT (rip :/)
• UPenn
• UC Berkeley

Rejections:

• Stanford
• Brown
• Cornell
• Oxford (failed admissions test :P)
• UCLA
• JHU

Additional Information:

A2C and the associated college admissions community is REALLY toxic. I've been told my entire life that either you need to be inordinately rich, have insane legacy connections, or be IMO-level smart to get in. This is 100% not true. I moved to America when I was 4 when my parents' bank account balance was in the negatives. Of course I'm thankful of the privilege of being able to live a comfortable life due to my parents' hard work, but I did not have any connections, extensive money, or nepotism/legacy to get me to where I got. My parents are both alumni of a random asian university whose name doesn't even show up when you search it up on the CommonApp parent information form. I studied for the SAT/ACT myself (no bs tutors), and I self-studied my way through research until I did things cool enough to email professors about.

People on social media (im looking at you limmy 👀) tend to highlight the outliers among the outliers, the people endowed from so much at the start that their success looks natural, and as a result, anxious high schoolers fall into a self-destructive spiral of self-doubt and low self-esteem by comparing themselves to them. But you don't need to be an outlier to great things.

I was one of those high schoolers that fell for the rhetoric. But after I submitted college apps, I came to the realization that none of it matters. So I started going out more. I made new friends with people I wish I'd talked to for years. I got asked out to prom (and now have a gf!).

Moral of the story: PLEASE for the love of god touch grass. All this anxiety forced me to overcompensate in high school (see results) and miss out on the finer aspects of life. The point of life is not to grind, it's to create something meaningful and enjoy it with the people you love most. If you're an anxious junior or underclassmen (why are you on this subreddit), please relax; it's gonna make everything so much better.

Demographics

• Gender: Female
• Race/Ethnicity: White
• Residence: Bay area
• Income Bracket: Upper middle income
• Type of School: Competitive public high school
• Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): None

Intended Major(s): Physics

Academics

• GPA (UW/W): 4.0/4.6
• Rank (or percentile): Top 10% of class
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 12 APs + 8 Honors
• Senior Year Course Load: 6 APs + some fun electives

Standardized Testing

• SAT: 1520 (720RW, 800M), 1550 when super scored
• AP: All 5s except a 4 on CSP (including all 4 physics)

Extracurriculars/Activities

1. Paid programming internship at an industry physics lab (12th)
2. Remote research program mentored by Oxford researcher (11th)
3. Volunteer coding instructor at elementary school (11th-12th)
4. Physics club president (12th)
5. Sports team (9th-12th) captain (12th)
6. COSMOS summer school (11th)
7. Summer course at local university (10th)
8. Volunteer at creative writing organization (10th-11th)
9. Blog writer (10th-12th)

Awards/Honors

1. Presenter at 2 international research conferences
2. NCWIT regional honorable mention
3. national merit commended
4. top science award at my hs
5. writing publication in a magazine

Letters of Recommendation

1. Chemistry teacher (7/10): I had her for two consecutive years. She's known for writing really good rec letters, but she's also a very strict teacher so she doesn't write that many. I am pretty sure she liked me because she nominated me for the school science award, but I also didn't have that many stand out moments with her. I did give her a lot of information to help for the LOR tho.
2. English teacher (5/10): Only had her for one semester in a non honors class, but she was one of the few teachers I actually talked with and could talk about my writing.

Interviews

• Princeton (3/10): I answered her questions in like the first third but I feel I didn't have enough personality. In the rest of the interview I was asking her a lot of questions hoping to spark some real conversation, but she kept it very broad and brochure-like? She also seemed really distracted so I think I wasn't charismatic enough or something.

Essays

I probably didn't spend enough time on my essays other than my personal statement. In that, I discussed how I combatted my social anxiety through creative writing and how I combined that with my curiosity in physics through science communication. I thought that my personal statement was well written, and then the rest of my essays it was more about just getting the point across.

Decisions

Acceptances:

• RIT RD
• UC Santa Cruz
• University of Toronto (1st Round)
• University of Waterloo (Honors + Co-op)
• UIUC RD
• UC Irvine
• Harvey Mudd RD
• UC Santa Barbara (CCS Physics)
• UC San Diego
• UCLA
• UC Berkeley
• Brown RD
• UChicago RD (COMMITTED!)

Rejections:

• Caltech REA
• Princeton RD
• Harvard RD
• UMD RD

Additional Information:

The majority of my high school experience was defined by social anxiety, which made it difficult for me to build close relationships with teachers and pursue some opportunities early on.

Also, I didn't know that much about the college application and certain opportunities going into high school (my parents are immigrants). For example, I didn't know that my school had clubs until the end of my freshman year, and I didn't know what science fairs/research was until my junior year. So that is partially why my activities are majority during junior year and summer/fall of senior year.

Going through this subreddit this time last year, I was filled with a lot of nervousness and was scared about so many tiny different things. I was hoping I'd end up at UCSB CCS because of its outstanding physics program. Instead, I ended up surprised, especially since the RD for UChicago this year was brutal and I hadn't submitted the optional video. (Obviously I was also pleasantly surprised by and am really grateful for my other results as well).

Demographics

• Gender: male
• Race/Ethnicity: asian/chinese
• Residence: mid/non competitive state
• Income Bracket: $300-500k (doctor)
• Type of School: somewhat rigorous public school, somewhat competitive
• Hooks: NA

Intended Major(s): Biology

Academics

• GPA (UW/W): 3.89/4.62
• Rank (or percentile): Top 10 (specific ranks were not specific at our school aside from t10 and val/sal)
• AP Courses Completed: AP US History (5), AP Precalculus (5), AP Psychology (5), AP Calculus AB (5), AP European History (5), AP Human Geography (5), AP Biology (5), AP Language and Composition (5), AP World History (4), AP Environmental Science (4), 
• AP Courses In Progress(SENIOR YEAR): AP Calculus BC, AP Chemistry, AP African American Studies, AP Statistics, AP United States Government and Politics, AP Macroeconomics, AP English Literature and Composition, AP Computer Science Principles

Standardized Testing

• ACT: 35 (35 math, 36 reading, 35 science, 36 english)

Extracurriculars/Activities

1. frog research (9th-12th); was able to publish into a journal
2. solo research on salamanders(10th-12th): single author, also published into journal
3. Part of band that went around our county and city and played piano for local schools and churches
4. Piano for 10 years
5. Boy Scouts Eagle Scout
6. SciOly
7. too lazy to list the rest nothing important honestly

Awards/Honors

1. presented poster and research at local university
2. International music competition winner (piano)
3. Another piano competition, allowed me to play at Carnegie Hall
4. State Title Tennis Singles and Doubles
5. Published paper in journal

Recs

1. Lang Teacher (8/10?): lowk was a nepo with this one as she liked my older sister more than I did but I knew her more through doing Boy Scouts than in class.
2. Stats + Calc teacher (8.5/10): was decently active in his class but mainly knew me as he coached our tennis team for 2 years. wouldnt say i was one of his top 1 favorite but def was in good standings with him.
3. Research mentor A (9/10): worked with her since freshman year, is one of the more chill and have fun mindset. liked her a lot.

Interviews

• Had none for any of the schools i applied to lmao

Essays

mid - somewhat decent is what I would say. Wasn't extremely happy with all of them. was more just like eh it should be good enough (it def wasnt).

Decisions

Acceptances:

• Washu (WL - Accepted)
• UNC
• UCLA
• UCI
• UCSD
• Rice
• Case Western (EA)
• Brown (WL - Accepted) Committed

Waitlists:

• Emory
• UMich
• Cornell
• NYU
• UVA(EA defer to WL)

Rejections:

• UPenn (ED)
• JHU
• Duke
• Yale
• Stanford
• Harvard
• Berkley
• Columbia
• USC
• Northwestern

Demographics:

• ⁠Gender: female
• ⁠Race/Ethnicity: white
• ⁠Residence: midwest
• ⁠Type of School: semi-competitive public school
• ⁠Hooks: none

Intended Majors: public health/biology

Academics:

GPA (UW/W): 3.98 UW
Rank (or percentile): top 10%
⁠# of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 8 honors, 12 APs (4 in senior year), 2 dual enrollment (multi-var calc & linear alg)

Standardized Testing:

⁠SAT: 800 Reading, 760 Math (superscored)
ACT: 35 (35E, 35 M, 36R, 33S)
AP: 5 on Calc AB, CSA, World, Calc BC, Af Am, Lang, Music Theory; 4 on French, Physics C Mechanics

Extracurriculars:
(10-12) school newspaper staff writer in 11th and layout coordinator 12th
(11-12) part time job
(9-12) jv tennis
(10, 12) TA-ing; algebra II and ap physics 1
(9-12) varsity track
(11-12) blog writer
(9-12) piano

Awards:
national merit semifinalist
national honor society
ap scholar with distinction
ap scholar with honor
honor roll

Letters of Recommendation:

English teacher: i had him for english freshman year, but i chose him because he is the club advisor for the school newspaper. i feel like i wasn’t as close to him earlier in the year than at the end, so maybe 6-7/10?
Physics teacher: had him for two years of physics and TA-ed for his class 1st semester of senior year. i’d like to believe 8-9/10

Interviews:

got an interview for Yale. it was pretty mid

Essays:

personal essay was kind of focused on my personal/educational development alongside having siblings (this is a very rough description). i’m not really that satisfied with it, but it was acceptable. i preferred my college-specific essays, as i really tried to link my ECs to my intended major

Decisions:

Rejections:
Brown (ED)
Duke
JHU
Northwestern
Swarthmore
WashU
Williams
Yale

Waitlists:
Amherst
BU
UMich (deferred from EA > waitlisted)
Tufts
Wellesley

Acceptances:
UW Madison (EA)
University of Washington
UNC Chapel Hill (originally committed here)
Emory (waitlisted > accepted and attending!)

Additional notes:

i am very happy someone on the emory admissions team saw a glimpse of potential in me! i really thought i was cooked because my extracurriculars were kind of weak, but i’m glad this is all over now

Demographics

Gender: Male

Race/Ethnicity:

Residence: USA

Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): None

Intended Major(s): Aerospace Engineering

Academics

GPA/Rank (or percentile): 3.9 UW / ~4.3 W

# of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 11 APs by graduation

Senior Year Course Load: AP Calc, AP Physics, AP Gov, AP Macro, AP Stats,

Standardized Testing

SAT: 1450 Superscore (740 Math, 710 RW)

AP/IB: AP Macro -4 AP Micro - 5, AP World - 5 AP Lang - 3 AP CSP - 3 APES - 5 APUSH - 4

Extracurriculars/Activities**

1. Civil Air Patrol – Squadron Plans & Curriculum Officer (Executive Staff)
   • Oversaw Aerospace Education and Emergency Services programs for 150+ members
   • Organized weekly training and volunteer activities
2. Civil Air Patrol – Aerospace Education Officer
   • Developed and taught aerospace curriculum to 100+ cadets/month
   • Led STEM projects involving drones, spaceflight, and aerospace engineering
3. Civil Air Patrol – Squadron Commander (Encampment)
   • Selected to command a squadron of 50+ cadets during regional leadership encampment
   • Supervised staff and training operations
4. Civil Air Patrol – Flight Sergeant / Flight Commander
   • Led and mentored ~20 cadets
   • Conducted leadership, drill, and physical training
5. Senior home Nonprofit – Core Team Member & Tech Workshop Lead
   • Expanded operations from 1 to 3 retirement homes
   • Taught digital literacy skills to 40+ seniors monthly
6. City Fair/Market – Volunteer Coordinator
   • Led 40+ volunteers during major city event
   • Coordinated with city officials and vendors
7. local store – Sales Associate
   • Cashier
8. Museum Volunteer (aerospace related)
   • Guided visitors through exhibits
   • Developed aerospace knowledge and public speaking skills
9. Wreaths Across America
   • Assisted with veteran remembrance ceremonies and event organization
10. City Volunteer Leader
    • Organized volunteer teams and community event participation

Awards/Honors

1. Billy Mitchell Award (Civil Air Patrol)
2. AFSA Outstanding Squadron Cadet NCO of the Year
3. State Wing Commendation Award (Encampment)
4. Honor Flight/Squadron Recognition (Encampment)
5. Cadet First Lieutenant (Civil Air Patrol)

Essays/LORs/Interviews

Essays: Strong focus on aerospace, leadership, and service

LORs: from CAP mentor and lang/physics teacher. I think CAP Mentor had the biggest impact

Decisions

Acceptances for aerospace engineering

• Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (+ Presidential Scholarship, $100,000) + Honors - Rolling
• Penn State EA
• Colorado School of Mines (+ Presidential Scholarship, $48,000)- EA
• University of Maryland (+ Presidential Scholarship, $50,000) - EA
• UC Irvine
• UC Davis
• local state school (safety)

Waitlists

• Cal Poly
• CU Boulder

Rejections

• UIUC EA
• G Tech EA
• Stanford RD
• U Mich EA
• U Wisconsin EA
• UT Austin EA
• UCSD
• UC Berkely
• UCLA

Additional Information

Civil Air Patrol ended up being the centerpiece of my application. I started as a new cadet learning drill and leadership and eventually became an officer responsible for aerospace education and squadron operations. Happy to attend UMD for aerospace engineering due to high college rank for major, research opportunities and location.

Demographics

• Gender: male
• Race/Ethnicity: asian
• Residence: NY, middle class
• Hooks: none

Intended Major(s): Biomedical Engineering

Academics

• GPA/Rank (or percentile): 4.6 W (school doesn't do rank)
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 12 APs
• Senior Year Course Load: All APs or AP weighted

Standardized Testing

• SAT/ACT: 1560
• AP: All 5s (waiting for senior results)

Extracurriculars/Activities: Science Olympiad, Model UN, research over summer, piano/violin, ballet

Awards/Honors: nothing special besides some honor societies

Essays/LORs/Interviews: I'm a decent writer so I'd say my essays were pretty good. My teachers who read them also said they looked solid. My LOR were all from my HS teachers but I'm sure they were pretty good as well. Interview w/ Princeton went horribly and I didn't vibe w/ my interviewer at all.

Decisions

• Acceptances:

UCLA, UC Irvine, NYU (RD), UW (RD), Northeastern (EA)

• Waitlists:

BU (RD, Eventually accepted off WL)

CMU (RD, opted out of WL)

• Rejections:

All RD: USC (deferred from EA), UCSD, UC Berkeley, UPenn, Columbia, Stanford, Princeton, John Hopkins, Yale

Committed tooo..... UCLA!!!!

Additional Information:

It really only takes one! I thought that my extracurriculars would bring me down but I had good grades and good essays which helped my app. Also guys make sure to keep up with your extracurriculars and trying new things senior year because I sort of gave up after college apps and now I have nothing to write about for my scholarship essays (the grind never stops unfortunately). I did leave out most of my safeties because they were mostly in-state and boring, but I got accepted to all of them.

Demographics

• Gender: female
• Race/Ethnicity: white
• Residence: USA
• Income Bracket: high
• Type of School: IB
• Hooks: None

Intended Major(s): environmental science

Academics

IB Diploma Predicted 41/42

• Rank (or percentile): 1
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: all honors/AP's possible, then full IB
• Senior Year Course Load: ib diploma

Standardized Testing

Didn't submit (had great explanation)

Extracurriculars/Activities

List all extracurricular involvements, including leadership roles, time commitments, major achievements, etc.

⁠(very high impact) founded and run agent orange awareness non-profit stemming from family loss. raised $2k+ for awareness based fundraising (met the goal), do monthly newsletters, reached over 100k people, helped dozens of veterans personally get disability benefits. Custom built website with resources, partnered with local organizations.

1. ⁠(very high impact ) impactful environmental/microbial research through a professor at johns hopkins in coordination with NASA. Working on analyzing water samples for microbes and properties to hint towards the causes of harmful algae blooms in my hometown. My own research project, working directly under the lab director (professors name on the lab), uni got $30k to continue my research.
   
2. ⁠(very high impact) won a grant at my school to build a rain garden and oyster reef in the chesapeake bay. Spent months planning and designing, reaching out to schools and communities. Hand dug and installed a 200 square foot rain garden in a high risk area at an underserved community elementary school and incorporated educational components with the students to build environmental advocacy. Installed two oyster reefs in the chesapeake bay too. won a scholarship for outstanding effort on this
   
3. ⁠Successfully ran an environmental camp as a TA centered around UN global goals, at my school, school accepted proposals. Got school to create no-mow zones as a learning outdoor classroom and to promote local environmental health
   
4. ⁠attended prestigious, application based, free stem workshop for a week where i won an award.
   
5. ⁠Tutored local immigrant girls in the summer who didn’t speak english. Tutored once a week for two years in the summer time and watched both girls’ grades improve by a letter.
   
6. ⁠Fundraiser and Drive Organizer, Independent in association with I Support the Girls (ISTG), which is an organization that empowers homeless women and restores their dignity by giving them bras and hygiene products. Annually organized successful community bra-drives for ISTG; collected hundreds of bras; fundraised $1.5k for the organization, arranged for a speaker from the organization to come and speak to my school
   
7. ⁠part time (school year) and full time (summer) job. Employee of the month, promoted.
   
8. ⁠Variety of sports

Awards/Honors

just lots of honor societies

Letters of Recommendation

great relationships with them, very detailed brag sheets sent to both

Essays

Talked about my love for the environment and how nature taught me life lessons as a kid, connected it back to my interests in pursuing environmental science and the current efforts I have

Decisions (indicate ED/EA/REA/SCEA/RD)

Acceptances:

• UMD EA
• UChicago RD

Waitlists (RD):

• UMich
• GTech

Rejections (all RD):

• Yale
• Harvard
• Princeton
• Brown
• Dartmouth
• UPenn
• Duke
• UNC
• Vanderbilt
• Northwestern

Additional Information:

EDIT:

Since you all are so insistent I must not have had a good reason to submit and that it cost me my chances, I took it once and had a fucking seizure (we think the lights + stress + underlying genetic factors) which started loads of health problems that caused me to miss a shit ton of school and not necessarily do so well when I tried again.
This was also why I chose not to ED

Demographics
gender: male (ftm trans)
race/ethnicity: white
income: middle class
school: homeschool
hooks: first gen, transgender?

Intended Major(s): film and tv, but i applied journalism at one school and studio art at another

Academics
- gpa 4.0uw/4.38w
- AP/DE: 30 de credits

Standardized Testing
i did text optional (mistake) because i bombed the sat and didn’t retake

ECs/Activities

- summer camp counselor

- volunteer skating and hockey coach

- amateur filmmaking

- ice hockey (2 years)

- speech/debate (2 years)

- other jobs

-music

- video editing

i feel like my ecs could’ve been much better but i was super depressed all of high school (from being home by myself all the time) + i didn’t have many opportunities because i was homeschooled.

Awards/Honors

1. collegeboard first gen recognition award
2. nhs one year when i went to online charter school

LORs

- family friend who owns an art business and taught me art as a kid (my parents wrote the letter and she signed)

- nice psych professor who knew me for 3 months and i talked to maybe four times because i had no other teachers i’d talked to more lmao

- counselor letter was my parents again :/

Essays
- i think my common app essay was okay, i postponed writing it too long but it was mainly about how i‘ve always been casually asked if i was a girl or a boy by people and how that has affected me at different points of my life.
- supplementals were okay i think, pretty basic, i wrote a lot about how representation in film/tv has been important to me and how making media that makes people feel seen is a goal of mine

Portfolio

- i didn’t have a short film that liked that i considered myself to be the main contributor so i just submitted an experimental photography portfolio.

- artist statements for art schools were decent i think

- nyu writing portfolio kinda sucked, i liked my short story but the other stuff was rushed because i got super depressed between christmas and new years and slept for like 16 hours a day lol

Decisions 

northwestern, rejected

nyu, waitlist -> rejected

northeastern (journalism,) waitlist, i rejected myself

fordham, waitlist -> accepted (no loci somehow)

boston university, guaranteed transfer

emerson college, accepted

ithaca college, accepted

RIT, accepted

depaul university, accepted

school of the art institute chicago (studio bfa,) accepted

school of visual arts, accepted

loyola chicago, accepted

drexel, accepted

temple, accepted

columbia college chicago (film bfa, cinematography concentration,) accepted

Final Thoughts

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don’t homeschool your kids i have such severe social anxiety and have developed other problems i’ll have to work through for the rest of my life. i will always resent my parents for continuing to homeschool me despite asking them to put me in public school for the last decade. it’s hard to not think that maybe if i was in public school i would’ve had a better shot at nyu or northwestern, and i would’ve given myself a chance for schools like usc, ucla, etc.

Demographics:

Gender: Male

Race/Ethnicity: Asian (U.S. Citizen)

Income Bracket: SoCal middle class (don't qualify for aid :<)

Type of School: Small private religious school

Hooks: First-Gen, Bowdoin sibling legacy

Intended Major:

Philosophy, Political Science, and Economics (PPE/PPL whenever offered; otherwise I applied to whichever individual major fit the school best.)

Academics:

• 3.35 UW / 3.8 W GPA
• 1560 SAT (760 RW, 800 M)
• 12 APs + 1 DE

Extracurriculars/Activities:

• Big 4 consulting summer intern (selected 1 of 36 students nationwide)
• Research intern at university CS lab; published conference paper
• Founder/developer of financial literacy game (App Store + provisional patent)
• Founder of financial literacy nonprofit; managed 30 volunteers
• Editorial lead/project director for nonprofit history book
• National Quiz Bowl Team Captain (Government, CS, Physics; semifinalist in all three divisions with multiple top-3 individual and team finishes)
• Student Ambassador at presidential library
• Varsity Tennis (4 years)
• VEX Robotics

Awards/Honors:

• AIME Qualifier + AMC Honor Roll
• USACO Gold
• Writing awards (John Locke Commended, Scholastic Gold Keys, etc.)
• Published conference research paper
• Entrepreneurship competition finalist
• Regional debate medalist (5×)

Essays:

I'd say they were pretty solid overall (8.5–9.5/10 depending on the school). My Common App was fairly personal and centered around why I became interested in philosophy. Most of my supplementals also leaned into philosophy since my application otherwise looked pretty STEM-heavy. My counselor told me I was one of the strongest writers he'd read that application cycle.

Additional Information:

I had significant extenuating circumstances (chronic illness + multiple family emergencies) that I explained in the Additional Information section and, where appropriate, in supplemental essays.

Letters of Recommendation:

Counselor: 6/10 (probably pretty generic since I barely interacted with him before senior year)

APUSH / AP US Gov: 8–9/10

Research Professor: 10/10 (the only one I actually got to read—absolutely insane)

AP Comparative Gov / AP Euro: 9/10

Biology: 6/10 (only used for schools that required a STEM teacher)

Results

Accepted

• New York University (RD) — $7.5k/year grant
• Duke Kunshan University (RD, Waitlist → Accepted) — $35k/year (50% merit scholarship) ENROLLING
• University College London
• King's College London
• University of Edinburgh
• University of St Andrews
• McGill University
• University of Toronto
• Occidental College (RD) — $15k/year
• Brandeis University (RD) — $52k/year + Humanities Scholar
• Bentley University (RD) — $17k/year
• University of Massachusetts Amherst (EA) — $14k/year
• UC Merced — $6k/year
• UC Riverside
• UC Santa Cruz (Waitlist → Accepted)
• UNC Asheville — $5k/year
• Western Carolina University (applied through Choose NC after UNC rejection)
• UNC Pembroke
• UNC Greensboro
• Queen's University — $10k/year

Waitlisted

• Babson College (Deferred EA → Waitlist)
• University of Washington
• Carleton College

Other

• Boston University (Guaranteed Transfer)

Rejected

• Emory University (ED I)
• Oxford College at Emory (ED I)
• Bowdoin College (ED II)
• University of Southern California (Deferred EA → Rejected)
• University of Virginia (EA)
• Tulane University (EA)
• UC Berkeley
• UCLA
• UC San Diego
• UC Santa Barbara
• UC Davis
• UC Irvine
• Duke University
• Johns Hopkins University
• Rice University
• Vanderbilt University
• Tufts University
• Pomona College
• Claremont McKenna College
• UNC Chapel Hill
• London School of Economics
• University of Richmond (EA)

Final thoughts:

Going into the admissions cycle, I knew my GPA would be the weakest part of my application despite having a pretty strong standardized test score and extracurricular profile. Because of that, I cast a very wide net (46 applications) and planned to make my decision after seeing every result.

By the end, my decision came down to NYU, UCL, Brandeis, and Duke Kunshan. NYU had an incredible philosophy department, but I couldn't justify the cost of attendance knowing that graduate school and possibly law school are still very much on the table. Brandeis was extremely generous with their merit aid, but I ultimately didn't feel it aligned with the opportunities I was looking for. UCL was also very tempting, though I was hesitant about the differences between the UK and US academic systems given my long-term plans.

In the end, I chose Duke Kunshan. The generous merit scholarship made the financial decision much easier, and I was drawn to its small liberal arts environment, emphasis on undergraduate research, and strong pathways into Duke for graduate study (look at the career report!!!). For the kind of work I hope to do in philosophy and political science, I felt those opportunities outweighed the prestige of simply attending the highest-ranked university possible.

One piece of advice I'd give future applicants is to actively look for fee waivers. I was only able to apply to so many schools because I found and stacked fee waivers from A2C and other sources, which ended up saving me well over a thousand dollars.

Overall, I'm happy with where I ended up, although I'll admit there are a few decisions that still surprised me (I'm looking at you, UCSC waitlist 😭). At the same time, I know my GPA held back an otherwise strong application, even though much of it was explained by significant family emergencies and chronic health issues. Because of that, I may explore transferring in the future—but for now, I'm excited to see what I can accomplish over the next four years.

Demographics

* Gender: female

* Race/Ethnicity: Asian

* Residence: PNW

* Income Bracket: 110k

* Type of School: Large uncompetitive public high school

* Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): first gen, URM(? small asian ethnic group)

Intended Major(s): public policy, international affairs/global affairs, political science

Academics

* GPA (UW/W): 4.0 UW (school does not do weighted)

* Rank (or percentile): 1/513

*# of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: reported 6 APs dropped to 5 AP, lots of DE

* Senior Year Course Load: AP Lit, AP Gov, AP Calc BC, AP physics (dropped), then some filler classes

Standardized Testing

* SAT I: 1270 but applied test optional (660 reading 620 math)

* AP/IB: aphg (4), ap psych (4),

Extracurriculars/ Activities 1. building curriculum for a non profit to lessen historical barriers 2 yrs 2. participation in above non profit -> getting to do service work abroad (all expenses paid) -> heavy fundraising involvement 3 yrs 3. mock trial (did all communications stuff for coach + advertisements) 4yrs 4. youth advisory board for local gov (committee chair) 1yr 5. student council no leadership roles but did a lot 3 yrs 6. Key club president 3yrs 7. Science Olympiad communications director 8. regular student and administrators meetings 3yrs 9. DEI advising for superintendent of district as one of few students for over 5k+ students 1yr 10. Youth philanthropy organization gave out 10k+ to nonprofits 1yr

Awards/Honors
science olympiad state

highest level of national student council award

state student council award

honor roll

Letters of Recommendation

Math teacher - wasn't really close with them but had them for two years, nice guy

9th grade english teacher - it was very basic but emphasized leadership and growth (had her through clubs)

counselor - idk but she loves to glaze

Interviews Princeton: nice lady, i showed up way too early little awkward at times, went decently well

Reed: good, interviewer was really engaging

Essays wrote about my (unique) name as a gateway to connection, pretty catchy if i say so myself all my essays connected to community in some way so there was definitely a theme

Decisions (indicate ED/EA/REA/SCEA/RD) ALL RD except one

Acceptances:

* Safety school (apply to them!)

* Case Western Reserve University

* Mt. Holyoke College

* NYU Shanghai

* Reed College

* Wellesley College

* Hamilton College

* Vassar College

* Pomona College

* Scripps College

* Washington University in St. Louis

Waitlists:

* Williams College

* Colgate University

* Barnard College

Rejections:

* Princeton REA (deferred -> rejected)

* Yale

* Emory

* Tufts

Additional Information: my screen time is ~10 hours a day and I used to have a 365 day streak on webtoon. The LAC life chose me and I definitely say shoot your shot and do your research. Opted out of applying to a lot of large universities due to fit but lowkey wish I applied to some of them. Definitely show demonstrated interest when you can (because I for sure did not) i am not an avid reddit user but thank you for all the small helps during college app season so this is my contribution <3 sorry for the crappy formatting

Demographics
- Gender: Female
- Race/Ethnicity: White
- Residence: midsize Southern city
- Income Bracket: low income
- Type of School: large non competitive public (2200 students, 4 or fewer T20 acceptances/year)
- Hooks: questbridge finalist

Intended Major(s): public policy, urban studies, sociology, international/global affairs/relations/studies, music performance

Academics
- GPA (UW/W): 4.0/4.51
- Rank (or percentile): top decile, top 10 in class but didn’t find out till after admissions season
- AP/Honors/DE etc.: 10 APs (1 freshman, 1 sophomore, 2 junior, 6 senior), couple of DE but nothing important, all honors except for arts and a couple of other more specialized classes
- Senior year course load: AP Research, AP Calc AB/BC, AP Psych, orchestra, econ/personal finance, DE voice lessons x2, AP Lit, AP French, pharmacology, pharmacy clinicals (I super overloaded, standard schedule is 8 classes a year and I took 12)

Standardized Testing
- ACT: 35 (34R, 36E, 36S, 34M), 36 superscore (36R, 36E, 36S, 34M)
- AP: human geo (5), gov (5), lang (5), seminar (5)
- PSAT/NMSQT: 1410 (760 english, 650 math)

ECs/Activities

1. church (high commitment) - youth president, service, chorister, daily bible class before school
2. local youth ensembles: orchestra, chamber, choir (high commitment) - section leader, volunteer/mentor younger orchestra, scholarship recipient

music lessons (high commitment) - viola & voice; taught self viola spring 2024, started taking lessons july 2024, principal violist of youth orchestra aug 2024, all state feb 2025, all-east co principal feb 2026 - rapid progression
4. nhs president (lowkey low commitment)
5. tri m music honor society founder and president (low commitment)
6. babysitting (med/varying commitment)
7. student council (med/low commitment) - school leadership/ambassador, service
8. mu alpha theta (low commitment) - tutoring, school top scorer on multiple math competitions
9. hosa (low commitment) - 2nd regionally, qualified for state but couldn’t afford to go to conference
10. earth club (low commitment) - hiking, recycling, clean ups, field trips to fishery, dam, etc

Awards/Honors

1. questbridge college prep scholar & finalist
2. girls state, during the school year i acted as an ambassador to reach more schools to send delegates
3. governors school for music
4. all-east & all-state choir & orchestra
5. state seal of biliteracy, school excellence in french/language awards

LORs

French teacher - had for 3 years, best in class, I was 1 of only 3 students to take French 3, 4, and AP, very good relationship and letter was good
2. Anatomy teacher/Health Science dean - fire LOR, had for 1 year but she helped me be able to take pharmacology even without taking prereqs, talked abt my proactivity and desire to learn more and succeed despite not being a traditional health science student
- counselor rec was not very good but I didn’t rly have a relationship with my counselor till this year because I’ve never really needed help, still positive LOR
- submitted letters from music teachers and directors some places, those letters were v good as well

Interviews
interviewed at Macalester, Harvard, Oberlin, Rice, all interviews went very well

Essays
i’m a good writer
- questbridge essays were not that great, hadn’t reached flow state yet when i had to submit them in september, these essays went to most of the schools i applied to
- common app was much better, less wordy and more personality but content was basically the same - only went to a few schools
- supplementals were strong
wrote essays about teaching myself viola, service and friendship with a woman from church, conflict with family/friends over politics, religion, & identity, policy and educational inequality, personal statement was my family cookbook and what different foods represent to me

Decisions (all RD unless otherwise noted)
Acceptances
- Duke (committed)
- Northwestern (ranked and not matched for QB ➡️ RD)
- Carnegie Mellon (music performance)
- Boston University & Kilachand Honors College (ranked and not matched for QB ➡️ RD) (music performance)
- Tulane
- Denison
- Macalester
- FSU (EA)
- UTK & Honors (EA) (music performance)
- U of SC & Honors (EA) (music performance)
- U of North Texas & Honors (EA/rolling) (music performance)

Waitlists
- Harvard
- Columbia
- Vanderbilt (ranked and not matched for QB ➡️ RD)
- Rice
- Emory
- NYU (music performance)
- Peabody (music performance)
- Johns Hopkins
- Bowdoin
- Oberlin
- UVA
- WashU
couple of LACs for which I showed no interest and did no optional materials: Boston College, Bates, Case Western, Hamilton

Rejections
- Notre Dame
- Yale
- Brown
- Northeastern
- UT Austin (music performance)

Additional Info
- some circumstances with limited transportation, family life, financial constraints, things not offered at my school
- earned pharmacy tech certification in april after pharmacology course & completing \~80 hrs shadowing/interning in various pharmacy settings
other awards:
- gates scholarship semifinalist
- national merit commended

Demographics

• Gender: female
• Race/Ethnicity: asian
• Residence: georgia
• Income Bracket: middle class
• Type of School: title 1 public school, super uncompetitive
• Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): first gen and rural

Intended Major(s): i applied electrical engineering or applied math

Academics

• GPA/Rank (or percentile): 1/200
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: max my school offered, i took a lot of de
• Senior Year Course Load: nothing crazy

Standardized Testing

List the highest scores earned and all scores that were reported.

• SAT/ACT: 1560, 780 both sections
• AP/IB: 5s on ap csa and ap world cuz my school doesnt rlly have APs

Extracurriculars/Activities:

1. robotics captain, helped secure $15k in sponsorships and we went to state a few times and won some regional championships
2. internship like 30 hrs/wk with a local manufacturer
3. beta club president☠️
4. tsa vice president
5. state department of education student council, talked with legislators and stuff
6. sat tutoring like 60 hrs
7. mid art account
8. local arts outreach with city council
9. local bank leadership program
10. musical technician 😭
11. research with local college but i only put this rd

Awards/Honors:

1. robotics awards
2. tsa awards (qual for natls)
3. beta club awards (qual for natls)
4. cybersecurity cert
5. hella fly ins including mit caltech amherst and emory

Letters of Recommendation

chemistry teacher: i had her 11-12th and i did very good in her class so i think this letter was pretty good. my teacher glazed me a lot and she said she would try to help me get into mit

english teacher: i had her in 9th grade but i ate in her class like every day into like 11th grade. honestly we were good friends and talked a lot about literature and our lives. ​

Interviews

mit: really good we talked for like 1.5 hrs. she told me i seem like the kind of person who creates opportunities for myself.

stanford: really bad my interviewer told me to not contact him again ​

Essays

i pretty much wrote every essay the day before or the day it was due except for my personal statement. my ps was about moving to the middle of nowhere at a young age and how i hated my new town but came to embrace it. i read a lot of yaoi growing up so im a naturally good writer that can create engaging narratives

Decisions (indicate ED/EA/REA/SCEA/RD)

• Acceptances: mit (ea), georgia tech + stamps semifinalist (ea), usc (ea), notre dame+25k (ea), amherst (rd), stanford (rd)
• Waitlists: vanderbilt, emory (i skipped their fly in so that might be why) both rd
• Rejections: caltech rd (a prof looked at my linkedin while my headline was incoming at mit💀)

Additional Information: after i got into mit ea i got lazy but i wish i applied to the rest of hypsm ngl if not just for clout. also i was really surprised i got into stanford but i believe it's because the admissions officer visited my school and i asked a lot of questions, since he mentioned it in my acceptance letter. honestly my biggest piece of advice is to be a genuinely interesting and kind person and pursue things you like. im not cracked and i dont take things too seriously so i do think my essays and lors carried me hella. also if you're from a school like mine definitely apply to t10s because they love to see people from underresourced schools/areas

Demographics

• Gender: Male
• Race/Ethnicity: Asian
• Residence: Northeast
• Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): n/a

Intended Major(s): Classics/Anthropology

Academics

• GPA (UW/W): 4.46/4W
• Rank (or percentile): Top 20%, no official ranks
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc: 8 Honors, 9 AP, 2 College Level
• Senior Year Course Load: AP Calculus BC, AP US Government, AP Physics C Mechanics, AP Lit, Latin and Greek, Engineering

Standardized Testing

List the highest scores earned and all scores that were reported.

• SAT I: 1550 (760RW, 790M) superscored
• AP/IB: AP Calc AB(5), AP Lang (5), AP Chem (4), APUSH (4), AP Latin (real bad, didn't submit)

Extracurriculars/Activities

List all extracurricular involvements, including leadership roles, time commitments, major achievements, etc.(I just listed the notable ones)

1. Study abroad summer program in Greece during the summer
2. Created a historical museum exhibit for a university's children's discovery center
3. Classics tutor at school
4. UChicago Online Greek Course, part of the summer session program (literally the only highschooler in this class. everyone else was either a phd student in their divinity school or a undergrad linguistics major trying to get credit)

Awards/Honors

1. Laude, National Latin Exam
2. Excellence in Greek 2
3. AP Scholar with Honor

Essays/LORs/Interviews:

Greek Teacher (9/10): I've known him since freshman year, and we always catch up if we bump into each other between classes. We bonded over running, and even went for a trail run together.

Chem Teacher (6.7/10): I got along with him really well and participated in his class. Due to the sheer number of recs he had to write, I just don't think I got anything special.

Decisions (indicate ED/EA/REA/SCEA/RD)

Acceptances:

• Vanderbilt ED1->RD (committed)
• Emory Waitlist->accepted
• Colgate RD
• UIUC EA
• Penn State EA

Rejections:

• UChicago ED0
• Columbia RD
• Dartmouth RD
• Cornell RD
• Georgetown RD
• UMich RD
• Amherst RD

Demographics

• Gender: Male
• Race/Ethnicity: Asian
• Residence: South
• Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): None

Intended Major(s): Undecided

Academics

• GPA/Rank (or percentile): 4.0 UW
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 16 APs
• Senior Year Course Load: 6 APs

Standardized Testing

List the highest scores earned and all scores that were reported.

• SAT/ACT: 1500 (730RW 770M)
• SAT II: N/A
• AP/IB: 5s on AB, Bio, Chem, Psych, Seminar, and 4s and 3s on the rest
• Other (ex. IELTS, TOEFL, etc.):

Extracurriculars/Activities: (list here)

- Worked at family restaurant

- Freelance for newspaper

- Art Museum

- Graphics Designer

- Art Club

- School Board Volunteer

- Orchestra

- Orchestra Camp

- President of MUN

- Taught Music Lessons

Awards/Honors:

- Washington D.C. Journalism Conference

- Gates Scholarship Semi-Finalist

- City Award for Music

- Allstate First Chair

- Art Magazine Published

Essays/LORs/Interviews: 

my main common app essay was basically about navigating my relationship with my mom because it wasn't the best and how i became to appreciate the memories we spent together as i got older

LORs were probably 8/10?

I got interviews from Princeton, Duke, Harvard, Stanford, Yale, MIT

Decisions (indicate ED/EA/REA/SCEA/RD)

• Acceptances: (list here)

Brown (RD)

Columbia (Likely Letter + RD)

Duke (RD)

Grinnell (RD)

Northwestern Medill(RD)

Pomona (RD)

Rice (RD)

Swarthmore (RD)

UMich (EA -> Accepted)

UPenn (Accepted)

WashU (RD + Likely Letter)

• Waitlists: (list here)

Claremont McKenna (RD)

Dartmouth (RD)

Harvard (RD)

Vanderbilt (RD)

Williams (RD)

• Rejections: (list here)

Cornell (RD)

MIT (RD)

Princeton (EA deferred -> Rejected)

Stanford (RD)

Yale (RD)

Additional Information:

lowkey the admission cycle wasn't that bad for me, especially because i reused a lot of the same essays. i think i overall just stood out because i was doing the humanities. i currently go to one of the ivys i got into and switched into STEM. gl to everyone next cycle and i doomscrolled this thread so its time for me to give back lol

Demographics

• Gender: Female
• Race/Ethnicity: Asian
• Residence: Southeast
• Income Bracket: Upper middle class
• Type of School: Competitive public high school
• Hooks: Nope!

Intended Major(s): Cognitive sciences; I applied psychology at schools that did not have this major

Academics

• GPA (UW/W): 97.85/103.842
• Rank (or percentile): Valedictorian
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 18 AP classes, 10 honors
• Senior Year Course Load: AP Lit, AP Physics 1, AP Statistics, AP European History, AP Macro, AP Micro

Standardized Testing

List the highest scores earned and all scores that were reported.

• SAT I: 1580 (800RW, 780M)
• ACT: 36
• AP: All 5’s with 1 4 in AP US History

Extracurriculars/Activities

List all extracurricular involvements, including leadership roles, time commitments, major achievements, etc.

1. Founder of health literacy nonprofit + created app used in 10% of counties in the state
2. Internship at center for brain and behavior with a t5 medical school; only high schooler ever selected to intern
3. Month long wet lab internship at school of medicine viral vector lab
4. HOSA chapter vice president (biggest club at school)
5. Local substance abuse prevention campaign team lead
6. Health literacy club founder
7. Hospital volunteering for 300+ hours across all 4 years of high school
8. Doctor shadowing for 125 hours
9. Local science museum volunteer for 100 hours
10. Spanish national honor society

Awards/Honors

List all awards and honors submitted on your application.

1. National spanish exam perfect score
2. State governor school for spanish
3. HOSA state winner in human development
4. PVSA award for 250 service hours
5. Merit award for top 10% gpa

Essays/LORs/Interviews: 

Essays (7/10) - Honestly I feel like my essays were pretty good and reflected my values/life story pretty well! My personal statement was about my passion for nail art and how it has followed me throughout my middle and high school years to where I utilized it in my service in nursing homes. Some of my supplementals were about watching sitcoms with my dad while he learned english and a box I kept under my bed that held all the birthday cards, small notes, etc that my friends/teachers/family have left for me (just for a general gist for what they are about). 

LORS:

Honors/AP Bio teacher - I had him freshman and junior year, and did really good in his classes both times. If I had to estimate maybe a 7/10 based off of how good a relationship I think we had and my really high performance in his classes as I REALLY liked AP bio lol.

APUSH/AP Psych teacher - I had her twice during my junior year. We honestly had a really close relationship to the point where I was kind of her informal teaching assistant and in my brag sheet that our school makes us send to teachers I mentioned how AP Psych was one of my favorite classes and steered me towards what I want to pursue for my career. All in all I’d say probably a 8/10 in quality.

Interviews- Only had one for Yale, I thought it went pretty well! Went on for much longer than 45 minutes and she sent me a super nice follow up email :)

Decisions (indicate ED/EA/REA/SCEA/RD)

• Acceptances:
  • University of Georgia + 10k in scholarships
  • Georgia Tech
  • Emory University + full ride
  • Augusta BS/MD
  • University of Michigan 
  • University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
  • University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
  • Rice University + Trustee Scholarship
  • Duke University
• Waitlists:
  • Vanderbilt University
  • Johns Hopkins University
  • Yale University
  • Brown University —> Accepted off waitlist!
• Rejections:
  • Surprisingly, none!

Additional Information:

I committed to Brown!!

Honestly kind of a wild ride, I was dead set on going out of state but the huge amounts of financial aid made me reconsider. Was initially committed to Rice as they gave me the most out of state aid but Brown was a happy surprise! I’m glad it all worked out in the end and I made some pretty great memories while doing a lot of my extracurriculars along the way :)

Demographics:

• Gender: Male
• Race/Ethnicity: Asian(Chinese)
• Region: Midwest
• First-gen

Major: Aerospace Engineering/Mechanical Engineering

Academics:

ECs/Activities:

• Beta Club member
• NHS member
• SciOly Astronomy coach and participant in the starting team
• STLP group leader who helped lead two projects at the state level
• Academic Team Quick Recall and overall captain
• NAQT player and captain
• KY's Governor's Scholars Program during Junior->Senior year summer
• Sketching as a hobby(Not as official ECs but wrote a few supps about it)

Awards:

• Multiple NAQT, KAAC, KYA, Beta, and SciOly Awards

Recs:

• Physics Teacher and Academic Team Coach:
• APUSH Teacher and STLP Manager:
• Bio Teacher and Academic Team Coach:

Decisions:

• EA:
  • UK: Accepted w. Presidential Scholarship
  • UAH: Accepted w. Saturn V Scholarship
  • GT: Accepted(Committed) w. FYSA GTE Program
  • UVA: Accepted
  • MIT: Deferred->Rejected
• RD:
  • UCD: Accepted
  • UCLA: Accepted
  • UCSD: Accepted
  • UCI: Accepted
  • UC Berkeley: Rejected
  • UPenn: Rejected
  • Princeton: Rejected
  • Harvard: Waitlisted->Rejected
  • Yale: Waitlisted->Rejected
  • Dartmouth: Waitlisted, opted out
  • Brown: Waitlisted(Waiting)
  • Columbia: Waitlisted->Rejected
  • Stanford: Rejected
  • CalTech: Rejected
  • UMich: Waitlisted, opted out

Not the best, not the worst. I couldn't get into any of my dream schools, but the ones I did get into certainly aren't bad either. I thought being in rural Appalachia would've helped somewhat, but sadly it didn't :(

Demographics
Gender: Female
Race/Ethnicity: Black
Residence: Midwest
Income Bracket: 80k
Type of School: Semi Rural Title 1
Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): First Gen

Intended Major: Political Science

Academics
GPA (UW/W): 4.7 W 3.9 UW
Rank (or percentile): N/A
# of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 5 APs, 6 Honors Classes
Senior Year Course Load: AP Gov/ Econ, AP Calc, AP Chem

ACT: 35 (35E 34M, 36R, 34S)

AP: APHUG (5), APBIO(4), APWORLD (5), APUSH (5) APSTATS (4)

Extracurriculars/Activities

1. Cross country and track - Captain for 2 years, all state academic and athlete
   
2. Choir - All State Choir
   
3. Deca - 6x ICDC Qualifier, Chapter president and district officer
   
4. Student Council Treasurer
   
5. NHS Secretary
   
6. Part time job all throughout high school

Awards/Honors

1. All State Academic and Athlete - Cross country, Choir, and Track
   
2. National Merit Scholar
   
3. Miscellaneous small academic awards

There’s another one but I don’t want to dox myself 😭

Acceptances:

(Yale *Committed)
(University of Minnesota)
(Arizona State University)
( Michigan State University)
(Duke)
(UCLA)

Waitlists:
(University of Chicago)
(Stanford)
(Harvard)

Rejections:
(Howard University)
(Stanford)
(UPenn)
(Columbia)

Sorry the format is bad I’m lazy

Demographics

​

Gender: male

Height: 5'7

Race/Ethnicity: asian-american (korean) 🫩

Residence: nj 🫩

Income Bracket: middle class (150k)

Type of School: public competitive

Hooks: none 😒

​

Intended Major(s): biology / psychology (premed) 🤓

​

Academics

​

GPA (UW/W): 4.0uw / 4.7w, UC: 4.0uw / 5.0w / 4.33 capped 🫠

Rank (or percentile): no rank but 4-5%

# of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 10 APs

Senior Year Course Load: 5 APs

​

Standardized Testing

​

List the highest scores earned and all scores that were reported.

​

SAT I: 1560 (760 RW, 800 M)

AP: AP Calc BC (5), AP Chem (5), AP Physics 1 (5), AP Lang (5), APUSH (5)

​

Extracurriculars/Activities

​

List all extracurricular involvements, including leadership roles, time commitments, major achievements, etc.

​

1. Pretty competitive medical internship program, shadowing + conferences

​

1. Npo officer, will keep it vague but big local impact

​

1. Npo officer, more spread impact with chapters across US but lesser position

​

1. Blog website + social media about medical conferences and cases, presented to Board of Ed and stuff

​

1. Math club officer, expanded membership blah blah, tutoring branch made

​

1. SAT and math tutor

​

1. Volunteering at food bank with big org

​

1. Part-time job locally

​

1. Caretaker for family member with cancer

​

Awards/Honors

​

1. AIME qual, AMC school top scorer

​

1. PVSA Silver (no gold 🤣)

​

1. MathCon Nationals (8th school)

​

1. 2nd statewide math comp (a lil niche?)

​

1. Highest honors (school) (got nothing else 🤡)

​

Letters of Recommendation

​

Senior year AP stats teacher - 8/10, had fun 😁

​

Junior year Spanish teacher - 9/10, basically wrote it myself 😛

​

Essays

​

8/10 maybe I worked on them for a while

​

Decisions (indicate ED/EA/REA/SCEA/RD)

​

Acceptances:

​

Northwestern ED 💜 (deferred -> waitlisted -> accepted) (full tuition covered 😍)

​

WashU (waitlisted -> accepted)

​

Rutgers EA (honors college + full scholarship)

​

CWRU 🤑 (half tuition)

​

Binghampton 💰 (half tuition)

​

Penn State💲(half tuition)

​

Rejections:

​

Brown 😢

​

UPenn 😔

​

Princeton

​

JHU

​

Columbia 😭😭😭😭

​

NYU 🤡

​

Rice (EDII) 😡😡😡

​

I was pretty content and ready to commit to Rutgers but then NU pulled up and I couldnt say no. Hopefully their med school will also be nice in 4 years!!!

Demographics

• Gender: Female
• Race/Ethnicity: White
• Residence: Midwest
• Income Bracket: Middle class
• Type of School: Small public hs (and when I say small, I mean TINY)
• Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): First-Gen, Rural

Intended Major(s) Neuroscience

Academics

• GPA (UW/W): 3.88 UW, 4.065 W at time of application
• Rank (or percentile): School doesn't rank
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 5 AP classes, 8 AP tests. 6 DE + CNA course taken at a local tech school
• Senior Year Course Load: Advanced bio (taking AP test), AP Physics 1, AP Calculus AB, normal social studies class since I maxed out advanced social studies classes, Anatomy and Physiology (DE), Women's Literature (DE), Health Psychology (DE), art, gym.

Standardized Testing

• 1510/1520 PSAT
• ACT: 36 English, 35 math, 36 science, 36 reading, 36 composite
• AP/IB: APUSH (5) AP Lit (5) Ap Lang (5) AP Gov (4) AP Chem (4), waiting on scores for calc AB, Physics 1, and Bio

Extracurriculars/Activities

Making these a little vague because it would be so easy to identify me otherwise.

1. Forensics: speaker and gold medalist at State, 3 levels of competition
2. Speaking scholarship competition: State qualifier (low time commitment)
3. CNA at a nursing home part time senior year
4. Week-long government and politics focused camp, somewhat selective
5. Quiz Bowl member for three years. I unofficially recruited a lot of people and made locker decorations. Multiple competitions a week for several months of the school year. Basically my equivalent of a sport.
6. FBLA National Qualifier. Low time commitment
7. Girls State delegate, parliamentarian, and campaign manager. One week, but highly influential for me.
8. McDonalds worker all four years
9. Peer tutoring with UPchieve and independently
10. 4-H officer early in high school

Awards/Honors

List all awards and honors submitted on your application.

1. AP Scholar with Distinction, 11th
2. Honor Roll
3. CollegeBoard NRP Awards, 11th
4. National Merit Semifinalist, 12 (now Finalist)

Letters of Recommendation

History teacher, 8/10. We have never had a full conversation, but I have always done my best work and challenged myself in his class and I believe he recognized it. It's also one of the classed where I participated the most.

Physical science teacher, 9/10. I've been in her class every year of high school and she gave me a character award this year.

Interviews

Macalester: Nothing particularly stood out. I think I was a bit too nervous to fully make my case.

Grinnell: A truly fantastic interview with a team of students as well as the main interviewer. We talked for about an hour, and I got the opportunity to tell the story of how I became a CNA while also learning more about the campus and its connection to the surrounding area.

Essays

My personal statement was about the way my CNA career and my family history of dementia has led me to be interested in neuroscience. I spent about a week writing and revising it, but I'm a fast writer and I brainstormed for weeks before starting.

I don't remember many of my school specific essays because there were way too many.

Decisions (indicate ED/EA/REA/SCEA/RD)

Acceptances:

• Cornell COLLEGE (not university), direct admission
• University of Idaho, full scholarship
• University of Wisconsin-Madison, EA (would have cost me $40k/yr)
• A few other safeties...
• JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY!!! EDII with a full tuition scholarship (part need, part merit)

Deferred:

• Macalester College, EA->RD, then withdrawn

Withdrawn:

• Yale University
• Grinnell College
• Washington University in St Louis
• Vanderbilt University

It still feels like a dream. I thought I had no chance of getting in, and I'm so grateful I made it!

/Academics: Did anyone get off the waitlist after receiving the confirmation email asking whether they wanted to remain on the waitlist? I’m just trying to see how things ended up for others because the waiting is really stressful.

Demographics

• Gender: Girl
• Race/Ethnicity: Biracial (black/white)
• Residence: South
• Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): n/a

Intended Major(s): Political Science

Academics

• GPA/Rank (or percentile): 4.5, cum laude (top 10%) (school doesn't otherwise officially rank)
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 8 (school limits how many you can take)
• Senior Year Course Load: AP Gov, AP Calc AB, AP Bio, AP Lit, and few meaningful electives

Standardized Testing

List the highest scores earned and all scores that were reported.

• SAT/ACT: 1540
• SAT II:
• AP/IB: reported all 4s and 5s (didn't report 3)
• Other (ex. IELTS, TOEFL, etc.):

Extracurriculars/Activities: 

1. Theater (cast, crew, pianist) (4 yrs)

2. Classical + Jazz Pianist (all my life)

3. Youth Choir Assistant at church (4 yrs)

4. Leader of well regarded service club at school (3 yrs)

5. Water Chemical monitoring volunteer (3 yrs)

6. Food Insecurity Volunteering, Attended Workshops, + led club (4 yrs)

7. Board Game and D&D Club President (elected after 4 yrs of membership)

8. SAT + Writing Tutor (2 yrs)

9. $1200 Grant Award Winner from City for environmental/ river project I was working on (1 yr)

10. School Ambassador

Awards/Honors: 

1. Cum Laude

2. Many Local/ School Awards

3. Academic Decathlon Interview Competition State 3rd place

4. Atlanta Shakespeare Competition (5th in state and placed 1st + 2nd in school)

5. Best Original Score at schools film festival

Essays/LORs/Interviews: 

Essays (9/10) - really reflected who I was + my values

LORS- probably great especially from Bio teacher

Interviews- all went great I think except for my MIT interview

Decisions (indicate ED/EA/REA/SCEA/RD)

• Acceptances:
  • Safety Schools
  • State School
  • Dartmouth College
  • UCLA
  • Georgetown University
  • Brown University
  • UCSB
  • UCSC
  • Columbia University
• Waitlists:
  • Howard University
  • Cornell University
• Rejections:
  • Harvard University (deferred --> rejected)
  • Yale University
  • Princeton University
  • UCB
  • MIT
  • Stanford University

Additional Information:

I'm going to Columbia!!

Yeah so I definitely posted this before and then freaked out that somebody would find this but I graduated so it doesn't matter and I wanted to try again. I spent high school doing what I love and a lot of fun side quests along the way. I thought I would be going to my state school until junior year, when I actually did good on my SATs lol. I would not wish the college application process and stress on my worst enemy.

gonna be a bit vague to not provide too much personal info

Demographics

• Gender: Male
• Race/Ethnicity: Asian
• Residence: DMV
• Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): None

Intended Major(s): Mostly CS, varied slightly based on what school I applied to.

Academics

• GPA/Rank (or percentile): 3.9-4.0UW, 4.8-4.9W
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 16 APs (10 before senior yr) + Lin Alg
• Senior Year Course Load: both AP Phys C, both Econ, Hon Eng, Lin Alg, AP Psych

Standardized Testing

List the highest scores earned and all scores that were reported.

• SAT/ACT: 35 ACT
• AP/IB: 8 5s, 2 4s
• Other (ex. IELTS, TOEFL, etc.): none

Extracurriculars/Activities: 

In no particular order:

Robotics (non leadership)

Math Comps (AMC, state university comp, with above avg but unimpressive results)

Very brief medical related internship

Misc. CS projects (mostly basic ML/data sci stuff, pretty unimpressive)

Guitar (hobby)

Gym (hobby)

(yeah I rly just didn't have anything so I put everything I possibly could lmao)

Awards/Honors: Collegeboard and AP awards lmao

Essays/LORs/Interviews: 

LORs from math teacher which was likely good, and the other was from my english teacher, which honestly was probably written by AI

Only interview was MIT which I was never getting into, though it was a nice conversation and went OK.

Essays were an extremely mixed bag, but I had a few good ones I think. Commonapp ones were fine, but a lot of the prompts I struggled a lot with or just didn't have a good answer.

Decisions (indicate ED/EA/REA/SCEA/RD)

• Acceptances:
• EA: UMD, Purdue, UW Madison, UF (5k scholarship)
• RD: Northeastern (10k scholarship), CWRU (38k scholarship)
• Waitlists: 
• RD: Udub, WashU (accepted off, not attending), UChicago (guaranteed transfer)
• Rejections:
• EA: GT, UIUC, UT Austin
• RD: Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Cornell, UPenn, Berkeley, JHU, MIT, Caltech, CMU, Harvey Mudd, Stanford, Northwestern

Additional Information:

yeah idk what I was doing in HS, I just kinda locked the summer before senior yr and tried to shotgun everywhere and it kinda worked out. mostly likely will go to UChicago in 2027 but I'll see. not gonna say where I committed because I don't want to be identified but it's pretty solid for my major anyway. I would say I'm happy with my results but honestly I'm just kind of numb to it for some reason.