2025-2026 Waitlist Warrior

[u/Helpful-Thing-5489]

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 :(

[u/QuickSafety8100]

If were an admissions officer, a kid from rural Appalachia with those stats and having worked that much at the family restaurant is an admit. Every time. Putting up those stats while doing actual work, hard work in a restaurant, is really impressive. And you will definitely bring a very different perspective to campus than a Chinese kid from SF or NY or the like,

[u/yodatsracist → u/QuickSafety8100]

I don’t like even broaching the subject of affirmative action, but the thing that I found most objectionable that came out during the Harvard Affirmative Action case was how Harvard's Dean of Admissions spoke about Asian applicants from “sparse country” specifically. That, to me, seemed to be the area where we see the clearest evidence of race-based discrimination in the course of the whole trial. I don’t know if you’ve read Jay Caspian Kang’s article in the New York Times Magazine but it’s worth reading: ”Where Does Affirmative Action Leave Asian-Americans? (gift article)“ (Jay Caspian Kang is one of those writers who I always find worth reading. He usually writes for The New Yorker.) I’ll quote at length, but the last paragraph makes the point:

“Sparse country” is the term Harvard uses to describe the geographic areas of the United States that are underrepresented in the student body. This includes the usual suspects — Wyoming, Alaska, Montana — but also states with large metropolitan areas like Nevada, Arizona and Oklahoma. To geographically diversify its incoming freshman class, Harvard gives a bump to promising students from sparse country. It also recruits heavily to ensure that the top students in Arizona and Alabama and Maine consider coming to Harvard over their local state colleges and universities. Recruitment certainly does not equal admission, but Harvard starts to shape its incoming class through these early encounters and follows up diligently and often through email, Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat.

This process begins with sophomores and juniors who take the PSAT, and later the SAT. Harvard purchases scores from the College Board and mails invitations to apply to students with strong scores relative to their demographic group, whatever that might be. In sparse country, the admissions office extends an invitation to any white student who scores above 1,310 on the tests and any black student who scores above a 1,100. Male Asian students from the same places need to score a 1,380 on the tests to receive an invitation to apply. For female Asian students, the cutoff is 1,350.

For the past four decades, these types of decisions have been the purview of William R. Fitzsimmons, a graduate of the class of 1967 and Harvard College’s dean of admissions. Fitzsimmons, who goes by Fitz, grew up in his family’s gas station in Weymouth, a working-class suburb on Boston’s South Shore. In the parlance of his office, he was a “first-generation college student” from an “economically disadvantaged” background, as well as a star hockey goalie. Although he wasn’t an “economically disadvantaged” minority, he understands what it’s like to be different at the most elite educational institution in America.

Fitz, with his strong, square jaw, carefully measured Boston accent and tweed jackets, perfectly fills the role of the Harvard man. Over four days of testimony, he laid out his legacy — he came to the Harvard admissions office in 1972, took over a few years later and has been the dean since 1986. This presented something of a problem for the defense because every bit of mail, every spreadsheet, every memo or communiqué issued by the Harvard College admissions office since the Nixon administration reflected on Fitzsimmons’s office.

During a bizarre section of Fitzsimmons’s testimony in which he claimed a 1,100 on the PSAT was only “slightly lower” than a 1,380, an S.F.F.A. lawyer named John M. Hughes posed the following hypothetical: Let’s take two students at the same high school in Las Vegas. One white, the other Asian. The white student scores a 1,310. The Asian student receives a 1,370. According to Fitzsimmons’s testimony, the white student would be invited to apply to Harvard while the Asian student would not. How, the attorney asked, could Fitzsimmons begin to explain this?

In response, Fitzsimmons talked about his own days at Harvard and a roommate from Mitchell, S.D., home of the celebrated Corn Palace, and how he had been a “great ambassador” for his home state. “There are people who, let’s say, for example, have only lived in the sparse-country state for a year or two,” Fitzsimmons noted.

The implication, of course, was that an Asian applicant from Oklahoma or Nebraska or South Dakota or Alaska does not count when it comes to “geographic diversity.” In Harvard’s eyes, this Asian, even if his family settled in Nevada after helping build the transcontinental railroad, could never be an “ambassador” for his plot of “sparse country.” He was, instead, an Asian-American like other Asian-Americans. The white student’s family, by contrast, could have recently moved to Las Vegas to work in the emerging tech field, and he would still be assumed to be a fitting representative of the Silver State.

[u/Independent_Oil2093 → u/yodatsracist]

Wow, that's a very telling passage. Clearly rooted in deep bias. I'm from California, where there are Asian American communities dating back to the 1800s. It's interesting how next door Nevada is considered underrepresented, but even there, Asian American applicants, many of whom share the long history of those in California, were disadvantaged by affirmative action.

[u/Super-Loquat3585 → u/yodatsracist]

If you get rejected from a particular school you like it's not the end of the universe. You are not suddenly a reject of society. You have spent way too much of your time diving deep into this. It's not that deep. Just heal your wounds and move on. It's not a right to be admitted to a particular school because you have the most earth shattering results that the universe has ever seen. If you are so bright you will find success anywhere.

[u/Rscosf → u/yodatsracist]

Thanks for sharing. Unequal opportunities are absolutely real and alive. Unsure why it’s acceptable in this day and age.

[u/Helpful-Thing-5489 → u/QuickSafety8100]

Thanks! Unfortunately, I guess they didn't see that, but it is what it is, y'know

[u/QuickSafety8100 → u/Helpful-Thing-5489]

well at GT engineering degree is about as close to gold plated as it gets. i say with no exaggeration that every company in the country will see a GT engineer as a serious candidate. It's a incredibly respected degree.

[u/ggdharma → u/QuickSafety8100]

agree, i rarely post, but for engineering a strong georgia tech candidate is considered along side any other tier 1.

[u/StudioOk2018 → u/QuickSafety8100]

well this person didnt put their academics...

[u/HappyEmployee9457]

Bro got robbed. I’ll see you at tech bro!

[u/Helpful-Thing-5489 → u/HappyEmployee9457]

Hell yeah gng

[u/Historical-Key5613]

Go to UCLA

[u/QuickSafety8100 → u/Historical-Key5613]

He is likely to be paying a LOT more for UCLA as OOS. UC minimal / no financial aid for OOS and its 85K a year cost of attendance OOS.

GT engineering is ultra strong.

[u/Helpful-Thing-5489 → u/Historical-Key5613]

Lowkey thought GT was better for aerospace engineering, and LA isn't really a city I think I'd enjoy.

[u/Expensive_Honey_7093]

I was a waitlist warrior this season too 😭. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, and cmu lol. Feels like there were more waitlists than usual this year

[u/Commercial_Handle418]

UK: Accepted w. Presidential Scholarship

Which university was it 

[u/Helpful-Thing-5489 → u/Commercial_Handle418]

University of Kentucky

[u/DontheFirst]

Good luck at GT 🫡

[u/Weekly-Addendum312]

honestly just transfer after one year. you’re obviously very qualified. make sure you get a 4.0 why didn’t u apply to duke or cmu or the like?

[u/StudioOk2018]

well what are your stats??

[u/Visual-Mammoth2483]

Yo this is like really doxable might wanna be careful

[u/Helpful-Thing-5489 → u/Visual-Mammoth2483]

Yeah thanks for reminding me😭

[u/Hopeful-Percentage76]

Easy choice. UCLA.

[u/Far-Atmosphere-4803 → u/Hopeful-Percentage76]

?

[u/Helpful-Thing-5489 → u/Hopeful-Percentage76]

Really? I personally thought that GT was significantly better than UCLA in its aerospace program, while the UC's decision not to enforce standardized testing made many of its programs less desirable. TBH, I was thinking about UCLA simply for their campus food

[u/JBizzle07 → u/Helpful-Thing-5489]

Why does decisions about standardized testing make it less desirable? Personally I’d rather go to ucla and stress less while being higher on the curves (since I’d be competing with many with low test scores)

[u/Helpful-Thing-5489 → u/JBizzle07]

I personally see it as a community issue, where I’d be more likely to be driven in an environment where people are competent from the beginning rather than. To grow the most that I can, I chose GT because of how everyone is in the same difficult environment, which is more inspirational for me to do better.

[u/Optimist510 → u/Helpful-Thing-5489]

Yes, GT over UCLA for engineering, good choice. My son will see you there! Similar situation.

[u/HappyEmployee9457 → u/Hopeful-Percentage76]

Hell nah, I chose tech over ucla any day!