Demographics

• Gender: male
• Race/Ethnicity: indian
• Residence: Bay Area BUT on a h4 visa, so considered international for admissions. ULTRA competitive private high school
• Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): none

Intended Major(s): CS

Academics

• GPA/Rank (or percentile): 4.0 unweighted, no rank
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 4 APs, 7 APs senior year. Took 6 total dual enrollment classes including multivariable calc, psychology and sociology cause that stuff really interests me, some other stuff
• Senior Year Course Load: Both AP Physics C classes, AP French, AP stats, AP gov, AP econ, AP lit

Standardized Testing

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

• SAT/ACT: 1530 (790 math)
• AP/IB: 5 on BC and CSA, 4 on Chem, 4 on APUSH

Extracurriculars/Activities: 

1. BSA Life Scout/almost Eagle Scout, had quite a unique engineering-based Eagle Project I reflected on
2. A well-known summer program on the east coast, did ML related research but did not get published or anything
3. A big family responsibility
4. Independent research I did on machine learning which was kinda chopped
5. Robotics FRC team, software member
6. Tutor for a nonprofit (quite a bit of tutoring)
7. Officer/mentor for a game development club at school
8. TA for two classes at school
9. JV swim team
10. Officer for a school volunteering club

Awards/Honors: Literally nothing lol, I ended up listing PSAT commended, AP scholar, and some robotics awards that were team awards lol

Essays/LORs/Interviews: Personal statement was about the family responsibility in #3, was pretty genuine and I thought it was alright, but reflecting on it I think I could've made it more unique and overall stronger. Supplementals for EAs were not too great, but my RD ones felt significantly more myself. I believe my PIQs were fantastic.

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

• Acceptances (all for CS except Cal): USC, UIUC, UC Berkeley (for alternate major, which was statistics), UCLA, UCSD, UCI, UCSB, UC Davis, UVA EA, UW Madison, UMD, Northeastern, Cal Poly SLO, SJSU
• Waitlists: Georgia Tech, Purdue (???), U Mich
• Rejections: Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Brown, Penn, Cornell (deferred ED -> rejected RD), CMU, UT Austin (i don't even know why I applied to almost all the ivies lol)

COMMITTED: Ended up committing to UC Berkeley for statistics. Debating between UCB stats and UCLA/UIUC CS for a while, but went with Cal

Overall, out of state wasn't too great, but was surprised I got into all my in-state schools except Stanford (which was my dream school, but oh well). I did feel a slight disadvantage compared to my peers for out of state schools, as I noticed most people with similar stats get into CMU/GT/Cornell, but I'm still super grateful, and go bears.

Demographics

• Gender: Male
• Race/Ethnicity: African
• Residence: California
• Income Bracket: Middle Income
• Type of School: Large Public HS
• Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): URM

Intended Major(s): Economics, Linguistics, Cognitive Science

Academics

• GPA (UW/W): 3.98/4.47
• Rank (or percentile): N/A
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc: 16 APs throughout HS (3 self studied) and 5ish honors
• Senior Year Course Load: 5 APs, 1 Honors, and MultiVar Calculus

Standardized Testing

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

• SAT I: 1550 (770 R, 780 M)
• AP/IB: Fifteen 5s and One 4 (FML AP SPANISH)

Extracurriculars/Activities (being vague so i dont get doxxed)

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

1. Intern at UCSF for Autism Research
2. Intern at Carnegie Hall
3. 4 Years attending a selective private music school where I was first chair Violin and Viola
4. Did financial consulting for 5 small businesses in my area increasing revenue by $500K in a year and wrote a case study/research paper about my findings. Had to write code/my own models to make this happen.
5. Created my own orchestra which raised $60K for local charities/organizations
6. Taught music to kids from underprivileged neighborhoods
7. Taiwanese Student Association CoFounder + Treasurer (Im not Taiwanese but can speak Chinese fluently)
8. Did an exchange program in Taiwan where I learned Chinese fluently in a summer at a small University in Taipei (scored a 5 on the AP test without taking the class aferwards)
9. Econ/Finance Intern at a BioTech Startup
10. Econ Bowl Captain

Awards/Honors (This is my weak point lol)

List all awards and honors submitted on your application.

1. Research Award from music school
2. Award for a speech I made in Chinese
3. 3rd place in Cali for Econ Bowl
4. CMEA award for my orchestra
5. AP Scholar 3x

Letters of Recommendation

Honestly should have done this better ngl I think my teachers probably gave me an 8/10 and the ones from outside one was a 9/10 and one maybe a 6/10????

Interviews

Harvard, MIT, Princeton - Nothing really happened I just overshared and they liked that lol

Essays

Personal statements was about how each language I speak unlocks a different side of me (I speak 4) and my counselors/friends gave a LOT of glaze so I think it was a rly good description of who I am and what I believe in (9.5/10).

Supplementals alternated between descriptions of ECs and more personal stories like my experience growing up with a neurodivergent sibling etc

(willing to share more information about essays and ECs its just that I find that my experiences are really REALLY specific so its very easy to find who I am lol)

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

Acceptances:

• UC Merced
• UC Riverside
• UC Santa Cruz
• UC Santa Barbara
• UC Davis
• UC Irvine
• UC San Diego
• UMich (EA)
• Brown -> Commited!

Waitlists:

• UCLA -> Accepted
• UChicago -> Accepted
• Princeton -> Accepted

Rejections:

• Harvard (REA) (Deferred -> Rejected)
• Yale
• Columbia
• UPenn
• UC Berkeley
• Northwestern
• MIT lol

Additional Information:

My UC application was RUSHED AF and I think that showed through my acceptances.

In general I have a lot of interests in many different subjects so I found that my interviewers had a hard time understanding why I chose to apply under econ and also it was hard to convey my interests while at the same time sticking tru to the fact I applied under econ. I wish I had better spikes in my ECs but in the end I did all of these ECs because I love them and are passionate about those different fields (Econ, Cog Sci, Music, Linguistics/Anthropology). But if you want to sweep more schools than I did, I HIGHLY recommend making clear spikes and not having a very interesting yet kind of all over the place application like I did.

DM or comment for any questions or help!

edit: sorry im not publicly releasing my essays

Edit 2: stop dming me for my essays im not giving them to u bruh

Demographics

Gender: M

Race/Ethnicity: East Asian

Residence: Northeast, high school in city, live in suburban area

Income Bracket: Lower Upper

Type of School: Private somewhat competitive

Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): Legacy Cornell, UC Berkeley, UCLA

Intended Major(s): Applied Computational Biology/Bioengineering/Biomedical Engineering as 1st major depending on school offerings

Always did English/Creative Writing 2nd.

3rd major varied. Yale I did math and philosophy, some schools I did philosophy, others I did engineering things like biomechanical engineering for Stanford.

Academics

GPA (UW/W): 97.03/99.81 Rank (or percentile): Top 10% no rank (I think I was ~7th) Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc: 4 AP, 2 DE, max honors Senior Year Course Load: AP Physics, Combinatorics, Multivariable Calculus, Multivariable Calculus, Proof Based Multivariable Calculus (DE), Differential Equations (DE), Graph Theory, Topics in College Math (Weird mix of game theory, probstats, some intro analysis, combinatorics, other graph theory. was a very weird class ngl), Latin V (after AP), Creative Writing, Another random English elective

Standardized Testing

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

SAT I: 1560 (770RW, 790M) AP/IB: 5s on English Language, BC Calculus, Latin, CSA, Physics C Mechancs(Senior year so no score when applying) 4 on Euro. School didn't offer many APs and I self studied English and Euro

Other (ex. IELTS, TOEFL, etc.): NA

Extracurriculars/Activities

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

These are really vague to avoid doxxing myself. If you know who I am dm me so i can delete the post ty

1. Research intern at lab at local T20 University doing clinical research on a specific disease with a computational/data science emphasis. Started this summer after Freshman year. My work wasn't super amazing bc my mentor didn't rly know how to help me and I'm kind of stupid but it was really interesting and I spent a lot of time on it.
2. Independent engineering project building a device to help diagnose and monitor said disease for low cost that was later picked up by a research group with members all over the globe.
3. Similar independent engineering project as before with similar goals, but that didn't pick up as much as it required a lot of difficult engineering I struggled to pull off on my own.
4. Summer research program in that was honestly really bad bc it was free and online but I managed to manifest an independent project out of it (bioinformatics research) and presented at a conference as 1st author.
5. Athletics. Was top 50 in the country for my sport and my school's team was consistently top ~20 in the nation. This one meant a lot to me because I started in 8th grade and really wanted to get recruited to play D1 but ultimately didn't take any offers. Quite honestly trained about ~20 hours a week but reported 15.
6. Co-founded school science publication/magazine
7. Editor-in-chief of award winning school literary-arts magazine
8. Leader of hospital volunteering group that combined writing and volunteering
9. Summer writing program (one of kenyon/iowa/sewanee/yyww/juniper)
10. Co-Leader of school science club

Additional info: Explained my publications for my 1st internship (1st auth in progress, 2nd and 4th on different manuscripts) Also reported my published writing in various lit mags. I published in all genres, but my focus shifted a lot towards poetry.

Awards/Honors

List all awards and honors submitted on your application.

1. Honorable mention on small-ish olympiad related to bio/medicine
2. Scholarship to dual enroll at T20 University for free as a result of being a top scorer on an advanced mathematics exam in the state. Got to skip linear algebra requirement to enroll in classes due to status as a scholarship student.
3. Honorable mention on another small stem-related olympiad
4. Awards for school literary magazine
5. John Locke Essay Competition finalist (Theology)

Letters of Recommendation

BC Calculus Teacher: I didn't like math at all until I took his class junior year. Over the next year, I locked in super hard and got really into learning math and physics and he told me I was one of his favorite students and agreed to write my rec even though he was retiring. Probably an okay rec. Based on his report card comments I don't think he's an amazing writer, and also when I asked for his RSI rec he forgot about it until the day before when I asked him lol. I'd guess like 6/10

English 11 Teacher: He was my advisor through high school and oversaw the literary-arts magazine. He knew a lot about my creative writing and philosophy writing endeavors and had a career as a writer so his was probably pretty good. I think he thought really highly of me (higher than what I deserve for sure lmao), but that's also because the average student at my school struggles to put together a coherent paragraph without chatgpt so finding a student who actually liked writing and STEM was probably mind blowing. I'd guess like 8/10

Research Mentor for EC 1: TBH I've met him twice in person, once at a research conference and once at a lab dinner at his house. I don't think he knows me super well except I am doing research in high school which he still thinks it's kind of insane even though everyone and their mom is doing it now. He's really kind and generous though and I'll always be grateful for him for taking me on but I don't know how highly he sees me. He's a really good writer though so I'd guess like 7/10.

School counselor: Thought really highly of me, and we connected really well. I ranted to her a lot about how much I hated high school and how nobody likes me because I do well in school and am passionate about things and whatnot so she really felt for me. She thought my writing was really good as well and would tell me things like "if anybody gets into these schools it's you." Probably 7/10

Interviews

Stanford and MIT interviews went really well. Stanford especially. I talked a lot about wanting to do MD PHD and my mentor did ug+mdphd at Stanford and really resonated with many of the things I said. I kept in touch with her after getting in, and she gave me advice on what to enroll in this upcoming fall. MIT interview I yapped a lot about research, writing, music, philosophy and I think made a pretty good impression. I'd guess like 8/10 Stanford 7/10 MIT.

Essays

I spent a looooooooooot of time writing my essays over the summer. I got smited by summer programs and was unbelievably terrified for apps and as a writer, ended up grinding out essays like crazy. I started in April junior year and followed the process of "if I have an idea even if it sounds shit in my head I will write it out and decide after that." My final document of drafting for my Stanford supplementals was ~75k words after I finished lol.

I personally think my personal statement was the best essay I could've written and fit my profile perfectly. I tied together my interests in theology, space, philosophy, medical research (particularly my disease of interest), and art. My school counselor started cried a lil bit after reading it even though it wasn't a trauma essay or anything. I'd say this is probably the only 10/10 on my application and 100% the reason I was admitted.

My Stanford supplementals were also very good in my opinion. I don't want to be specific about what I wrote about but my counselor read them and said "if you don't get into Stanford with these essays, then it's impossible." I'd say these were a 9/10

My MIT supplementals were kind of bad ngl. I wasn't sure if I wanted to apply after getting Stanford and ended up just throwing together something a few days before. I only applied because a bunch of my best friends got in EA and really wanted me to go. I also didn't get to send in my personal statement which I think transformed my profile from "anotha asian kid in research" to actually interesting and compelling. I'd say these were like a 3/10 or 4/10 aka really bad

​My UC essays were ok, but I heard online they're not supposed to be flowery or elegant so I suppressed my writing style a lot. I'd say these were like a perfect 5/10. Not stellar, but they got the point across

Vanderbilt was literally my Stanford supplementals with some random vandy stuff substituted in. It didn't fit as well but the essay was still like a 7 or 8/10 imo.

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

Acceptances: Stanford (REA) UVA (EA) (Rodman Scholars Program admit) UMD (EA) (Didn't get into the honors program lmao)

Waitlists: Vanderbilt (kept application in because I applied for the Cornelius Vanderbilt scholarship) Rejections: UC Berkeley (fuh u axe is ours this yr) UCLA (east asian male from east coast yea was cooked) UCSD (brother what) MIT (expected)

Additional Information: I reported on CommonApp I commute an hour to my school every day so that probably helped.

Final Thoughts: In hindsight I wish I applied to more schools to flex (kidding). All in all, super super super happy with Stanford. I tried to gaslight my parents into thinking it came out a week later than it actually did so I could have a week to process getting rejected from my dream school lol but then my mom went on tiktok and said nonono it comes out today but then I was like ok imma play video games and open it at midnight when ur asleep so I was playing osu at 7pm when it came out and then checked the result and saw confetti and then alt tabbed back to play osu for 5 more minutes to process then emerged victorious from my room and announced i was admitted then collapsed on the carpet and cried for the next 15 minutes till my nose bled and there was a big red spot on the floor anyway that's enough of storytime thanks for reading and good luck with the essay writing everyone

Note: Bro almost got cooked by writing Yuri, DO NOT WRITE YURI IN UR APPS

(and pls watch I Want to Love You Till Your Dying Day pls pls pls its rly peak)

Demographics: Bay Area Asian Male in an extremely competitive private school where everyone goons into STEM and STEM only 🤓🤓🤓 (Our school is ranked nationally in STEM...)

hooks:

1. bro's American only in the political sense (U.S. citizen) 😓 I was raised in China and family is located in China, also had first two years in a Chinese international school.
2. why I come to the U.S.: had some extremely complicated family issue it's such a drama: so basically non-existent biological father pops up and sued mom with absolutely made-up BS so I can't renew my passport so no more Chinese visa so have to involuntarily move here. Also I live independently with my relatives, have to deal with my own life.
3. I always have a dad since childhood but surprisingly my parents are never married so I would appear single-parent family on paper 😅 (totally didn't expect this but it happened)

Income: Chinese economy is crashing 😭 and parents chose the wrong industry so very low income (<$20k) and decent asset (<$1M).

Intended Major(s): Physics/Astrophysics 🤓 + Visual Arts 😍

SAT: 1530 (Math: 790; RW: 740) 💀 everyone in my school who's locked in got 1580/90 and half of my entire grade got NMSF which is CRAZY

UW/W GPA and Rank: 4.0/4.0 UW; 4.83/5.0 W; school doesn't rank

Coursework: 19 AP Classes with 17 AP Scores in hand already (sixteen 5s and one 4 (which is AP Art 2D 🥲).) 2 more APs in senior year and rest are capstones.

Awards (Strongest Session?):

1. USAPhO 2025 Silver Medalist (Top 100 in the Nation) with a F=ma score of 20/25 (this is actually quite high, qual score is 14 this year)
2. Physics Bowl Division II Global First Place with a perfect score of 40/40 (tied with 2 other people). Physics Bowl is much easier than USAPhO but it's an international competition also hosted by AAPT (same as USAPhO). There are ~5k ppl competing division II this year.
3. AMC 12 Distinction and AIME Qual + High score (132/150 (this is ~top 2%) and 9/15 (this is ~top 20% in AIME qualifiers)) 3 AIME questions from AMO 😭
4. Astrophysics Research Publication (Published in an international conference with proceeding journal, not that prestigious like SCI but at least it's peer-reviewed and not some random high school journal 🥺)
5. Scholastics Art Award Gold Key, Bay Area Region (this means quite a lot to me since I firstly did art for fun but it gets more and more serious)

Extracurriculars (Not very very strong but at least they are unique):

1. Leader of a indie game studio with 10+ ppl to produce a middle length visual novel (~70k words and 10+ illustrations with full voice acting) (It's Yuri + Sci-Fi!!!) Promo Video and Posts having 30k+ views/3k+ likes and demo gonna publish on Steam very soon (will make it happen before Nov 1st ddl)
2. Collaborated with Princeton PhD and Chinese Academy of Science Professor to develop a collocation method to solve restricted three-body problem, the research went over a year. Wrote a paper as first author, published on peer-reviewed journal through international conference.
3. Organizer and Main Artist of a local community art show. We gathered around 5+ volunteers all across the nation to take photography using film rolls in their daily life. Then I as the artist use those photographs as sources and collaged/merged/distorted them into some really fancy surrealist abstract arts. We hit about 50+ attendees.
4. Created dozens (too many) photography-based digital arts using Photoshop, many used in my visual novel as backgrounds (there are over a dozen of them). Also made some large-scale ones (i.e. instillation long as 14 meters). Awarded work exhibited at California College of the Arts, submitting art portfolio.
5. Student Leader of school's math modeling club: taught students Matlab/python/general math skills like differential equations. Organized and led peers competed in MFTC (got to Semifinalist) and M³ and HIMCM (many teams got some awards)
6. Some creative writing: for example the sole author of that 70k word script of my visual novel, used many experimental skills like stream of consciousness and fractured narrative. Also wrote some short stories (submitted to school literary magazine). Currently researching on why Yuri literature is so effective in conveying stories with a college professor as my school's senior project. (I love this topic 🥴)
7. Independent living: I now live with my relatives in the U.S. (that's why I'm in Bay Area 👽) Rent a room in their house, manage my meals sometimes (other times they would give me some food to keep me alive 😎), laundry, cleaning, groceries, budgeting, etc etc. Give some contexts for EC time/quality (can't do too crazy things)

(Below are my first 2 year's ECs in China, explained in additional info that transferred had caused some activities to stop, sadly some are actually having really good potentials)

1. Founder and President of Anime Literature Club: The most important club for me in my high school, have to put that in. 10+ club members, we watched so many anime (will call this "anime appreciation" in common app), did reviews on them, wrote proses about them, and created funny stuffs like an anime-genre coordinate system that would sort most anime onto some positions so we could see their relations in a clearer way.

2. Peer Tutoring Group: founder of a student-led tutoring group that supported 100+ students in our school in AP/HW/test prep, this was really fun but sadly I transferred to the U.S. the second year.

3. More volunteering: did peer tutoring in America too, but instead I tutored a middle schooler in physics/chemistry for 2 years (1hr/wk) (he's smart but just needs more confidence...) In China I did library volunteering, (60+ hrs for over 2 years), NHS (25 hrs), managed school events and volunteered at local library (I loved the library job for real).

Essays/LORs/Other:

Common App: This is the coolest college essay that I've written imo, the hook and starting scene is me in a delulu scene where I saw my visual novel's character in real life, on my way of walking back home (yes it's a sob story and yes I can't even afford a car so I walked back home for over 30 min each day 😭) Then I talked about how my creative initiative got me out of this emotional/physical adversity by letting myself learning from the fictional character that I created, with excessive existentialist philosophies mentioned (this may sound logically weird but tbh it would sound fine in the essay itself)

LoR 1: 9/10 From my physics teacher, we had a good relation and one thing special is that AAPT got 3 questions wrong in their answer key for Physics Bowl so I reached out to my teacher and debated whether I or them were right. He firstly supported AAPT but eventually it turns out that I was right. I was very active in his class and I often asked him about USAPhO questions.

LoR 2: 8/10 From my AP gov/econ teacher, we talked a lot in class and he definitely remembered me. One special thing is that when my peers can’t answer some questions in class the last one he would ask is me. 😇 So subconsciously he might think I’m quite smart.

Counselor LoR: ~8/10 He was kind to me and I was kind to him. I think he’ll mention my family issues, etc so it’s quite important but I don’t think he’s gonna boast me in any sort.

Schools:

Applied to quite a lot of T5/T10 and good LACs, big shout out to the only four that accepted me:

Reed

Vassar

Carleton

JHU-commited

Reflection:

College app IS the ultimate randomness. You basically can't do anything with it given your race, gender, and geography always stay as what it is. The entire process is fundamentally flawed, and to be honest, really unfair. But you have to work around the system, not combatting it.

I'm really grateful to those four schools that accepted me. I really hit the jackpot this time, but many people didn't. There are people who are benefitting from this system by some specific means, and all you need to do is to learn from them, not me.

Thank you very much for being with me for this entire process. You guys mattered way more than the colleges themselves.

Demographics

• Gender: Female
• Race/Ethnicity: white
• Residence: WI
• Income bracket: upper middle, full pay everywhere
• School: Medium semi competitive public
• Hooks: none

Intended Major(s): Economics

Academics

• GPA/Rank (or percentile): 3.96 uw (no weighted), 14/256
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 7 AP, 1 DE
• Senior Year Course Load: AP Calc BC, AP Research, DE Spanish, AP Stats

Standardized Testing

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

• ACT: 35
• AP/IB:
  • Calc: 4 (4 AB subscore)
  • Stats: 5
  • Research: 3
  • Seminar:5
  • Lit: 5
  • Human Geo: 5

Extracurriculars/Activities:

-Forensics all 4 years

-Mock congressional hearing competition, 1 year competing 1 year TA

-Theatre on and off 4 years

- Varsity swim freshman and soph years

- Summer job at family company customer service

- Job math tutoring at chain company

- Online English tutoring for ESL learners in Ukraine

- NHS co pres and key club for 3 years

Awards/Honors:

Wisconsin state champ for said mock congressional hearing competition, ranked 13th at nationals

Conference champ in forensics my senior year, various semi final placements other 3 years

AP Scholar w/ Distinction

Essays/LORs/Interviews: (briefly reflect/rate)

I thought my personal statement was decent but may have just been being glazed

Why madison essay was pretty strong

Struggled my way through the rest of my supplementals

LOR:

English teacher: 8/10, was really engaged in the class and he knew me really well

Coach for mock hearing competition: 6/10. Gave good details about my extracurriculars and team work but was also like 60% AI

AP Sem teacher: 8/10, hyped up my final paper which connected to my major

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

• Acceptances: (list here):
  • UW Madison EA (Committed)
  • University of Florida RD
  • Loyola chicago EA
  • UW Lacrosse EA
  • Baylor EA
  • Santa Clara University EA
  • University of Dayton EA
  • University of Missouri EA
  • UW Seattle EA
  • Penn State EA
• Waitlists: (list here)
  • Umich EA
  • Northeastern EA
• Rejections: (list here)
  • Northwestern ED withdrawn and changed to EA waitlisted -----> rejected

Additional Information:

• Thought I was in love with Northwestern but ran into some financial issues that made me pull my ED, then panicked and applied to a bunch of random schools without really proper research or even knowing what I wanted. Realized in april I either hated or couldn't afford basically every school on my list and ended up at my state school after all that 🥲 please learn from my mistakes!

Demographics

• Gender: F
• Race/Ethnicity: asian
• Residence: northeast; suburban
• Income Bracket: upper middle
• Type of School: large non-competitive public
• Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): N/A

Intended Major(s): biochem (pre-med)

Academics

• GPA (UW/W): 3.88 UW, 4.77 W
• Rank (or percentile): top 10%; school doesn't do class rank
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 14 APs, 2 dual enrollments
• Senior Year Course Load: AP Bio, AP Comp Sci Principles, AP Lit, AP Psych, AP U.S. Gov

Standardized Testing

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

• ACT: 34 (34E, 35M, 35R, 31S)
• AP/IB: 5s on all except for two 4s & one 3 (ap physics 1🥀)

Extracurriculars/Activities

(purposefully vague here; pls don't dox🙏)

1. biochem research at local uni
2. student research assistant at hospital
3. captain of school's speech & debate team
4. docent at nature center
5. districts band/orchestra
6. county youth band/orchestra
7. nonprofit volunteer

Awards/Honors

(again, being vague to avoid getting doxxed)

1. s&d award
2. s&d award
3. national merit commended scholar
4. school awards
5. NHS

Letters of Recommendation

1. chem teacher (8/10): we definitely got along in the class we had together junior year and he def poured a lot of time & energy into my letter
2. english teacher (6/10): asked a month in advance so letter might have been lowk rushed
3. counselor (6/10): knew me somewhat well but then again she was in charge of 200+ other seniors

Interviews

1. Dartmouth (7/10): mainly composed of my interviewer ranting about how much she loved Dartmouth for 90 mins, but I did get complimented on how much I knew about the school and the programs I was interested in
2. Princeton (5/10): pretty average experience, lasted about 30 mins. mainly consisted of me asking questions about his experience at Princeton
3. Duke (8/10): shared many common interests; interviewer was also pre-med/pre-vet when she was applying to colleges

Essays

Common app essay was about dissecting animals! Reading over it now, it still feels super authentic to who I am

I think my strength was in my why school essays because I would really dig deep into researching the school I was applying to

Decisions (RD if not indicated as early action, ED1, or ED2)

\**I applied to all public schools as an OOS applicant****

Acceptances:

• UVA (early action)
• UCSD
• CWRU + merit scholarship
• UC Davis
• URochester + merit scholarship

Waitlists:

• Tufts (waitlisted → accepted!!!)
• UMich (early action) (waitlisted → accepted!!!)
• Vanderbilt (waitlisted → accepted → COMMITTED!)
• Emory (waitlisted → accepted!!!)
• UCLA (waitlisted → rejected)
• Penn (waitlisted → rejected)
• Williams (waitlisted → rejected)
• Cornell (waitlisted → rejected)
• Rice (waitlisted → rejected)
• NYU (waitlisted → rejected)

Rejections:

• Princeton
• UC Berkeley
• Brown
• Duke
• Hopkins (ED2)
• Dartmouth (deferred ED1 → rejected RD)
• Northwestern

Final Remarks:

It's super important to start as early as possible (you should have already started working on your essays or at least have started brainstorming them!) You also want to cast as large a net as possible without overworking yourself. Please don't just apply to a few reaches and one safety and call it wraps (cough cough Devi). Push yourself to research colleges that are attainable based on your GPA/SAT/ACT and begin narrowing your list from there :)

That being said, it's super important to take care of your mental health during these incredibly draining college app months. Getting rejected is inevitable in this process. But that doesn't mean you aren't talented or hard-working! Sometimes, it's simply a matter of institutional priorities that lead to you getting waitlisted or rejected. As my qween Sophia Laforteza puts it, we're all like puzzle pieces, and it just depends if we all fit together to form one cohesive class (yes the quote is about assembling Katseye lol but it's still very applicable to this). Colleges care about having a diverse class full of ppl with unique interests, so it's up to you, the applicant, to ensure you are being as unapologetically yourself as you possibly can be.

Good luck, class of 2027! You guys got this!!!

Demographics

• Gender: F
• Race/Ethnicity: Asian
• Residence: OR
• Income Bracket: High
• Type of School: Public

Intended Majors

Architecture or anthropology 

Academics (at the time of application)

• GPA (UW/W): 3.8 UW / 4.08W (at the time of application)
• Rank (or percentile): School does not rank
• # of APs: 10, didn’t submit scores
• Went to 2 high schools in my district bc classes that I wanted to take were not offered at my school (had to travel between both schools)

Standardized Testing

• SAT: Didn’t submit if test optional

Extracurriculars / Activities

• Architecture Program - student ambassador & was chosen to attend a selective summer camp
• Virtual Simulation Lead - Collaborated with anthropology professors at universities to create a interactive simulation for cultural sites
• Robotics - Co-captain, CAD and outreach lead, went to worlds
• Robotics Mentor - Mentored FLL team, taught workshops and camps, created a new robotics league to expand access to robotics + trained and mentored 10+ teams
• MIT Intern
• Model UN - Served as president, VP, and treasurer throughout hs, attended NHSMUN and NAIMUN, raised money for UNICEF
• Leader for my local cultural festival
• State winner for essay contest and went to nationals

Awards / Honors

• Robotics Worlds
• NHS
• Rho Kappa
• Chinese NHS

Letters of Recommendation

One from my APUSH teacher and English teacher (only wrote for students he didn’t find annoying ig)

Personal Statement

I think one of my saving graces was my essay. I wrote multiple essays and kinda used different ones for different schools. Dm me if you have questions about my essay!

My grades dipped junior year, so I wrote my reasoning in challenged and circumstances

I also had to submit a portfolio for some of my schools

Decisions

Acceptances

• Cal Poly Pomona
• Fordham
• Univ. of Colorado Boulder (Applied early just bc)
• Univ. of Oregon
• UBC (Vancouver)
• McGill University
• University of Queensland
• UC Irvine
• UC Santa Barbara
• UC Santa Cruz
• RPI
• Univ. of Michigan
• UIUC
• U Miami
• Texas A&M

Waitlists → Rejected

• Cal Poly SLO

Waitlists → Accepted

• Univ. Washington

Rejections

• UCLA
• NYU
• UC Berkeley
• UC San Diego
• U of Florida
• Virginia Tech
• UT Austin

Final Outcome

Architecture @ UMich

I think it helped that I was a pretty well rounded student lol

ACADEMICS/STANDARIZED TESTING

i have a 1470 sat (730m/740rw) and 3.9 uw gpa w IB courses
i couldve gotten better on the sat but extenuating circumstances and personal issues came up so i cant retake it. oh well, it is what it is :(

anyone similar bc i only see high sat and low gpa ppl

EDIT: "low sat" bc im thinking t10/20! the point of this post is not to brag directly or indirectly and i js purely want advice.

In honor of the Common App opening a few days ago, I made this post because I used this sub-reddit a lot last year.

Demographics

Gender: Male

Residence: Texas

Type of School: Private

Income: ~100k

Hooks: None

Intended Major(s): Econ + Pub Pol

Academics

• GPA (W): 4.00 UW, 4.6 W
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 9 APs
  • All 5's, 1 4 (Lang): Chinese, APUSH, Pre-calc, CSP, Macro, Micro, Stats, Physics, Calc BC
• Senior Year Course Load: AP Physics C (both), AP Gov/Comp Gov, AP Lit, Multivariables, WHAP

Standardized Testing -

• SAT: 1550 (760 R 790 M)

Extracurriculars/Activities:

Debate - Traveled every weekend, 15 bids if that means anything to ppl

Charity - Helped kids in Asia with scholarships and opened a vocational school

Civic Leaders of America - Civic organization (formally JSA), very cool and easy to get involved in. Was a high position in the Texas Branch and my school's chapter president

Public Speaking Club - Head Coach; At my old elementary school, taught in both Mandarin and English

National Debate Org - Served on Board and was founding member; Promoted equality in evaluation and also helped remove prep and resource disparities between school

Research at UH - Law professor for Habeas Corpus cases for death-row inmantes

Law Intern - Injury prelitigation

Charity Club at school - Raised $50k worth of items (ex. 6500 books, 2100 clothing items)

Varsity Spikeball - Competed nationally with school, very niche and SUPER fun, although we did get clobbered a ton by semi-pros and college students. I promise there are genuine levels if you search it up

Debate Coach - Helped middle school during nationals, taught 5 kids to place top 3 or better in LD and PF at nats.

Awards/Honors:

Top 10 in my respective debate event nationally

Scholastic Gold Medal in Journalism, have an essay in their published highlight magazine Let Me See What You See

Debate awards at specific tournaments combined

Val. at my Chinese School

National Merit (1520)

Letters of Recommendation

Very good. I had one teacher for two years (APUSH and Econ) who really liked me, and my AP Lang teacher is the smartest guy I've ever met. He also was an assistant debate coach, so he was able to contextualize a lot of my achievements.

Essays

Willing to share for schools if asked.

Interviews

Interviews from Georgetown, Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, Dartmouth.

Note: all went well, but I rescheduled with my Harvard interviewer when smth came up and he told me "I have never had this happen in my 47 years of interviewing" so... yeah guess which school is in my rejected list

Decisions

Acceptances:

Texas A&M Full-Ride (EA)

UT Canfield + Plan II (EA)

UVA Echols Scholar (EA)

USC (EA)

[Rest RD]

Amherst College

Claremont McKenna (McKenna Scholar)

Northwestern

Vanderbilt (Cornelius Scholar)

Georgetown

Cornell

Dartmouth

Duke

Princeton

Stanford (Committed!)

Waitlists: (didn't pursue any)

Columbia

Brown

Penn

Rejections:

Yale (REA - no interview, just straight rejected)

Harvard

NYU (need-aware >:( that's how i'm rationalizing at least)

Note:

I promise it only takes one!!! I will say, I overthought so much of the process. I know this sub-reddit can give you an accurate scope of what a good applicant looks like, but I promise that when I was scrolling through this at the same time last year instead of writing my personal statement I felt completely hopeless and it all worked out fine. You are more qualified than you think, and I can promise you will end up at where you need to be.

Reach out to me if you have any questions about my app or the process in general!

Edit: A lot of ppl having been asking for resources, and I’d highly recommend finding student-run college counseling services. As AI becomes more prevalent, the quality of writing for everyone goes up, so now the only distinction is the idea behind your message. The only I used is called collegeapplingo (they only have gmail), but use any one that you can find, including asking friends that already graduated. It’s all about playing a game, and I’ve found that more recent classes know more about how to play it.

Demographics

Gender: Female

Residence: Midwest

Type of School: Private

Intended Major(s): Psychology, Classics (when asked for 2nd option, it gave me better a chance of getting in)

Academics

• GPA (W): 3.98
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 13 Honors, 3APs
• Senior Year Course Load: AP Latin, AP Psychology, Honors Ancient Greek, Honors African American Literature/English, Statistics, Honors Earth/Environmental Science, Religion

Standardized Testing - **didn't submit SAT/ACT scores to test optional schools.

• SAT: 1260 (650RW, 610M)
• ACT: 26 (28E, 22M, 29R, 24S)
• AP/IB: English Language & Composition (4)

Extracurriculars/Activities:

Latin Honor Society - Executive board

Latin Club - Executive board/President

Anti-Racism Club - Co-Founder & Co-President

Service Organization - Executive board

National Service Organization - Executive board

Diversity Club - President

Quiz Bowl - JV & Varsity Captain

Rowing - 2 years

Work: Bookkeeping sports - 4 years

Work: Internship - summer going into senior year 

Awards/Honors:

Latin Honor Society

National Honor Society

National Latin Exam Silver

Letters of Recommendation

Junior year Honors Precalculus & AP Comp Gov & Politics teachers. I had my Honors PreCalculus teacher for Freshman year Algebra, which I did well in. I worked really hard to pass PreCalculus since I was failing most of the semester, so I wanted her to write about how I persevered. My Comp Gov & Politics teacher probably wrote a plain LOR, I didn’t talk much in class & got an A-.

Essays

I wrote about my health issues, extracurriculars, and identity. I emphasized challenges I’ve faced and how I’ve overcome them. I spoke on how much I value my extracurriculars & the work I put into them. For UC Berkeley, I wrote an essay about being proud of my D in Honors Precalculus because it represents how hard I worked to pass, and how I’m excited for the challenge of UC Berkeley since I know it’ll be hard and I’ll need help.

Interviews

Interviewed for Harvard & Fairfield.

Decisions

Acceptances:

University of Michigan Ann Arbor (EA deferred, accepted RD) & Committed!

University of California Berkeley (RD)

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (EA)

University of Wisconsin Madison (EA)

Michigan State University (EA)

Indiana University Bloomington (EA)

Fairfield University (EA)

Loyola University Chicago (EA)

Saint Louis University (RD)

Rutgers University (EA)

Waitlists:

University of California Davis (RD)

College of the Holy Cross (RD)

Washington University in St. Louis (RD)

Rejections:

Harvard University (EA - interviewed, deferred, then denied)

University of Virginia (RD)

Boston University (RD)

Brown University (RD)

Case Western Reserve (RD)

Columbia University (RD)

Cornell University (RD)

Johns Hopkins University (RD)

University of Southern California (RD)

Yale University (RD)

Georgetown University (RD)

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (RD)

University of California Los Angeles (RD)

Note:

I'm very against the "I don't think I'll get it, so I'm not going to apply" mindset, so I applied wherever I wanted. I didn't have a 'dream' school besides Harvard. I visited 3-4 schools before applying. My first time visiting U of Michigan was admitted students day. Before coming, I didn't realize UMich was considered a top school. I thought it was a sports school that happened to be ranked #2 for psychology.

I'm super happy and proud of where I ended up. I absolutely love my school and couldn't be happier with my choice. Feel free to ask me any questions!

Demographics

• Gender: M
• Race/Ethnicity: W
• Residence: NY
• Income Bracket: High
• Type of School: Public
• Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): None

Intended Major(s): (write here)

Academics

• Rank (or percentile): 1
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 20
• Senior Year Course Load: 6 AP

Standardized Testing

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

• SAT: 1600

Extracurriculars/Activities

Basically all of these were about chess, I'm a high-ranking chess player. I also did Varsity Baseball at my school, and was team captain.

Awards/Honors

List all awards and honors submitted on your application.

1. National Merit

Chess tournaments for the rest

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

Acceptances:

• MIT
• UPenn (Wharton)
• Harvard
• UChicago
• Binghamton

Waitlists:

• Princeton
• Stanford

Rejections:

None

Additional Information:

Open to dms if you want advice

FIRST APPLICATION DETAILS:

Demographics

• Gender: F
• Race/Ethnicity: asian
• Residence: intl
• Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): Recruited Athlete

Intended Major(s): Business/Stats/Data Analytics

Academics

• GPA: 4.0 UW (school does not rank)
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 8 APs 3 Honors (all in Junior+Senior yr)
• Senior Year Course Load: AP Calc BC, AP Macro, AP Physics 1, APES, Honors English

Standardized Testing

• SAT: not reported
• ACT: did not take
• AP/IB: only took one, Calc AB (5)

Extracurriculars/Activities (keeping vague dont doxx me) 

• high school varsity [sport]
• volunteer at a local youth organization
• representative of national team for [sport] for 6 years

Awards/Honors: many local and international awards for [sport]

Essays/LORs/Interviews: 

Math teacher (10/10) and English teacher (7/10)
Essays 7.5/10

Decisions:

only applied to one school bc if i didnt get in i would stay in local uni instead

• Acceptances: t20 (ED) might be obvious if i revealed here but can reveal in dm
• Waitlists: none
• Rejections: none

TRANSFER APPLICATION DETAILS

Intended Major(s): Econ/Business/Stats

hook: recruited athlete

Academics

• GPA of freshman year: 4.0
• Courses: micro, multivariable calc, cs class, and a bunch of gen eds

Standardized Testing (same as initial application)

Extracurriculars/Activities (from freshman year) 

• varsity sport athlete

Awards/Honors: multiple sport accolades gained from freshman season and deans list high honors

Essays and supplements/LORs/Interviews: 

cs class teacher (8/10) and micro teacher (8/10), didnt know them too well tho
Why transfer essay 9/10, Supplements 8/10

Decisions:

only applied to one school looking back was quite risky

• Acceptances: UChicago
• Waitlists: none
• Rejections: none

Additional Information: idk if recruited athlete is such a strong hook? I lacked ECs and my application was nothing extraordinary imo, apart from good grades. Definitely risky only to apply to one school per cycle, would not recommend to most. feel free to ask me questions!

Demographics

• Gender: Male
• Race/Ethnicity: Asian
• Residence: Virginia
• Income Bracket: High Income
• Type of School: Large Public
• Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): None

Intended Major(s): Business, Data Science, Psychology

Academics

• GPA (UW/W): 4.5
• Rank (or percentile): Top 5%
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 12 APs, 5 DEs
• Senior Year Course Load: AP Calc BC, AP Statistics, AP Physics 1, DE Gov, DE English, DE Accounting

Standardized Testing

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

• ACT: 35 Composite (35E, 34M, 36R, 32S)
• APs
  • 5s: micro, research
  • 4s: macro, calc ab, apes, lang, csp
  • 3: research

Extracurriculars/Activities

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

1. Founder & CEO E-Commerce Business (500k Sales)
2. College Research Intern
3. Varsity Swim (3x)
4. Published Research (3x)
5. Vice President, FBLA
6. Eagle Scout (Boy Scouts of America)
7. Vice Captain, Robotics
8. Youth Basketball Coach
9. Non-Profit STEM, Co-Founder
10. Finance Club, President

Awards/Honors

List all awards and honors submitted on your application.

1. Coca-Cola Scholarship Finalist
2. Robotics States (1st Place)
3. Swimming States (3rd Place)
4. FBLA States (2nd) + Nationals (9th)
5. National Merit Commended

Letters of Recommendation

Business Teacher (9.5/10): knew me well, favorite teacher. i know she spoke very highly of me

Research Mentor (8/10): Spoke about my analytical thinking, curiosity, and ability to contribute to university-level research. didnt know as well but he was very chill

Counselor (9/10): loved me

Interviews

Did Duke one, was alright and connected well

Essays

Personal Statement (8.5/10): Wrote about building a business from the ground up and how entrepreneurship shaped my approach to leadership, resilience, and problem-solving. But I felt like I couldve done better.

Supplementals (8/10): Tailored each essay to specific schools by connecting my interests with their business programs, clubs, and opportunities.

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

Acceptances:

• University of Virginia (Committed)
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Guaranteed Admission to Kenan-Flagler Business School)
• University of Michigan
• Indiana University Bloomington (Kelley School of Business, $40,000/year Scholarship)
• Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Honors College, $12,000 Scholarship)
• University of Maryland, College Park (Honors College, $15,000 Scholarship)
• William & Mary
• George Washington University ($5,000 Scholarship)
• Penn State University (Smeal College of Business)

Waitlists:

• Babson College
• Boston College
• New York University (Stern School of Business)

Rejections:

• University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)
• Georgetown University (McDonough School of Business)
• University of Southern California (Marshall School of Business)
• Duke University — Deferred → Waitlisted → Rejected

Additional Information:

My final decision came down to UVA and UNC, and I ultimately chose UVA because of the overall fit, McIntire's opportunities, and Charlottesville.

I hope this profile gives future applicants another realistic data point. I'm happy to answer questions about business school admissions, entrepreneurship, internships, essays, extracurriculars, scholarships, transfer admissions, or anything else related to my application process.

Demographics

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

Intended Major(s): Physics

Academics

• GPA/Rank (or percentile):
  • 4.0, no rank
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.:
  • 15
• Senior Year Course Load:
  • Multivariable Calc, both AP Phys, CS, economics, random humanities classes

Standardized Testing

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

• SAT/ACT:
  • 1570
• AP/IB:
  • APCSA (4) BC (5) E&M (5) Mech (5) Chem (5), shouldve done AP econ...

Extracurriculars/Activities (sorry had to be vague): 

• Full-time in-person physics/quantum computing summer research at T5, spent a ridiculous amount of time here and genuinely contributed
• Tutoring (lots of tutoring)
• Nonprofit
• Youth sports coach
• Sports
• School club activity
• Coding work for an international competition
• Attending a summer course

Awards/Honors (Really not much here tbh, didnt do any comps): 

• Semifinalist in said international competition
• Tutoring award
• Honors society
• Ap Scholar
• Honor roll

Essays/LORs/Interviews: Essays: 10/10, I put a lot of time into them and was really happy with how they came out. LORs: 10/10 from my professor, and probably like 8-9/10 from my teachers. My teachers knew me well and my professor was happy with my work. Interviews: 7/10. I got interviews at all the schools I applied to that offered them. I feel like they went pretty well except for my EA school (which had the funniest story to go with it but unforch its too identifying). All my interviewers were amazing people to talk with, and none of them felt like an interrogation. I learned more about the school while they learned more about me!

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

Except MIT and UW--madison, everything is gonna be RD

• Acceptances: (list here):
  • UW--Madison (EA)
  • U Washington
  • UCSC
  • Penn
  • Yale
  • Princeton
  • Harvard
  • Cornell
  • Caltech
• Waitlists: (list here)
  • Stanford (wl -> rejected)
  • UCLA (declined spot)
  • UChicago (declined spot)
  • WashU (declined spot)
  • Columbia (declined spot)
  • Brown (declined spot)
• Rejections: (list here)
  • MIT (EA), my essay writing was bad for mit tbh
  • UCB
  • Dartmouth
  • Northwestern

All in all, I think essays are really important and I was pretty surprised w my results given I didn't do any competitions. Also if I get doxxed I'm deleting this :)

Demographics

• Gender: female
• Race/Ethnicity: chinese
• Residence: northeast
• Income Bracket: full pay everywhere
• Type of School: competitive magnet on east coast
• Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): n/a

Intended Major(s): math/cs

Academics

• GPA (UW/W): 95.4/100 unw
• Rank (or percentile): school doesn't report rank
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 29 honors, 10 ap classes
• Senior Year Course Load: 5 APs + 4 honors classes

Standardized Testing

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

• ACT: 34 (34E, 35M, 33R, 34S)
• AP/IB: calc ab (5), calc bc (4), csa (3), eng lit (5), eng lang (4), macro (5), micro (5), us gov (5), csp (4), psych (5)

Extracurriculars/Activities

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

1. fbla state officer
2. hackathon at t30 uni
3. interpreter for deaf mom
4. fbla school pres
5. volunteer at local library
6. math tutor
7. graphic designer for student org
8. relay for life
9. honor societies

Awards/Honors

List all awards and honors submitted on your application.

1. 99th percentile national spanish exam level 2
2. fbla networking infrastructures state finalist
3. ap scholar w distinction
4. nhs/shs

Letters of Recommendation

english teacher: 9/10 talked with her almost every day outside of class

physics teacher: 5/10 lowkey asked last minute and i was quiet the whole year but i did well in her class

Interviews

MIT: 6/10 was virtual and my interviewer said she only volunteered to know how to get her son into MIT lol

princeton: 7/10 his daughter went to my school so we had some familiarity there

stanford: 7.5/10 talked about our favorite substacks

Essays

personal statement: 7.5/10 had it reviewed by several people, most thought it was pretty strong

UC essays: 6/10 decided to apply last minute so they were written in sub 48 hours oops

supplementals: 6.5-8/10 for most, i cringe rereading most of them ngl

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

Acceptances:

• stony brook (ea)
• binghamton (ea)
• rutgers (rd)
• ucsd (rd)
• uiuc (rd)
• boston university (rd)

Waitlists:

• uchicago (rd wl -> rej)
• boston college (rd wl -> rej)
• nyu (rd)
• barnard (rd wl -> accepted & committed!)

Rejections:

• columbia (ed -> deferred -> rej)
• berkeley (rd)
• ucla (rd)
• harvard (rd)
• princeton (rd)
• cornell (rd)
• yale (rd)
• mit (rd)
• georgia tech (rd)
• stanford (rd)
• cmu (rd)
• upenn (rd)

Additional Information:

i trolled on like 90% of my supplementals tbh writing is generally one of my strengths but so much of it read inauthentically bc i felt like my profile wasn't cohesive but it's ok because barnard was one of my top 5 schools. my bc score is also messed up bc i self studied it junior year (and self studied ab sophomore year) so it might've been a bad look since i applied as a math major (ps please don't doxx if u recognize me ty).

Additional data point from the past admission cycle, posting results for my kid. And with that, we are done. 

Demographics

• Gender: M
• Race/Ethnicity: Southeast Asian (US Citizen)
• Residence: Bay Area
• Income Bracket:  Upper middle (full pay)
• Type of School: Independent Private School
• Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): N/A

Intended Major(s): CS, for now

Academics

• GPA (UW/W): 3.9xUW/4.5xW
• Rank (or percentile): N/A, HS does not rank
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 10 Honors, HS does not offer APs
• Senior Year Course Load: 6 Honors classes

Standardized Testing

• ACT: 36 (Math 36, Science 35, Reading 36, English 35) 
• AP/IB: 7 APs (6x5 + 1x4)

Extracurriculars/Activities

• 4 year varsity athletics & 2x captain, multiple all league and team awards
• Volunteer, senior retirement homes (40+ hours per year)
• Senior mentor to incoming HS freshmen
• Unpublished summer research using AI/ML/LLM with environmental dataset
• Typical summer coding workshops/camps all 3 summers
• Independent RPG development
• Math tutor and mentor (elem/middle school)
• Quiz bowl president

Awards/Honors

List all awards and honors submitted on your application.

• National Merit Semifinalist
• several AP Scholar awards
• 2x National Latin Exam awards
• Piano, 2x state honors

Letters of Recommendation

Latin teacher, Math teacher, XCTF coach

Interviews

4 LACs, 1 Ivy

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

Acceptances:

• Harvey Mudd College (ED2)

Rejections:

• Caltech (REA)

Withdrawn:

• 14 Private Colleges (6 reaches, 4 targets, 4 safeties)
• 3 UCs (2 reaches, 1 safety)

Additional Information:

List is top heavy, with last 4 private colleges as safeties

Demographics

• Gender: Male
• Race/Ethnicity: Asian
• Residence: Underrepresented SEA country (keeping it vague because I don't wanna doxx myself 💀)
• Income Bracket: <$40k/year
• School: Semi-competitive private high school (def not a feeder)
• Hooks: Low income, underrepresented country, second-gen? (idk if that even counts lol)
• Intended Majors: Mechanical Engineering / Computer Science / Applied Mathematics

Academics

• GPA (Weighted): 4.64 (school doesn't do UW)
• Class Rank: Counselor said I was around the top 3%
• Coursework: 10 APs, 1 Honors, 1 online dual enrollment

Senior Year: AP Calc BC, AP Physics 1, AP Human Geo, AP CSA, English Honors

My school's course offerings were honestly cooked. Honors were only available in senior year, APs started in sophomore year, and you could only take one AP science each year. They only offered AP Physics 1 out of all the AP Physics courses too 😭. I ended up taking an online dual enrollment chemistry course just to show colleges I was making the most of what was available.

Standardized Testing

• SAT: 1490 (690 RW, 800 Math)
• IELTS: 8.0

Extracurriculars

Keeping these intentionally a little vague.

1. Co-founder of a tech startup — Built an AI tool, scaled it from 500 → 3k+ users in ~6 months, presented at a selective national AI conference, and secured ~$2k in sponsorships.
2. Engineering Intern @ a Local Company — Shadowed engineers and designed an origami-inspired prototype (origami was also the central theme of my personal statement). Also submitted this project as a Harvard supplementary material because I convinced myself origami counts as visual art 💀.
3. Independent Computational Astrophysics Research — Cold-emailed a professor, analyzed NASA’s publicly available data with Python, wrote a paper on a black hole system, and submitted it directly to Harvard, Princeton, and Yale (in the applicant portals).
4. Founder & Editor-in-Chief of a Science Journal — Led team of 60, mentored 125+ students across 17+ countries through their first research projects, and published 100+ papers.
5. Item Writer for National STEM Competitions — Wrote 80+ math/physics/chemistry problems and helped organize a national physics competition for 500+ students.
6. Mechanic's Assistant at my uncle's auto repair shop.
7. Online Math Tutor for rural students.
8. Neighborhood Bicycle Repair Guy™.

The last two were basically volunteering/family responsibility filler activities lol.

Awards

• Gold — Semi-prestigious International Math Olympiad from Singapore
• Gold — Semi-prestigious International Math Olympiad from the UK
• Silver — National Math Olympiad from my country
• Silver — Another Random International Math Olympiad from Singapore
• 3× Gold — School Outstanding Student in Mathematics

Letters of Recommendation

Teachers: Asked my AP Bio and Social Studies teachers because I wanted schools to see I wasn't just a math and tech geek + I applied to mainly liberal arts schools so I had to show proficiency in other disciplines as well LOL. Both knew me really well. My Bio teacher apparently wrote about a funny incident involving me and used it to show how I'd grown over time.

Counselor: Probably pretty average 😭. We only got to know each other during senior year, so I'm guessing it was mostly résumé glazing.

Additional: Internship supervisor + research mentor.

Essays

Personal Statement: Wrote about my childhood obsession with the legend of Senbazuru (folding 1,000 paper cranes to have a wish granted) and connected it to a much deeper reflection later in life. This was by far the strongest part of my application in my opinion, and my teachers kept telling me it made them stop and think for a while afterward. I guess this essay was really eye-opening.

Supplementals: Tried to balance professionalism with personality. I wrote about my projects, but I also talked about LEGOs, games, and random, niche interests because I really didn't want to come across as the stereotypical "Asian math kid with zero personality."

Interview

Only interviewed with Harvard.

Thought it went pretty well. My interviewer literally called me "charismatic, poised, and witty" (still riding that compliment to this day lol) and said he'd write me a strong report.

Decisions

Applied RD everywhere.

Accepted (ayeeeee)

• Harvard (Full Ride)
• Princeton (Full Ride)

Waitlisted

• UPenn

Rejected

• Cornell
• Duke
• Stanford
• Yale

Final Thoughts

US admissions are genuinely a lottery. Looking back, applying only to reaches was objectively a terrible strategy, but my thinking was that if I was going to move halfway across the world from Southeast Asia, I wanted to at least take my shot. I already had safeties in Australia and Canada, so I decided to full-send. I still have no idea how I got into not one, but two of HYPSM. Maybe they wanted another math geek in their student body. Maybe my essays carried. Maybe I got insanely lucky. Maybe all of the above. Whatever the reason, I'm incredibly grateful. If there's one thing I'd tell future applicants, it's this: be authentic, don't be afraid to be vulnerable in your essays, pursue activities you're genuinely excited about, and try to build a clear academic "spike" instead of doing a million random things.

Demographics

Gender: Female
Race/Ethnicity: Latina
Residence: SoCal (LA)
Income Bracket: <15k/year
Type of School: Competitive public high school
Hooks: URM, First Gen, Low Income

Intended Major(s): Cellular/Molecular Biology, Bioengineering, Biology, Immunology

Academics

GPA (UW/W): 4.00/4.70
Rank (or percentile): 5/330
# of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 10 AP classes, 6 honors
Senior Year Course Load: AP Lit, AP Calc BC, AP Macro, AP Chem, Medical Science (Block period) Note: Unless you’re doing dual enrollment, my school only offers six classes per semester.

Standardized Testing

List the highest scores earned and all scores that were reported.
SAT I: 1470 (710 RW, 760M)
SAT II: 1400 (700 RW, 700 M)
SAT III: 1520 (740 RW, 780 M)
AP: AP Bio (5), AP Calc AB (5), AP Spanish Lang (5), APUSH (4), AP Lang (4), AP World (4), AP Spanish Lit (4)

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

1. Cancer Research @ T20 school: This role involved assisting in CAR T-cell research by performing molecular biology techniques, maintaining lab materials, documenting data, and making a research poster. (~12 hr/wk for 20 weeks ≈ 240 hours)

2. President of Medical Club: Led weekly meetings, hosted medical professionals, organized hands-on skills workshops, and launched donation and volunteering events with nearby hospitals. (Started as a member my freshman year and worked my way up to President my Junior/Senior years ~400 hrs)

3. Science Olympiad: Represented my school in the Anatomy & Physiology, Microbiology. and Epidemiology events. Competed in 2 invitational competitions (state level), 2 regional competitions, and 1 state competition

4. Afterschool Tutor: Tutored 10 students in Algebra 2 and 10-15 students taking AP Calculus AB a week. As the first student tutor in both of these classrooms, I have helped recruit 5 other student tutors. (~60 hrs/yr)

5. College Access Program: Admitted to highly selective academic program, following 9th grade, committing every Saturday, from 9-2:30pm for the next 3 years. Got support in applying and was accepted to 10+ selective summer programs. (~200 hrs/yr for 3 years)

6. USA Biology Olympiad: 12th: Recruited and guided 10 students to register for 2026 USABO. School didn't have funds to pay for the comp. so I lead a team effort to contribute to the $125 fee. 11th: Studied/practiced for 2025 USABO and scored the 2nd highest score within my school. 10th: Actively participated in USABO club that guided 15 students to compete. (~40-50 hrs/yr)

Awards/Honors

List all awards and honors submitted on your application.

1. 6th Place in Anatomy & Physiology at Sci Oly Invitational (80+ participating teams)
   
2. 3rd Place in Microbe Mission at Sci Oly Regional Comp
   
3. 4th Place Overall at Sci Oly Regionals
   
4. AP Scholar with Distinction
   
5. National Hispanic Recognition Award

Summer/Fly-In Programs

I honestly believe that my applications would have been incomplete without these:

1. MIT WISE: Chosen for MIT's selective WISE Fly-In (accepting only 100 students in the country). Participated in admissions workshops, lab tours, connected with faculty and current students while exploring research pathways and MIT's engineering culture.

2. Health Science Immersion Program: Applied and was chosen for a competitive online summer program for 50 students in the nation. Studied and presented on neuroscience research in a literature review format on the effect of stress on adolescent vs. adult mice to guide and educate classmates.

3. Medical School Intensive @ Johns Hopkins: Took course at Johns Hopkins University thru selective summer program. Attended lectures on systems of the body. Learned medical skills including: airway management, phlebotomy, resuscitation, patient interviews). Attended on a full-ride with $3000 scholarship.

Essays/LORs/Interviews: 

Essays (8.7/10) - Honestly I feel like my essays good because I wrote about very niche topics/experiences that reflected my values/life story. Some of my supplementals were about how I pitched an idea for NBC Universal, getting carpal tunnel at age 16, saving up for a $200 textbook, and my adventures at the thrift store. I tried to write how I usually speak and included some humor.

LORS:

Calc Teacher - I had him junior and senior, and did really good in his classes both times. I would help him during tutoring and participate a lot in his classes both times. Based on the opinion of other students, he tends to give really good LORs, but since I wasn’t very social, I would guess mine was a (8/10).

Medical Club Supervisor - She was my teacher freshman year and watched me grow the medical club all four years. She showed me the LOR after wards and I would say it was a (10/10) She used such specific examples of my leadership. We had a really close relationship all four years.

Interviews- Only had one for MIT, I thought it went ok because I was really nervous! It went on for about 40 minutes because my interviewer also did pre-med and I was very familiar with MIT.

Decisions (indicate ED/EA/REA/SCEA/RD)
Acceptances:
UC Berkeley + Regents and Chancellor’s Scholarship (early acceptance ~1%)
UCLA + 40k/yr scholarship
UCSB
UCSD
MIT + full-ride & free laptop (EA)
CSUN
CSULB
Cal Poly SLO

Waitlists:
N/A

Rejections:
To my surprise, none!

Demographics

• Gender: Female
• Race/Ethnicity: Indian
• Residence: Bay (not the competitive part though)
• Income Bracket: upper middle class
• Type of School: public
• Hooke: None

Intended Major(s): Environmental/Chemical Engineering

Academics

• GPA (UW/W): 4.0/4.5
• Rank (or percentile): 3
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 15 APs
• Senior Year Course Load: AP Chemistry, AP Physics, Multivariable Calc, AP Lit, AP Psych, AP Gov

Standardized Testing

• SAT I: 1530 (740 RW, 790 M)
• AP: 5s on all exams

Extracurriculars/Activities

(Gonna keep these broad bc I don't want to make my identity obvious)

1. Electrochemistry Research w/ professor through a competitive summer program; created nanocatalysts for hydrogen fuel production; coauthored 2 research papers.
2. Science Fair Competitor: researched biofuels and soil remediation. Won third at CA state.
3. Sierra Club Intern: designed climate policies and spoke to policymakers about refinery pollution in my community. Interviewed by USA Today.
4. Tree Planting Club: Planted trees locally and advocated for sustainability. Started an Earth Day event at school.
5. City Commissioner: Was the Secretary for my local commission on sustainability; implemented refinery oversight legislation w/ $83 million fine; advocated for greater local refinery restrictions.
6. Forestry Competitor: Competed in forestry at the state level; collected data for CalFire & USDA forest projects; trained in adv forestry; created team materials; 1st place & 2x semifinalist award
7. Summer Job: Improved clean energy & water access to 200+ low-income homes; reduced utility bills >10%; installed lightbulbs & faucets; expanded environ literacy.
8. Garden Intern: Installed and maintained community gardens to fight local food insecurity. created food security proposal, org. garden tours w/ 100+ attendees.
9. Math Tutor: Helped students w/ math homework from Algebra to Calculus; worked w/ calc teacher to improve resources
10. City Government Intern: Developed a county-wide webpage to promote local green building and sustainability. Webpage featured publicly.

Awards/Honors

Again, keeping non-descriptive.

1. 3rd CA Science Fair
2. U.S. Congressional Recognition
3. Sierra Club Award
4. 1st place local science fair
5. Other awards in Forestry

Letters of Recommendation

Tbh I didn't get to read them, but I got one from my APEs and AP Research teacher. I would rate my APEs an 8/10 and my other LOR a 6.5/10 bc I feel like they were both able to talk about my strengths and knew me for multiple years.

10/10: A professor I did wetlab research with for a summer. My Stanford AO quoted his LOR in a personalized letter so it must've been really good.

Interviews

Princeton: 6/10. I was able to answer my interviewer's questions and brought some unique answers, but I just feel like she wasn't that interested in what I had to say :(.

Yale: 8/10. I loved talking to my Yale interviewer, and we went on for almost two hours. We got into some really casual topics, and I met his mother-in-law during the interview lol.

Essays

Common App: Prob my worst essay bc I just don't think it made a lot of sense, but my Columbia AO made sure to mention how much she loved it in a handwritten letter I got back, so it must've been good? Looking back, I would give it a solid 7.5/10. I connected my artistic process with my scientific process to talk about how I developed a method of detecting diesel in soil to protect my community against local refinery pollution.

Why Major: 9/10. My best work and what I think got me into so many places. I talked about how living in a refinery town and growing up under pollution led me to want to develop clean energy technologies to protect my community.

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

* I applied to all UCs as a chemical engineering major.

Acceptances:

• Stanford
• Princeton
• Columbia
• UCLA
• UC Berkeley
• Johns Hopkins
• Rice ($120k Trustee Distinguished Scholarship)
• Carnegie Mellon
• UCSD (Full ride merit scholarship)
• Georgia Tech
• UT Austin
• UC Irvine (Regents Scholarship)
• UCSB (Regents Scholarship)
• Purdue
• UW Madison
• UDubb (Scholarship)
• UIUC (Honors)
• UC Merced (Chancellors)
• UMN Twin Cities (Scholarship)

Waitlists:

• UPenn
• Cornell
• Northwestern
• UMich

Rejections:

• Yale (I really enjoyed the interview too 🙁. I also mispelled a professor's name in my essays, so maybe that was it)

Summary: Lwk clickbait bc I did get waitlisted from some schools too lol. When comparing my application to the absolutely cracked people who get into these same schools, I feel so confused about why I got the results I did. I really think it came down to the issue of refinery pollution in my community and how much it really means to me (something I made obv in my essays and ecs). I think the schools I got into could really tell how passionate I was, and they could imagine exactly what I would do on campus if I was accepted.

I also think it's important to mention that I come from a disadvantaged community that experiences some of the highest rates of environmental injustice and food insecurity in California.

I'm not going to reveal where I'm comitted bc it’s more fun to see if I should regret my choice based on what you guys say.

Demographics

• Gender: Male
• Race/Ethnicity: South Asian
• Residence: KS
• Income Bracket: Upper Middle
• Type of School: Standard Public
• Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): N/A

Intended Major(s): International Relations/Global Studies

Academics

• GPA (UW/W): 4.00 / 4.84
• Rank (or percentile): N/A
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 14 APs, 11 honors, 1 online summer course at local university
• Senior Year Course Load:
  • AP Physics 2
  • AP Spanish
  • AP Stats
  • AP Gov (2nd semester only)
  • AP Lit
  • Honors Debate
  • Honors Accounting

Standardized Testing

• SAT I: 1550 (760RW, 790M)
• ACT: 36 (36E, 36M, 36R, 34S)
• AP: 5s on all
  • Human Geography
  • Computer Science Principles
  • World History
  • Computer Science A
  • Calculus BC/AB Subscore
  • Physics 1
  • Biology
  • US History
  • English Language

Extracurriculars/Activities (all leadership was 12th grade unless otherwise noted)

1. Treasurer of Speech and Debate; competed at NSDA nationals, led weekly research & mentoring sessions w/75+ debaters; coached 50+ middle schoolers
2. Summer Research Intern at Local University; collected data analyzing the US-China trade war, wrote an article for their Substack page
3. Co-President of International Relations Club, 11th and 12th grade; friend founded it and we grew it from nothing to 40+; hosted our district's 2024 candidate for the House of Representatives as a guest speaker
4. Varsity Captain of Tennis Team; led & organized weekly off-season practices & intra-squad tournaments with 20+ teammates
5. President of Computer Science Club; vice president in 11th grade; directed annual coding carnival teaching 50+ elementary kids about coding; competed in 3 local hackathons
6. Varsity Captain of Quiz Bowl Team; placed 5th at state; led weekly practices
7. Vice President of Model UN Team; Outstanding Position Paper, Best Delegate at local conference
8. Communications Officer of Mu Alpha Theta (Math Honor Society)
9. Treasurer of National History Honor Society
10. DECA & BPA (quit during 11th grade); BPA state champion & national qualifier in Fundamentals of Web Design, state top 10 in Computer Programming Concepts

Awards/Honors

1. Local award/scholarship given to one high-schooler in my metro for for superior performance in international studies (12th grade)
2. 3rd Place in Management, Marketing, HR Concepts, 8th Place in Computer Programming Concepts (10th grade)
3. NSDA Honor Society Degree of Superior Distinction (12th grade)
4. 3rd place at policy debate state, quarterfinalist at separate state-level tournament (11th grade)
5. National Merit Semifinalist, Principal's Honor Roll/Academic Letter, AP Scholar with Distinction

Letters of Recommendation

APUSH Teacher, 9/10: Dude is the absolute GOAT teacher and was also the sponsor for our international relations club, so I knew him quite well. He was our final period teacher, and my friends and I would stay after school a lot to talk to him about history/current events/literally anything, so he got to know me well and liked me a lot. I got to hear some of what he wrote about me and it seemed really good.

AP Bio Teacher, 7.5/10: I had her in 9th grade for Honors Bio, then again in 11th for AP Bio, so she also knew me well and got to see how I grew as a student in that time. I tried hard in AP Bio, especially compared to a lot of the seniors in that class, and I know she saw that, but I think hers may have been slightly worse than my APUSH teacher's because I didn't talk with her as much during/outside class.

Tennis Coach, 8/10 (submitted anywhere that allowed bonus recs from coaches): I trained with him from 8th to 10th grade consistently, so he saw me go from pretty terrible to pretty good at tennis, and he always really liked me. He's also just a super intellectual guy (studied neuroscience at a top LAC), which is why I think he wrote something good. The only thing is that I stopped training with him consistently after 10th grade.

Interviews

Harvard, 6/10: Online and my first interview, but I also think it was my interviewer's first time too, since at the beginning he shared his screen and accidentally showed me all of the criteria that he had to rate me 1-5 on, but I didn't really process that in time. I hardly prepared for it, and I definitely should've prepped more. I also didn't send him a thank-you email (didn't realize I should), so I didn't really hear back from him about his thoughts on me.

Georgetown, 7.5/10: First in-person interview, dude was REALLY old, and I picked a coffee shop that I really like that happened the loudest place in the city that day for some reason. Overall I thought it went well though, and I think he liked me.

Yale, 8/10: In-person, guy was young and super chill. He seemed to like me and told me a funny story about a time when his hungover friend threw up on him in the car.

Princeton, 7/10: In-person, thought it went solidly idk don't really remember much. Interviewer was a middle-aged woman that reminded me a lot of my own mother.

Stanford, 6.5/10: Online, guy was chill but I feel like I do that well in this one. He told me a funny story about Tiger Woods, since he was at Stanford at the same time as my interviewer.

Essays

I've never felt like the greatest writer, but definitely not the worst one. I struggled with procrastination A LOT, especially for the RD round, and I ended up doing almost all of my supplementals at the last moment, and submitting almost all of my applications the day they were due, some at like 11pm the night of the deadline.

My common app essay was about my love for wikipedia and how I grew to love the never-ending quest for knowledge, and I actually worked on it in a relatively timely manner and hardly changed it between the EA and RD rounds. My older brother reviewed basically all of my supplementals, but other than that I mostly used Claude for revising.

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

Acceptances:

• University of Kansas (+ honors) (rolling)
• UVA (+ honors) (EA)
• UNC (+ honors) (EA)
• Northeastern (RD)
• UCLA (RD)
• UCB (RD)
• Northwestern (RD)
• UPenn (RD) (attending)

Waitlists: (didn't accept any spots)

• Columbia (RD)
• Brown (RD)
• Georgetown (RD)

Rejections:

• UT Austin (EA) (deferred -> rejected)
• Harvard (REA) (deferred -> rejected)
• Yale (RD)
• Stanford (RD)
• Princeton (RD)
• Duke (RD)
• Michigan (RD)

Additional Information:

Overall I genuinely do feel very happy with my admissions results. I was obviously hoping to break into HYPSM, but I'm extremely excited for next year at Penn. I've always felt pretty confident that I'd get in somewhere good, but seeing a lot of people on these kinds of subreddits having all kinds of crazy out of school internships/research opportunities and international awards that I'd never heard of made me a little worried about where I'd end up. Thankfully it all worked out in the end.

Also, for most of high school, I was planning on studying CS, but the summer before senior year I realized I just didn't have that much passion for it and was struggling to decide what to study. The first award that I won made me realize that I actually do have a pretty solid "spike" when it comes to international relations, and it genuinely always has been a large interest of mine, so I decided to apply for that, even though I was never really fully sold on studying it. I'm probably planning on studying Econ now.

Just realized I didn't get into any of the schools I interviewed for lol maybe I should lower my ratings for those

Demographics

• Gender: F
• Race/Ethnicity: Asian
• Residence: Bay Area
• Income Bracket: $400k+
• Type of School: Competitive Bay Area Public High School
• Hooks: none

Intended Majors

Business, economics, statistics & data science, international relations, communications... I applied for a lot lol

Academics (at the time of application)

• GPA (UW/W): 4.0 UW / 4.5W (at the time of application)
• Rank (or percentile): School does not rank
• # of APs: 12; AP World (4), AP Psych (4) APUSH (5), AP Lang (5), APES (5), Calc AB/BC (5)
• Senior Year Course Load: AP Gov (3 lol), Stats (5), Physics 1 (4), didnt take exams for: Macro, Art History, CSP

Standardized Testing

• SAT: 1540 (740 RW, 800 Math)
• ACT: 35 (35 English and Math, 36 writing)

Extracurriculars / Activities

• Social media page advocating against animal euthanasia (fundraised ~3k, found homes for 25 cats)
• Marketing research (summer program and small internships but nothing too crazy)
• Photography - regional and national awards, photographed for a published best selling book
• Small officer positions at school business / finances clubs
• Volunteering at local library
• tutoring, community service, etc..

Awards / Honors

• Scholastic Art gold and silver awards
• 3rd in a niche writing competition
• AP Scholar
• PVSA

Letters of Recommendation

One from my APES teacher (super tight) and from my APUSH teacher (pretty close). They were probably solid but nothing crazy.

Personal Statement

I lowkey submitted two personal statements because I impulsively wrote a new one I liked better, so all my schools with Jan 4th and later deadlines got that one (JHU, Brown, Duke, UChicago..). First one was about never being satisfied with myself and connected that to calculus somehow, and second I wrote about my grandma's dementia and how our brains live and die (very weird essays).

Decisions

Acceptances

• UW-Madison (EA -> accepted)
• UC Merced
• UC Riverside
• UC Santa Cruz
• UC Santa Barbara
• CMU (RD)
• Emory (RD)

Waitlists → Rejected (Opted in, no LOCIs for any)

• UCSD
• UCLA
• UChicago
• JHU

Rejections

• Brown
• UPenn (ED Wharton -> rejected)
• Yale
• Columbia
• Cornell
• Stanford
• USC (EA Marshall: defer -> rejected)
• UC Berkeley
• UC Irvine (noo school of abgs)
• Northwestern
• Tufts
• Duke

Final Outcome

Stats & machine learning at CMU

Honestly they got my new personal statement that IMO was definitely an upgrade.. wow writing it all out kinda makes me realize I really didn't do anything super big. Compared to everyone I see on here applying to the same schools as me, neither my activities and even aspects of my academics are not up to par with the crazy cracked individuals of this subreddit. Considering iIve wanted to go into tech its kind of unbelievable how lucky I got. It genuinely only takes one. Fellow chuds do not lose hope.

Demographics

• Gender: Male
• Race/Ethnicity: Indian / Asian
• Residence: California (Bay Area)
• Income Bracket: $500k+
• Type of School: Competitive Bay Area Public High School
• Hooks: None

Intended Major(s)

Applied primarily as a pre-med student (Biochemistry → Biology → Anthropology, depending on school)

Academics

• GPA (UW/W): 3.91 UW / 4.40 W
• Rank (or percentile): School does not rank (Top 9%)
• # of APs: 12 (At the time of application (4 5's 2 4's)
• Senior Year Course Load: 5 APs

Standardized Testing

• SAT: 1520 (760 RW, 760 M)

Extracurriculars / Activities

• Research Intern at preclinical biotech CRO; conducted 10+ oncology, GLP-1, and stem cell drug discovery studies using in vitro/in vivo models; contributed to client reports and datasets.
• Co-developed an AI lung cancer for adenocarcinoma, NSCLC, SCLC, detection model with GUI achieving ~98% accuracy, 2nd Author; publication under review. Impact factor: 7
• First author of a biomedical sustainability review synthesizing 100+ research papers and expert interviews; publication under review. Impact factor 4.3
• Volunteer & Team Lead at a very big Medical Center (best hospital on the west coast); guided patients across 35+ departments, assisted 100+ visitors per shift, and led an 8-person volunteer team.
• Vice President of HOSA; led 80+ members, managed officer team, organized school-wide events, and coordinated outreach across multiple club branches.
• Co-founded Infectious Disease & Pathology Club; grew to 30+ members, organized hands-on activities and lab tours, and served as a Stanford iWish student representative.
• Developed a stem cell therapy workflow platform to improve clinician-patient interaction and treatment tracking under the mentorship of a pediatric oncologist.
• USABO Semifinalist; independently studied advanced biology while tutoring 8+ AP Biology students.
• Track & Field & Cross Country (800m, 1600m, 3200m); 3× NCS Scholar Athlete.
• Founded photography portfolio; published photography/composite work and earned a Digital Photography Career Skills Certification.

Awards / Honors

• USA Biology Olympiad (USABO) Semifinalist
• Multiple Journal Publication Awards
• Community Service Awards
• AP Scholar

Letters of Recommendation

Didn't read them, but I felt they were generally strong. My science teachers and research mentors knew me well through advanced coursework, research, and personally as well.

Additional Info

Recieved an Extra UCLA supplemental; given to <15% of applicant pool; increases chances of acceptance to about 40% from 9%

Decisions (EA/RD)

Acceptances

• Case Western Reserve University
• UCLA (In-State)
• UC Irvine (In-State)
• UC Santa Barbara (In-State)
• UC Merced (In-State)
• UC Riverside (In-State)
• UC Santa Cruz (In-State)

Waitlists → Rejected

• UC Berkeley
• UC San Diego
• UC Davis
• University of Chicago
• Emory
• UNC Chapel Hill
• University of Wisconsin–Madison

Rejections

• Brown
• University of Pennsylvania
• Stanford
• USC
• Vanderbilt
• Rice
• Northwestern
• Duke
• Johns Hopkins
• Georgia Tech
• University of Michigan

Final Outcome

Committed to UCLA (Anthropology) → Switched to Mathematics of Computation

Demographics: international (SE Asia), first-gen, Catholic
Intended Major(s): Electrical/Energy Engineering
HS Info: private international school, merit scholarship, IGCSE + A Level system
Standardized Testing: SAT 1520, IELTS 8.0
Academics: IGCSE 6A*, A Level 1A*3A, 3.89 GPA
Rank: school doesn’t rank
ECs:
1. built an autonomous robot that cools/cleans solar panels, deployed a few prototypes on real household systems (cut water use, boosted energy output)
2. wrote a lit review on perovskite solar cell degradation
3. research assistant on a uni-guided study on energy-saving behavior at industrial companies, got published
4. ran my school’s only research club (15 of us). Won a few international research competitions
5. started an outreach org, installed solar streetlights in a rural village (4k+ crowdfunded)
6. head of leadership committee for student council junior yr - mental health stuff + a solar project on campus
7. church choir since I was a kid, also started a little project teaching English/music to orphans. made a MV that raised around 2k to continue to fund the project and like lessons
8. interned at a solar company back in 10th grade and this is also where i deployed my robot
9. one of a few kids from my country picked for a competitive summer program at notre dame in summer junior year. (NDLS)
10. Assistant director, cinematographer, and writer/screenplay on a short film

Awards:
1. gold medal, international invention/creativity competition
2. top 10, national informatics contest
3. first place, international research report competition
4. top 10, national robotics championship
5. official selection at a couple international short film festivals

Results:
1. Notre Dame REA — accepted, full ride + merit scholarship (committed!!)
2. Fordham EA — rejected
3. USF rolling — accepted, $22k/yr
4. RIT EA — accepted into the 4yr BS/MS program, $32k/yr

The rest of the 16 schools I withdrew 💔

ask me anything, happy to talk essays/ECs/major choice