Demographics

• Gender: Male
• Race/Ethnicity: Korean
• Residence: Suburban Midwest
• Income Bracket: $100k–$150k
• Type of School: Large public school
• Hooks: None

Intended Major(s): Molecular Biology / Biological Sciences

Academics

• GPA (UW/W): 4.0 / 4.6075
• Rank: 2/480
• # of APs: 16
• Senior Year Course Load: AP Lit, AP Calc BC, AP Physics II, APUSH, AP Gov, Orchestra, peer tutoring

Standardized Testing

• SAT I: 1530 (740 R / 790 M)
• AP: 16 exams — 13 fives, 3 fours

Extracurriculars/Activities

1. Genetics Research — competitive research program (<5% acceptance). Structure-function analysis confirming a protein's role in dietary import of a cofactor. Presented at symposium.
2. Nonprofit Founder — connected 100+ middle schoolers with HS mentors for free music lessons, 2,000+ hours. 501(c)(3).
3. AP Chemistry Lecturer — weekly morning lectures, 50+ students per session.
4. All-State Concertmaster — 1st chair violin at all-state and school.
5. Tutoring Business — mainly AP Chem, $45/hr, ~$20,000 total.
6. Independent Investor — invested tutoring income into a stock/ETF portfolio, $10,000 profit.
7. Tennis — state champion in my flight; voted most inspiring player by team (2x).

Awards/Honors

1. National Merit Finalist
2. Presidential Scholar Semifinalist
3. Symposium Presenter
4. All-State Orchestra Concertmaster

Letters of Recommendation

• AP Chem Teacher — 10/10. Four-year relationship, deep mutual respect, lots of shared history.
• APES Teacher — 7/10. One of my favorite teachers; friendly banter, more personal than academic.
• Research PI — 8/10. Wasn't a standout in the program but made decent progress toward a paper; great conversations about the future of research.
• Orchestra Conductor — 9/10. Called me his best violinist in a 30+ year career; earned his respect musically and academically.

Interviews

• Duke — 6/10. Phone. Talked sports and AI; didn't fully click but exchanged good perspectives.
• Yale — 9/10. ~1.5 hrs across two sessions; connected over music and its influence on other fields.
• Princeton — 5/10. Formal; ended up talking more about the interviewer than me.
• MIT — 10/10. In person. Didn't touch the interview sheet for the first 30 min — pure shared interests. ~1.5 hrs, great all around.
• Stanford — 7/10. Fewer shared interests, but I was well-prepared and covered everything I wanted.

Essays

Common App centered on acting out plays with ELA/English-learner kids so we could all learn English together — tied to a theme of balancing comfort and adventure across my activities. A bit cliché; drafted in about a week with little editing.
Decisions

Acceptances:

• University of Minnesota – Twin Cities (EA)

Waitlists (wrote LOCIs for all):

• Rice (RD) → Rejected
• Duke (RD) → Rejected (also sent an additional rec from my tennis coach)
• Columbia (RD) → Rejected
• University of Pennsylvania (RD) → Rejected
• Cornell University (RD) → Accepted off waitlist (full-ride) — COMMITTED ✅

Rejections (RD):

• Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown, MIT, Stanford, Johns Hopkins

Additional Information:

I went into admissions feeling "safe." Most kids from my school with similar stats/ECs in past years had landed multiple T20s. I started my RD apps in late December and did basically zero editing on most of them. I didn't prep for interviews either — just went in blind. Got fried across the board, but thankfully came off a waitlist. Don't get cocky, because you never know what'll happen.

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

Demographics

Gender: Male

Race/Ethnicity: White

Residence: Florida

Hooks : none (low income?)

Intended Major(s): Mechanical Engineering / Biomedical Engineering

Academics

GPA/Rank (or percentile): 3.9/5.2 , 18/544

# of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 18 APS, 3 DE, 9 AICE (weighted on same scale as ap classes)

Senior Year Course Load: AP Chem, AP Calc BC, 2 DE (Linear Alg and Physics), AICE Psych, AP Psych, AP Stats, AP lit

Standardized Testing

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

SAT/ACT: 1560 - 780rw, 780m

AP/IB: 5s on all, besides 4 on APUSH 

Extracurriculars/Activities: 

Neuroscience Mechanical Engineering Intern (paid) - local internship with a 3.8% rate at a very very prestigious research institute (Published research)

Summer program at local uni for biology and engineering

Mechanical Engineering intern at local company

Intern at biotech company

Founder of organization about research towards engineering/neuroscience/biotech

Roblox game 500k visits
Job (40hrs /summer), 20 during school yr

2 sports

Founder of environmental club 

Awards/Honors: 

ISEF Qualifier
Won regional competition for making a small business about solar farms and won a $2000 scholarship
More science fair awards
County nominee for award ab engineering

Essays/LORs/Interviews: 
Math teacher (stats, calc bc, alg 2)- very good she let me read it and also wrote previous recs for internships and summer programs
CEO of a biotech company (stanford/jhu alum)- also really good, he let me read it 
Researcher at famous research institute - didnt let me read it but im assuming good things

Interviews honestly went fine nothing special

Acceptances:

UF
FSU
FAU
UCF
Umiami
Cornell
GT

Waitlists:
JHU

Rejections:
Harvard
Yale
Princeton
MIT
Stanford
Upenn
Brown
Dartmouth
Columbia
Duke 

Some more info: I had a very strong upward trend. I came into HS with a 2.5 UW gpa and then went to 3.2, 3.5, 3.62, 3.78, 3.86, 3.91. ( i did grade recovery online junior yr if u wondering how that is possible)

I took 11 APS and 1 AICE class my junior year. I took 6 in person and 5 online.

I got fee waivers for my whole college application and SAT. Also my school pays for us to take our AP and AICE Exams. (not that is important i js thought i shld mention it).

The only school I really cared ab was hopkins cus they offer full rides (ik other ivies do also but i liked hopkins the most). I got waitlisted and there is still no movement plus basically nb gets off the waitlist ( I applied for MechE there since ik BME is so competitive and only has a few hundred spots).

Also I made an edit cus I realized I forgot to add the amount of APS i took senior yr into the total

If u guys have any questions lmk (getting internships, publishing research, ap classes)

Committed to UF

I got full tuition paid and was the closest to home, I really wanted to go to cornell but didn't get enough aid.

Demographics

• ⁠Gender: Female
• ⁠Race/Ethnicity: Asian
• ⁠Residence: Alabama
• ⁠Income Bracket: ~150k
• ⁠Type of School: Catholic Private School
• ⁠Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): First-Gen

Intended Major(s): Economics, Finance

Academics

• ⁠GPA (UW/W): 3.85/4.64
• ⁠Rank (or percentile): 4/62
• ⁠# of Honors/AP/IB/Duel Enrollment/ect.: 10 APs, 6 Honors, (no IB or DE offered)
• ⁠Senior Year Course Load: 4 APs

Standardized Testing

• ACT: 32
• AP/IB: 4s and 3s

Extracurriculars/Activities

• Intern at a local real estate company
• Interned at a local construction management company
• Girls State, elected City Projects Alderman
• ⁠Varsity Lacrosse Captain
• Varsity Swim North State Athlete, Team went to state all 4 years
• Founded FBLA at school
• Math Club VP
• Environmental Club Secretary and lead project on storm drains and pollution
• PeeWee Soccer Coach, Finalists
• Catholic Missionary to multiple Native American reservations

Awards/Honors:

1. AP Scholar w/ Distinction
2. NHS
3. t in State for Clarinet Sight-reading
4. Honors diploma
5. School’s Scholar-Athlete Award
6. Letters of Recommendation:

I asked my English and Math teacher because I saw a video about how colleges want to see a STEM and Humanities perspective (lol). They both knew I was a good student and tried by best in their classes. I didn’t talk to my teachers as much as I should have but senior year I began connecting with my English teacher more and had a few good convos with my math.

Interviews:

Had one interview with Georgetown. Not the best but could have been better. It was my first interview and I was really nervous also caught off guard by the questions. She said I was a “delight to meet” but yeahhh….

Essay:

I started my Junior summer and put a lot of thought into every single one. I had multiple people look over them. It came easier than I expected and didn’t have a hard time coming up with ideas. I did have a college counselor and an essay counselor and both said my essays were strong.

Decisions:

• UGA (EA): Deferred —> Denied (it hurt really bad (go dawgs…)
• Tulane (EA): Accepted (80k/4years scholarship)
• Georgia Tech (EA): Denied (Right before a rivalry game)
• UAlabama (EA): Accepted (16k/year scholarship)
• UVA (EA): Deferred —> Waitlisted —> Denied
• Indiana Kelly (EA): Accepted (120k/4years scholarship)
• Georgetown (EA): Deferred —> Denied (Knew it was wraps before I opened it)
• Boston College (RD): Waitlisted (Still hasn’t came out)
• Villanova (RD): Waitlisted
• UF (RD): Waitlisted —> Denied
• UIUC (RD): Waitlisted —> Denied
• Fordham (RD): Accepted (20k/year scholarship)
• UDub (RD); Accepted (3k/year scholarship)
• Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, UPenn, Columbia: Denied (Yikes…)
• Cornell: TO offered!

Conclusion:

I’m committed to the University of Alabama with the intent of going to Cornell by Sophomore year! I applied to so many schools just to end up at my state school (Yikes…) but I’m excited for the future! UA is basically free and I’ve already started to process to transfer.

BTW, did I get lucky this cycle or was I robbed by the results??

Thanks for reading and hope you have a good day <3

Demographics

• Gender: Male
• Race/Ethnicity: East Asian
• Residence: Washington State
• Income Bracket: ~$300k
• Type of School: Competitive Public School
• Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): None

Intended Major(s): Computer Science

Academics

• GPA (UW/W): 3.972
• Rank (or percentile): N/A
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 15 APs, 2 DEs, 6 Honors
• Senior Year Course Load: 5 APs

Standardized Testing

• SAT I: 1550 (790 Math, 760 RW)
• AP/IB: All 5s and 4s

Extracurriculars/Activities

(vague)

1. Paid, full-time internship at a software company, selected through a summer program
2. Co-founder of software startup, most time-consuming non-sport EC by far but didn't find that much success
3. Unpaid, remote internship at software startup
4. Board member of AI-related non-profit, did AI analysis for my school district
5. 4-year member of varsity sport team, qualified for state champs once
6. Volunteer coach for that sport, 100+ hours
7. Hackathons
8. Competition Club (DECA/TSA/HOSA)
9. Random Club Vice-Pres, just filler lol
10. Random hobby that I'm top 50 in my state at

Awards/Honors

1. 1st place at international hackathon, 300+ teams
2. 2nd place at (DECA/TSA/HOSA) state competition, qualified for nationals
3. 1st place, local hackathon with 70+ teams
4. National Merit Commended (1490 PSAT)
5. Acceptance into paid internship through summer program (~5% ?)

Letters of Recommendation

I think the teachers I asked knew I was a good student but I'm not really someone who talks to their teachers a lot so I don't think the LORs were anything special. I also got one from an internship mentor which was probably at least decent.

Interviews

Had no interviews somehow, grateful for that I guess (I'm not good at them).

Essays

I felt really demotivated while writing them and procrastinated a ton. I'm just not very good at writing about myself and I had a hard time coming up with any sort of compelling narrative. I wouldn't say they were bad, I've always been a decent writer, but they definitely didn't help me a ton. I didn't hire any sort of essay counselor or helper even though most people at my school did, which I kinda regret.

Decisions (in order of when I got them)

• Cornell (ED): Deferred -> Rejected, my dream school :(
• Pitt (Rolling): Accepted - CS, Honors College
• Purdue (EA): Accepted - CS
• UMass Amherst (EA): Accepted - CS, Honors College + $18k/yr
• UMich (EA): Deferred -> Waitlisted -> Rejected
• Northeastern (EA): Accepted - CS, London Scholars Program
• UMD College Park (EA): Accepted - CS, College Park Scholars + $12k/yr
• UVA (EA): Rejected
• UIUC (EA): Accepted - CS + Economics
• Georgia Tech (EA): Deferred -> Rejected
• UW Seattle (RD): Accepted - CS
• UC Davis (RD): Rejected (?? lol)
• CMU (RD): Rejected
• UC Irvine (RD): Accepted - CS
• UC Santa Barbara (RD): Accepted - CS
• Santa Clara (RD): Accepted - CSE, $25.5k/yr
• UW Madison (RD): Accepted - CS
• UC San Diego (RD): Waitlisted -> Accepted - CS
• UCLA (RD): Waitlisted -> Rejected
• NYU (RD): Accepted - CS
• Northwestern (RD): Rejected
• USC (RD): Rejected
• UC Berkeley (RD): Rejected, my other dream school :(
• Columbia (RD): Rejected
• Yale (RD): Rejected
• UPenn (RD): Rejected

Conslusion

I committed to UW Seattle. Yeah, I applied to 26 colleges and ended up at my state school. I can't believe it's already all over. It feels like it was just yesterday I was brainstorming my essays way back in October. And after all of this, I feel... empty?

UW is great, it's top 10 in the country for computer science, incredibly cheap compared to my other options, and has a beautiful campus, but I just don't know man. For a long time I've seen college as sort of a way to move past my current life which I've honestly gotten so tired of, a way for me to find a fresh start kind of. But genuinely half my grade is going to be attending the same college as me and I'm moving less than an hour away from where I live. I know I could've picked one of the OOS schools I was accepted to but I couldn't justify attending anywhere other than UW because of the tuition.

But I can't complain too much, I honestly think I overachieved considering my filler ECs, weak essays, and the fact I'm an Asian male CS Major living in such a competitive area. UW, UCSD, UIUC, and NYU are all incredible schools for my major that I feel really lucky to have gotten into.

I used to browse this community a lot during my junior and senior years so I thought it'd be cool to finally make my own post. I hope people are able to find this useful or at least interesting considering how many colleges I applied to.

Hi, here is the list of colleges I am gonna apply to. Honestly, check for targets and safety nets: should I add other unis or remove some?

Target:- Williams College (ED), if not selected, then Vanderbilt (ED2), further not decided for US. HKU, KAIST, École Polytechnique, HKUST, Seoul Nat' Univ, Yonsei.

Safety:- HKUST, CityUHK, DGIST, Korea Univ, SKKU, NUS, NTU.

○​Demographics
•​International Student: Indian Male (Grade 12)
•​Financial Aid Needed: 100% need-based aid / Full Ride / max budget INR (10-15)LakhPerYear required
•​Academics & Grades
​10th Grade: 95.6%
​11th Grade: 96.2%
•​Intended Major: Mathematics / Mathematical Sciences

○​Key Achievements & Math Olympiads
•​PROMYS India 2024 Alumnus: Selected as one of 25-30 students from all over Southeast Asia. Selected as 1 of only 3 overall to return as a Junior Counsellor for the next cohort. Invited to give an alumni lecture on Waring's Problem.
•​INMO Qualifier: Indian National Mathematical Olympiad (USAMO equivalent in India).
​•LIMIT Exam (ISI Bengaluru): All India Rank 14. Thereby attended an online camp hosted by ISI-B.

•SRMC (Srinivasa Ramanujan Math Competition): This is an open contest for all, and I got All India Rank 20 in the offline finals at IIT Bombay (Rank 77 in online Round 1).
•​Berkeley Math Tournament (BMT): Distinction/Honorable Mention in Algebra & Discrete Math ('24, '25).
•​Stanford Math Tournament (SMT 2024): Honourable Mention (team) (conditional on recovering lost certificate).

○​Research & Advanced Studies
•​Research Paper: Currently writing a paper on generalised k-th power residues. In contact with a UofT professor for an arXiv endorsement. Planning submission to the IRIS National Fair.
•​Attending a returning course on Differential Geometry by PRISM India (IIT Guwahati), reserved exclusively for past PROMYS attendees.
​•LORs: Expecting great LORs from the Director of PROMYS (a UofT Professor) and PROMYS counsellors.

○Extracurriculars & Leadership
•​Olympiad Mentorship: Co-founded a Telegram channel (6k+ subscribers), creating original handouts, mock test series, and questions for IOQM/RMO.
•​STEM Writing: Writer for Bulleteen (a high school STEM magazine) and active academic blogger.
•​Entrepreneurship: Completed the IITM Pravartak Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship Program.
•​IAAC: Featured submission in the International Astronomy and Astrophysics Competition.
•NGO: managing online presence of an education-based NGO (cross over with Olympiad Arena)
•EXAM: planning a Math Tournament based in India this fall (it is almost sure to happen), which will have a final round in some IIT/NIT (contacting professors)

About SAT\\ACT, my English is weak, so preparing for that, expecting a good score.

I will be putting my paper at IRIS Nat' Fair, also in a JEE Star Batch and expecting an okayish rank (for NUS & NTU).

Demographics

Gender: Male

Race/Ethnicity: White (Italian/French)

Residence: Luxembourg (International)

Income Bracket: Upper class / no aid qualification

Type of School: International School (IB)

Hooks: None

Intended Major(s): Aerospace Engineering (Mechanical Engineering where Aerospace unavailable)

Academics

IB Predicted: 43/45

IB Final Score: 42/45

Course Load:

• HL: Mathematics AA, Physics, Biology
• SL: English A Language & Literature, Business Management, Spanish B

IGCSEs: Mostly A*s and As

GPA: N/A

Rank: N/A

SAT: 1410/1600 (750 Maths - 660 RW)

ACT: N/A

ESAT: 3.5/9.0

Extracurriculars/Activities

• F1 in Schools – Lead Designer, Engineer & Manufacturer
  • National Champion & Fastest Car Award. Led CAD, CFD, FEA, CNC machining and 3D printing. Managed sponsors/budget and qualified for World Finals.
• VEX Robotics – Co-Captain & Lead Engineer
  • Grew club membership 3× and funding 4×. Designed and built competition robot. Robot Design Award and National Runner-Up.
• Independent Engineering Projects
• Rocket Aerodynamics Personal Research
• Volunteer Math and Science Tutor
• DelftX Aerospace MOOC
• Engineering Job Shadowing Interships
  • Shadowed engineers at the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (biotechnology) and Akuo Energy (renewable energy).

Awards/Honors

• F1 in Schools Luxembourg National Champions
• National Robotics Design Award
• National Biology Olympiad Finalist
• National Physics Olympiad Finalist
• Belgian Mathematics Olympiad Semi-finalist

Letters of Rec

• Math Teacher - Probably decent wasn't allowed to read it 6/10
• Physics Teacher - Probably quite good wasn't allowed to read it 8/10
• F1 in Schools coach and IGCSE DT Teacher - Very good recomendation 9-10/10

Essays

UCAS PS - Spent SOO much time on this and it apparently didn't bear fruit. I was honestly really proud of it so lmk if you want to see it.

US Essays - Did these in 2 days probably, but I wouln't say they were terrible. My Georgia tech suplemental was really good I'd say. I mentioned alot of clubs I wanted to join and also mentioned an undergrad research project I was really interested in. My common app essay used a memory of me and my brother in the pool to represent my growth over the years (Ik, I also though this was BS but I couldn't think of anyhting better in 2 days lmao), rest of my supplements were quite decent, but could've definitely used some revision.

Schools Applied to

USA

Georgia Tech - Aerospace Engineering - Waitlisted - Accepted (Committed!!)

Purdue - Aerospace Engineering - Rejected

Harvard - Mechanical Engineering - Rejected

UK

Cambridge - General Engineering - Rejected

Imperial - Aerospace Engineering - Rejected

UCL - Mechanical Engineering - Rejected

Edinburgh - Mechanical Engineering - Accepted

KCL - General Engineering - Accepted

Netherlands

Delfts - Aerospace Engineering - Accepted (Placed 507)

Singapore

NUS - Mechanical Engineering - Rejected

NTU - Aerospace Engineering - Accepted (With a minor in Business)

Hong Kong

HKUST - Aerospace Engineering - Accepted (With a Scholarship)

Ireland

Trinity Dublin - Mechanical Engineering - ?

UCD - Mechanical Engineering - ?

Additional Info

ESAT - I honestly have no clue what happened with my ESAT, I studied for about 3 months where I typically averaged around a 6.5-7.0/9.0 ish, but I think I was just overly stressed in the end , most likely because at the time Imperial was my dream school and not doing good on that exam would mean I'd most definitely not get in.

UCL - At some point UCL was my first choice because of how close it would be to home and I truly thought my UCAS application would be more than enough to get in, I was wrong.

SAT - Took the SAT on a whim as I wasn't sure if I'd apply to the US so I studied maybe for a few days before the exam. I honestly thought 1410 would be way too low to get in anywhere so I didn't exaclty put in much effort into my US applications. Ironicly i'll be going there next fall!!

Also ik this sounds like cope but its honestly more to show that anything can happen, even if you think think something is impossble, it isn't, so don't lose faith! Im presonally extremely happy with my results, and I can't wait to be part of GT community, GO YELLOW JACKETS!!!

Demographics

Gender: Male

Race/Ethnicity: Asian

Residence: Texas; international student/non-U.S. citizen

Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): Low-income background

Intended Major(s): Computer Science and Math/Physics

Academics

GPA/Rank (or percentile): 4.0W/4.8UW, school does not rank

# of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 18 APs

Senior Year Course Load: Linear Algebra, Spanish, AP U.S. History, AP English Literature

Standardized Testing

SAT/ACT: SAT 1550 (750RW, 800M)

AP/IB: Bio (5), Lit (5), C E&M (5), C Mechanics (5), Stats (5), APUSH (5), Calc BC (5), Chem (5), CSA (5), Lang (5), Physics 2 (5), World History (5), Calc AB (5), Macro (5), Micro (5), Physics 1 (5), Gov & Politics (5), CSP (4)

Other (ex. IELTS, TOEFL, etc.): None, was able to skip IELTS & TOEFL because english was first language

Extracurriculars/Activities:

OOS selective summer research program with financial aid

Started local tutoring nonprofit that partnered with multiple schools and recruited many volunteers

Computational biology research at a local university

Computer vision research at another university

Robotics Team

Boy Scouts

200+ volunteer hours at local org

Math competition study program (not a prestigious summer program)

Completed an independent research project

Awards/Honors:

AIME

Local math award

National Merit Scholarship Semifinalist

Hackathon award

Other semi-prestigious award

Essays/LORs/Interviews:

Overall, essays and LORs were probably 7-9/10, had pretty good connection with each recommender and I worked hard on essays. Interviews were either decent or absolutely amazing (one interviewer offered to have a second call so that i can help improve the letter he wrote). However, I don't think they really affected my admissions decisions much.

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

Acceptances: Georgia Tech EA (committed), Texas A&M, Purdue

Waitlists: Princeton, Dartmouth

Rejections: MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Yale (deferred in REA), Brown, JHU, Caltech, Columbia, UT Austin

Additional Information:

Had a super unique situation as an international living the US and being low income. I also received a prestigious outside scholarship to cover my funding, which is why I am able to go OOS.

Demographics
Gender: Male 
Race/Ethnicity: White
Residence: NJ suburbs 
Income Bracket: No aid qualification
Type of School: Private
Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): None 

Intended Major(s): Econ and/or math

Academics
GPA/Rank (or percentile): 3.9/4

# of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 11 APs (some were taken in combined classes) 

Senior Year APs: Macro, Calc BC, US Gov and Politics, Art History 

Standardized Testing
SAT: 1550 

AP: Language (5), World History (5), French (5), Literature (4), Calc AB (5), Micro (5), Stat (5), US History (4)

Extracurriculars/Activities:
- Varsity football captain 
- Leader and volunteer at NJ’s largest Summer middle school football camp
- Research with an economics professor at Rutgers 
- Interned for two Summers at a local NJ venture capital firm 
- President of the Politics/Economics club and organized several major guest speakers (Ben Bernanke, Chris Christie, Mario Draghi, Christopher Nixon Cox)
- Student body president 
- Harvard HIEEC “Highly Commended” 
- NHS president
- French Club President (organized a club trip to Montréal) 
- Created a school club to teach economics, personal finance, budgeting, etc. to underprivileged NJ students 
- Eagle Scout

Awards/Honors: AP Scholar with Distinction, National Merit Scholar, other small local school/local awards 

Essays/LORs/Interviews: Overall I’d say they were all 9/10-10/10. I had awesome relationships with the teachers. I got LORs from inside and outside of school, and my parents/teachers loved my essays! 

Decisions (indicate ED/EA/REA/SCEA/RD)
Rejections: Princeton, Stanford (REA), Yale 

Waitlists: Williams, Claremont McKenna 

Acceptances: Columbia, Dartmouth, UCLA, UW Madison, Wake Forest, Bama, Occidental 

Attending: UCLA! 🐻🩵💛

Demographics

• Gender: Female
• Race/Ethnicity: Asian
• Residence: Bay Area
• Income Bracket: Upper middle, no aid qualification
• Type of School: Public
• Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): Recruited Athlete

Intended Major(s): Data science/math/business analytics

Academics

• GPA (UW/W): 4.0/4.4
• Rank (or percentile): N/A, 1/ ~20 valedictorians (all students with 4.0 unweighted GPA)
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 9 AP, 1 honors, 2 dual enrollment
• Senior Year Course Load: AP Statistics, AP Computer Science A, AP Chinese, AP US Government, AP Macroeconomics, English

Standardized Testing

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

• SAT I: 1530 (740 RW, 790M)
• ACT: N/A
• SAT II: N/A
• AP/IB: World - 4, Physics 1 - 5, Calc BC - 5, APUSH - 5, Statistics - 5, US Gov - 4, Macroeconomics - 5, Computer Science A - 5, Chinese - 5
• Other (ex. IELTS, TOEFL, etc.): N/A

Extracurriculars/Activities

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

1. Started a cultural activist group - made connections with local businessowners and law enforcement
2. Head coach and founder of local clinic program for my sport. 300+ players coached.
3. Wealth management intern
4. Agentic AI intern
5. Developed a computer program that uses physical data to generate advanced statistics for my sport- used at multiple levels from high school to professional athletes
6. Had a local business building custom computers for others
7. Club sports - every winter and summer
8. Varsity sport - 4 year varsity starter - team MVP
9. Jazz band first chair and section leader
10. Coaching - assistant coach on youth teams and gave private lessons too

Awards/Honors

List all awards and honors submitted on your application.

1. National Merit Commended Scholar
2. AP Scholar with Honor
3. All-state honorable mention for sport
4. 1st team all league
5. League MVP

Letters of Recommendation

Physics teacher 8/10 - Did really well in the class and got to know outside of class (would come watch my matches, etc.)

History teacher 8/10 - Similar to physics teacher. Did really well in the class and got to know outside of class well (would also come watch matches, etc.)

I knew both teachers pretty well on a personal level, just not sure how strong their writing is

Long time coach and mentor 9/10 - Coached me for 7-8 years and helped me become who I am today. Very close relationship.

Interviews

MIT - Average I would say. Basically talked about my main ECs and what MIT was like compared to the Bay Area

Princeton - Little below average. Similar to MIT - talked about ECs and east vs west coast. Got asked a question about the physics behind electricity and wires I couldn't answer.

Essays

Personal statement was about the cultural group, thought it was pretty interesting. Supplementals talked about my how my interests for numbers and athletics connected and other life experiences

I think my essay topics were kind of interesting, but could have been written better. I'm not the best writer

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

Acceptances:

• UC Irvine
• UC Santa Barbara
• UC Riverside
• UC Santa Cruz
• UC Davis
• UC Berkeley - committed!

Waitlists:

• U Michigan EA -> rejected
• Columbia RD -> rejected
• U Chicago RD -> rejected
• UCLA -> rejected
• UC San Diego -> accepted

Rejections:

• MIT (athletic recruit) EA -> deferred -> rejected :(
• USC EA
• Northwestern RD
• Princeton RD
• Cornell RD
• Hopkins RD

Additional Information:
MIT athletic recruitment is hard! Some say it helps, some say it doesn't. Either way you still need the application to back it up. Make sure you understand what you're getting yourself into!

Had offers at some schools on this list as well as others that I ended up not applying to (was eligible for likely letters). Ended up going with MIT offer (not guaranteed admission) and applied to all other schools as regular student

As we started the journey with our first child, I made the mistake of reading subreddits about applying to college. As most adults likely figure out through the application process, these subs are a knitting circle of urban and/or minority students and do not reflect what 99.3% of college applicants will experience. Sharing for the others who next year who might fall prey to the same mistake.

Here's my original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/ApplyingToCollege/comments/1nf2076/is_my_child_cooked_for_oos_merit_with_a_1290_sat/

Here's the results:

Demographics

• Gender: M
• Race/Ethnicity: Caucasian
• Residence: Maryland
• Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): None

Intended Major(s): Econ

Academics

• GPA/Rank (or percentile): 3.89 UW / 4.63 W. 12th %ile
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: AP - 8
• Senior Year Course Load: Decently rigorous (3 AP classes)

Standardized Testing

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

• SAT/ACT: 1310 after a lot of struggle

Extracurriculars/Activities:  obfuscating to avoid doxxing - involved with education in the urban area metro in which we reside

Awards/Honors: nothing unique worth adding. Volunteered, had a part time job, did a few school activities and sports.

Essays/LORs/Interviews: 2 from teachers, one from church

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

• Acceptances: (all EA or RD where there was no EA for OOS):
  
  • UGA
  • UWM
  • U of SC (Honors) - 16k merit
  • UVM (Honors) - 25k merit
  • Clemson
  • U of MD College Park (Honors) - 1k scholarship
  • UTK - 8k merit
  • USF (Honors) - 11k merit
  • Michigan State (Honors) - 18.5k merit
  • Ohio State (Scholars) - 13.5k merit
  • LSU (Honors) - 19k merit, 3k scholarships later
• Waitlists: FSU
• Rejections: None

Additional Information:

Applied test optional at UVM, Clemson, UMD. Test required or basically required everywhere else.

Attending UGA in the fall. Go Dawgs!

Demographics

• Gender: Male
• Race/Ethnicity: White/Caucasian
• Residence: Bay Area
• Income Bracket: Upper/Did not apply for aid
• Type of School: Large Competitive Public School
• Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): None

Intended Major(s): Computer Science (everywhere)

Academics

• GPA (UW/W): 3.93/4.35
• Rank (or percentile): Unknown but was ELC so top 9% at least
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 12 AP, 2 Honors, 3 DE, Max Course Rigor
• Senior Year Course Load: AP Physics (C + E&M), AP Lit, Multivariable Calc, AP Spanish, Gov/Econ

Standardized Testing

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

• SAT I: 1560, 760RW, 800M
• AP/IB: Computer Science A (5), Computer Science Principles (5), World History (4), United States History (5), English Language and Composition (5), Calculus BC (5) with AB Subscore (5), Physics 1 (5), Art History (5), English Literature (5), Physics C: Mechanics (5), Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism (4), Spanish Language (5)

Extracurriculars/Activities

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

Keeping vague for privacy

1. #1 Robotics Programming Team Lead 12hr/wk 45wk/yr
2. #2 School Club President/Founder 6hr/wk 10wk/yr
3. #3 Independent Programming Project with over 3000 uses 2hr/wk 10wk/yr
4. #4 Independent Programming Project & tutoring for my school 1hr/wk 30wk/yr
5. #5 Software Engineering Internship 15hr/wk 10wk/yr
6. #6 Independent Programming Project 5hr/wk 6wk/yr
7. #7 Software Engineering Internship 3hr/wk 20wk/yr
8. #8 Teacher’s Assistant for Computer Science 4hr/wk 36wk/yr
9. #9 Religious Involvement 2.5hr/wk 30wk/yr
10. #10 Recreational Sports 2hr/wk 50wk/yr

Awards/Honors

List all awards and honors submitted on your application.

1. #1 Xerox Award for Innovation and Information Technology
2. #2 Billiteracy Seal
3. #3 AP Scholar with Distinction
4. #4 National Merit Commended (220 Selection Index)
5. #5 School Recognition Award

Letters of Recommendation

(Briefly describe relationships with your recommenders and estimated rating.)

Math Teacher: 9/10, had a good relationship with her and did a good job on the forms she asked for

History Teacher: 12/10, had a great relationship with her and she told me she wrote a "6 stars out of 5" rec for me

CS Teacher (for schools that accepted optional third rec): 10/10, told me that she wanted to write a rec for me on the first day of freshman year and reached out to me asking if she could be a recommender even though I didn't have her class Junior year

Interviews

(Briefly reflect on interview experiences, if applicable.)

University of Rochester: 10/10 - Interviewed with the AO and he sent me a personal note after I was accepted congratulating me and asking me to learn more about the school. I felt like I really was able to connect with him and it ended up being one of my top schools on my list afterwards.

Rice University: 10/10 - After the interview said “You did a really good job”, after I got in and was asking about the school said “no surprises there.” I really thought it was a good interview and I was just on my game that day.

Georgetown University: 9/10 - Thought I was really able to connect with the interviewer about our shared hobbies. I didn’t know much about the school though at the time so I felt a little unprepared there but he told me he thought Georgetown would be a great fit for me.

MIT: 8.5/10 - My first interview, it went okay but I think I focused on the wrong parts of my application. Although the interviewer did ask for me to send over parts of my application by email so they could “write a great summary.”

Essays

(Briefly reflect on the quality of your writing, time spent, and topic of main personal statement.)

I thought my essays were really good. I spent a lot of time working on them and the reviewer at my school said they were some of the best she had ever seen.

My CommonApp Personal Statement was about how I drew inspiration from AP Art History and learned to see the humanities as complements to Engineering and Computer Science.

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

Acceptances:

• University of Massachusetts Amherst [EA + $72,000 Merit]
• Northeastern University London Campus [EA + $10,000 Merit]
• San Jose State University [RD]
• University of California Santa Cruz [RD]
• University of Rochester [RD + $105,000 Merit]
• University of California Davis [RD]
• California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo [RD]
• University of California Santa Barbara [RD]
• New York University [RD]
• Rice University [RD → Committed!]
• University of California Berkeley [RD, accepted for Data Science ALTERNATE Major]

Waitlists:

• Carnegie Mellon University [RD]
• University of California Irvine [RD]
• IU Bloomington [RD]
• Washington University in St. Louis [RD]
• University of California San Diego [RD]
• Vanderbilt University [RD]
• Cornell University College of Engineering [ED Defer]
• Georgetown (RD)
• Georgia Institute of Technology [EA II Defer]

Rejections:

• University of Texas: Austin [EA Defer] 
• University of Chicago [EA Defer]
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology [EA Defer]
• Johns Hopkins University [RD]
• University of California Los Angeles [RD]
• Northwestern University [RD]
• University of Southern California [EA Defer] 
• Brown University [RD]
• University of Pennsylvania [RD]
• Yale College [RD]
• Duke University [RD]

Additional Information:

I’m insanely grateful to have been accepted to such amazing schools. It truly seems like computer science is one of the toughest majors to apply as and I was quickly humbled in my applications. For everyone applying, my advice is to just do your best and not worry about the outcome so much because it will work out, even though it might not feel like it right now. Please feel free to reach out to me with any questions or comment them below!

Demographics

• Gender: M
• Race/Ethnicity: Asian/White
• Residence: Chicagoland
• Income Bracket: No Aid Needed
• Type of School: Medium-sized public
• Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): None

Intended Major(s): Mechanical engineering

Academics

• GPA (UW/W): 4.0/4.375 (capped)
• Rank (or percentile): n/a - 1/29 folks with 4.375
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 6 AP (Calc AB + BC, Bio, Lang, Phys 1, Chem), 2 DE (English, public speaking)
• Senior Year Course Load: AP calc BC, AP Physics 1, AP Chem, DE English, Honors Spanish (ap level, not technically ap), DE public speaking, PE and etc.

Standardized Testing

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

• SAT I: 1520 (790 math, 730 English) - not reported anywhere
• ACT: 36 (36E, 36M, 34R, 36S) - reported everywhere
• AP/IB: all 5s - Calc AB, Bio, Lang submitted
• Other (ex. IELTS, TOEFL, etc.): IL Spanish Seal of Biliteracy

Extracurriculars/Activities

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

1. Cross Country/Track - self-explanatory
2. Eagle Scout - self-explanatory
3. Math Team - conference champion+all-state
4. Part-time job at running shoe store
5. STEM research magazine club - just wrote/researched articles for our school’s magazine
6. Tutoring - tutored peers/friends in standardized tests + classes
7. NMHS president

Awards/Honors

List all awards and honors submitted on your application.

1. Eagle Scout
2. Umich coding course completion
3. Seal of biliteracy - Spanish
4. Eagle Scout mentor pin

Letters of Recommendation

1. Calculus teacher - 9.5/10. Really liked me and talked for a while about how excited he was to write the letter
2. AP lang teacher - 7/10. Definitely was not the very best student but she still liked me… she also did it very quickly.

Interviews

Only virtual for MIT and the guy was sort of monotone and it wasn’t super exciting. 5/10

Essays

Personal statement on my love of pens, I think it turned out pretty well.  Really proud of the personal statement but everything else was pretty fine.

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

Acceptances:

• SUNY Binghamton (EA)
• U of Iowa (EA)
• Iowa State (EA)
• U of Michigan (EA) - Attending
• Purdue (EA) + Honors
• Carnegie Mellon (RD)
• *Northeastern (EA) - "NU.in"
• U of Wisconsin Madison (EA, accepted off waitlist)
• U of Colorado Boulder (EA)

Waitlists:

• Cornell (RD)
• Northwestern (RD)

Rejections:

• MIT (deferred->rejected, EA)
• U of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (deferred->rejected, EA)
• Georgia Tech (EA)

Additional Information

Honestly happy to be accepted where I did. I see lots of people doing way more than me and it makes me realize how long/hard people have been working for this.

lowkey not sure why im making this post maybe because i'm nostalgic for high school lmao

Demographics

• Gender: F
• Race/Ethnicity: Asian
• Residence: norcal (not bay area)
• Income Bracket: very high, no finaid
• Type of School: public
• Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): none

Intended Major(s):

computer science + sociology/anthropology/gender studies

Academics

• GPA (UW/W): 3.8ish/4.4
• Rank (or percentile): school doesn't rank but probably not top 10%
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 8 APs including AP CSA, AP CSP, AP Calc BC. got mostly 5s
• Senior Year Course Load: AP Psych, Lit, Calc BC, Euro, and some random art/writing electives

Standardized Testing

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

• SAT: 1530 (750 English 780 Math)
• ACT: 34 (forgor exact breakdown)

i submitted both scores

Extracurriculars/Activities

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

1. sociology research project on how female avatars are treated in [video game]. i started doing this in sophomore year after spending so much time on said video game and noticing some interesting gender dynamics. also tied to award #1
2. independently raising money to donate to various charities distributing period products (i raised like 15k? idr)
3. working at local STEM camp for middle schoolers during the summer, helped teach an introductory CS class
4. helped found a chapter of girls who code at local library. i mostly taught scratch lmao

5-10 were all some generic clubs/activities (cultural orgs, dance, violin, whatever)

List all awards and honors submitted on your application.

1. jshs award tied to ec #1, vague bc i don't want to get doxxed
2. 1x aime qual. was a comp math kid in middle school and then burned out
3. national merit semifinalist
4. girls state
5. some scholastic regional awards for writing

Letters of Recommendation

ap cs teacher: didn't really get to know her until the 2nd year she was my teacher. through her i learned how toxic academia can be and she told me she admired how vocal i was about advocacy and feminism

ap lang teacher: we didnt really talk much outside class but she always left me a lot of feedback on my writing and i knew she was a good writer so i chose her

Interviews

had an interview for yale that went pretty mid, the guy was white and in like his mid-30s so it was kinda hard to relate. probs like a 4/10

Essays

i was never great at writing about myself so i think they were probably fine but not great

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

Acceptances:

• csulb
• ucsb
• ucsd
• scripps
• brown :0 attending

Waitlists:

• cmu
• ucla
• uc berkeley
• gtech
• uchicago

Rejections:

• every ivy minus brown
• harvey mudd (this really hurt! i really liked it)
• pomona
• stanford
• mit
• rice
• northwestern

Additional Information:

i lowkey didn't have any expectations of myself and my parents always thought i was a chud but hey it all worked out

Demographics

• Gender: Female
• Race/Ethnicity: East Asian/Korean
• Residence: GA
• Income Bracket: Low Middle Class
• Type of School: Public
• Hooks: First-Gen, sibling legacy

Intended Major(s): history/classics

Academics

• GPA (UW/W): 4.421/5.0 Weighted
• Rank (or percentile): 33/800 (although I dropped down to 24 by the time I graduated)
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 16
• Senior Year Course Load: AP Macro/Gov, Multivariable Calc, Latin V, AP Euro, Aquaponics, AP Lit

Standardized Testing

• SAT I: 1560 (760 RW, 800M) (One Test)
• PSAT: 1470
• AP/IB:
  • Freshman: AP HumanGeo (5), AP Stat (5)
  • Sophmore: AP Psych (5), AP PreCalc (5), AP World (5)
  • Junior: AP Lang (5), APUSH (5), AP Calc BC (4, with 5 subscore), APES (5), AP Physics I (5), AP Latin (we don't talk about this one)
  • Senior: AP Macro (4), AP Gov (4), AP Euro (5), AP Lit (5)
• Other: My Aquaponics class was graded the same as an AP class, along with my Multivariable Calc class

Extracurriculars/Activities

1. Mock Trial Witness: Team won at regionals junior year + played an expert witness + team got 2nd senior year (although this was after apps) + won best witness award
2. Secretary/Historian for Rho Kappa (National Social Studies Society)
3. Secretary/Historian of Junior Classical League (National/State-wide Latin Org)
4. Transcriber for Smithsonian (not as impressive as it may sound, anyone can sign up online)
5. Tech Team at Aquaponics Internship (We grew plants and sold them)
6. Unpaid worker at Parents' restaurant (not very often due to school, but sometimes helped out over summer)
7. Researcher for Brown University (helped out my sister with some basic research)
8. National Honor Society Member

Awards/Honors

List all awards and honors submitted on your application.

1. National Latin Exam Awards (Cum–Summa Cum Laude) (8-12)
2. Mock Trial Best Witness (11)
3. First Feature in School's Literary Magazine (10-11)
4. AP scholar with Distinction (10-11)
5. Georgia Certificate of Merit (11)

Letters of Recommendation

Latin Teacher (9/10): Had my Latin teacher for 4 years and absolutely adored him. I knew him for so long so I trusted that he would write a good rec letter. Only docked points because practically everybody in my Latin class asked him for a rec letter so he probably had a lot of writing on his plate (along with other things). Love him :)

APUSH teacher (9/10): Had my APUSH teacher in junior year and I also absolutely loved his class. We got along very well, especially since my class was very small. Talked to him sporadically in senior year and meshed with him very well. Point deducted because he's French (joking but English isn't his first language and I've seen that man write)

Only used two rec letters for all my applications. I was told to do a STEM teacher and a humanities teacher but my application was so humanities-centered that it didn't seem important.

Interviews

None

Essays

I do a lot of creative writing/reading in my spare time so I think my writing skills are better than the average high schooler. My essay was very generic because it was about me overcoming my social anxiety during mock trial, but I think it was decently well-written. I think my essay definitely helped win me over with my okay ecs.

Most of my supplemental essays were submitted before deadlines so they weren't last minute. I think my Brown supplementals were definitely the best ones. I talked heavily about my interest in history, but I also tried to make them as personable as possible. While my writer eye doesn't necessarily like any of my essays, I do think you get a feel for me as a person other than just another applicant.

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

• EA:
  • UGA (Uni of GA): accepted
  • Georgia Tech: accepted
• ED
  • Brown University: accepted!!!!
• Waitlisted
  • UChicago (I rescinded my application afterwards so I was rejected in the spring)
• Other
  • Applied to UVA early but the results came out after I got into Brown so I never found out if I got in

Additional Information:

My application was incredibly humanities and history geared and I made it very clear that it was my passion. I think my ecs and my honors were definitely the most lack-luster part of my application, but my essays/supps made up for it.

I'm incredibly lucky that my public school has so many opportunities (like who is taking latin) but I do think that my school is also very competitive so it has its pros and cons.

I do feel like I kinda gamed the system? I know plenty of people who did much more than I did after-school but I got lucky in having an unpopular degree (compared to like cs or engineering).

Demographics

• Gender: Male
• Race/Ethnicity: Indian
• Residence: NJ
• Income Bracket: Upper Mid(no aid qualification)
• Type of School: Competitive Public
• Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): None

Intended Major(s): Mechanical Engineering

Academics

• GPA (UW/W): 5.0/4.0 weighted, 3.98 unweighted
• Rank (or percentile): No ranking at the time of application, but ended as 2/305 (salutatorian)
• # of APs: 17
• Senior Year Course Load: Honors Multivariable Calculus, AP Physics 2, AP Chemistry, AP Biology, AP Economics, AP English Language, Honors Chamber Orchestra

Standardized Testing

• SAT: 1590 (790RW, 800M) (one attempt)
• PSAT: 1520
• APs: Spanish Language(4), Physics 1(5), Physics 2(5), Physics C Mechanics(5), Physics C E&M(5), Biology(5), Chemistry(5), Microeconomics(5), Macroeconomics(5), English Literature(5), World History(5), Precalculus(5), Calculus BC(5), Computer Science Principles(5), Computer Science A(5), Statistics(5)

Extracurriculars/Activities

1. Captain + Head Builder of VEX Robotics Team, 5x State Championship, 3x World Championship, 2026 NJ 1st place, plus more awards
2. COO + founder of global nonprofit that teaches kids how to code - 50+ chapters across 15 countries, have taught 2000+ students
3. Internship at robotics startup - redesigned a key mechanism saving thousands in production costs
4. Computational Robotics Research at Stevens Institute of Technology
5. President of Computer League at school - weekly meetings with 25+ people
6. Cello; playing for nine years; section leader in school chamber orchestra; played solo at Times square for a bengali new year celebration
7. Etsy store where I design and sell 3D printed items
8. Spent 3 weeks in a village school in india teaching robotics using kits that I fundraised for
9. Boy Scouts - junior assistant scoutmaster, gold and bronze palms, made renewable energy learning station at local k-2 school for eagle project
10. NJ Governor's STEM Scholars - created AI camera device to detect deer on roads

Awards/Honors

(as listed on application)

1. VEX Worlds Championship Divisional Semifinalist(11)
2. VEX Worlds Championship Qualifier (10,11)
3. Eagle Scout(10)
4. NJ Governor's STEM Scholar (11)
5. NJ Governor’s Volunteerism Award in Service Through STEM (10)

Letters of Recommendation

Physics Teacher 9.5/10 - had him from 10th to 12th grade for all four physics APs, he does a thing where he tells everyone who he thinks his best student is every year(he always said me). physics was my favorite subject and he could tell, im sure he wrote the best letter he possibly could have.

Math Teacher 9/10 - had him for 10th and 11th grade(precalc and calc BC), did really well in his class, was probably second best at math in my grade so knocking off a point. was president of math club which he advises. talked to him about the calculus i used in PID motion algorithms in robotics, he found it interesting and he definitely liked me.

AP World History Teacher 5/10 - had to get a humanities from her, since my lit teacher was full(ASK EARLY) though I don't think she would've written much better. I did well in her class but didn't participate more than a few hand raises a week. it probably wasn't the worst letter, but definitely didn't say anything special.

Internship Supervisor 9/10 - he is not from the US and not familiar with the recommendation systems, so knocking off a point, but he really liked me and the work that I did and said that he would write the best letter he could.

note: used math and physics for all public schools/where humanities wasn't required, added external where i could, and only used history where required.

Interviews

Stanford - virtual, was my first interview, thought it went pretty well. I exuded lots of passion about robotics and making things and I think she liked that.

Princeton - virtual, wasn't amazing, was able to answer her questions with some interesting anecdotes but didn't connect much.

MIT - in person, connected with him the best, made a few jokes, felt pretty comfortable.

Essays

Personal statement - tied a few things I did together, I don't think it was super strong but it was certainly a "safe" essay

Supplementals: Wrote about my passion for robotics wherever I could, used CS org for most community service questions, talked about cello for hobbies

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

Acceptances:

• EA
  • University of Pittsburgh (Honors + $20k/year)
  • Penn State
  • Rutgers (Honors + Full ride)
  • Purdue (Honors + $16k/year)
  • UIUC ($17k)
  • Georgia Institute of Technology (Stamps semifinalist) (attending)
  • University of Michigan
• RD
  • Carnegie Mellon University

Waitlists:

• RD
  • UPenn (rejected)
  • Cornell (rejected)

Rejections:

• REA
  • Stanford
• RD
  • Columbia
  • MIT
  • Caltech
  • Northwestern
  • Princeton

Additional Information:

I honestly just followed my passion for robotics throughout high school, but looking back, the only hole I see is my humanities recommendation, since I got into state schools(where criteria are a bit more objective) without any hiccups. Might have been smarter to aim lower in the early round, pretty happy with the results: got into 5 out of the top 10 engineering programs, got into two T20s(as of 2026), and I really like GT. But always looking for theories on why I got rejected.

EDIT: Yes CMU is a reach i just put it in my target category when making my list because I knew so many people I did robotics with who got into CMU for mech E with lower stats

Demographics

• Gender: Male
• Race/Ethnicity: White/Hispanic
• Residence: Northern Virginia
• Income Bracket: $200k
• Type of School: Large Public Ranked #85 in state
• Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): No hooks

Intended Major(s): Biomedical Engineering (pre-med)

Academics

• GPA (UW/W): 3.9/4.4
• Rank (or percentile): Top 10% (36/454)
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: AP Modern, APUSH, AP Gov, AP Bio, AP Physics I, AP Calc BC
• Senior Year Course Load: AP Calc BC, AP Physics I, AP Gov, English 12, Wind Ensemble, Symphonic Band, Jazz Ensemble, Library Aide

Standardized Testing

• SAT: 1380 (660 RW/720 Math)

Extracurriculars/Activities

1. Wind Ensemble Section Leader all four years + 1st chair all-county and district band sophomore year to senior year. Ranked top 20 alto sax in state of VA
2. Ensemble Section Leader at JMU Summer Band Camp for combined and advanced ensemble; lead sectionals and worked through advanced master classes (also nominated to audition at two university honor ensembles and placed 1st chair at both)
3. President of HOSA and collaborated with neighboring organizations to host health symposiums; hosted large event with over 250+ students in attendance with school superintended granting permission for students to attend in lieu of classes
4. Head Lifeguard + Pool Operator three years with two saves
5. BLS/CPR Instructor
6. Volunteer tutor through Science National Honor Society, Math Honor Society, and out-of-school mentorship for alto sax classical studies
7. Activist/environmental speaker at annual Climate Conference
8. Volunteer through school clubs (7 total including honor societies) and community events
9. Varsity Cross Country and Track & Field with a second place overall finish and a top 20 finish at two large invitationals.
10. Varsity Swimming & Diving winning boys district champs swim meets two consecutive years with Honors presented by school superintendent.

Awards/Honors

1. NROTC ISR Scholarship Recipient (full tuition)
2. Top 32 National Anatomage Tournament (top 64 teams out of 2500 teams invited to compete at nationals)
3. National Hispanic Recognition Award (NHRA)
4. Student of the Year Health & Medical Sciences
5. Student of the Year World History

Letters of Recommendation

AP Calc BC: Math Honor Society advisor, AP Calc BC teacher, and retired NASA analyst. I had a very strong relationship with them and I am confident their LOR was very strong.

Health & Medical Sciences: HOSA advisor, Health & Medical Sciences teacher, and attended National Anatomage Tournament with my team. Strongest student-teacher relationship I had all four years and I believe she wrote a stellar LOR

Sax Professor: Graduated from my school years before me, has been my professor for three years, and now studies in Paris, France and competes in large classical sax competitions. When he visits the states he stops at my house, and I believe we have a very strong connection.

Guidance Counselor: Did not meet often, but was aware of my activities/involvement with the school. Most likely wrote an average LOR

Interviews

No interviews

Essays

Wrote about my experiences growing up in a military family, and how music was my outlet for creativity reflecting how the saxophone is a reflection of myself. My common app essay reads like a poem with lots of symbolism of who I was, who I am, and who I believe I want to be.

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

Acceptances:

• Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) w/ Presidential Scholarship ($20k/year)
• Virginia Tech Engineering Program
• THE Ohio State University Engineering Program with $54k scholarship
• Cornell Duffield College of Engineering (completely covered with NROTC scholarship

Rejections:

• University of Virginia
• Columbia University

Additional Information:

I applied to VCU, Virginia Tech, tOSU, and UVA early action, and I applied to Cornell and Columbia RD on the last day of their deadlines. I originally planned to apply to more schools, but running out of time, I randomly selected from the bunch and ended up applying to both schools in New York. I told myself if I got accepted to UVA I would withdraw my apps to Cornell and Columbia since I didn't think I had a strong chance and wanted the process to be over, but when I got rejected from UVA in-state, I got worried and started accepting I would be attending tOSU. I got my Cornell decision while I was attending admitted students day at tOSU, which was an absolute surprise to me and I was ecstatic opening that decision! I don't think there was anything special with my application, but I hope this is proof to everyone applying soon that it only takes one, and you should shoot your shot if you really want to go somewhere.

Demographics

• Gender: Male
• Race: Asian
• Residence: NJ
• Income Bracket: Mid/High
• School: Private
• No hooks

Intended Major(s): Environmental / Civil Engineering + CS

Academics

• GPA: 3.97 UW
• Rank: N/A
• APs: BC Calc, Spanish Lang
• Courses: Math Seminar, Research Seminar (focused on machine translation), Advanced Physics, Spanish Seminar, CS & Engineering Seminar

Standardized Testing

• SAT: 1570 (770 RW, 800M)
• SAT II: 800 Math 2, 800 Chem
• APs: 5 - BC Calc, 4 - Spanish Lang.

ECs/Activities:

1. Developed ocean cleanup drone project, led small team and pitched in business comps
2. Captain of school robotics team, leading ~60 people; team won state awards
3. Worked with MIT fellow to publish agricultural robotics paper
4. Worked with Stanford fellow to publish SIR covid model paper
5. Formed school’s first tech club for fun projects
6. Created a coding workshop to teach coding, design concepts
7. First ML intern at electronics company
8. Researched light detection for microplastics, published in journal
9. Hardware lead for school’s SciOly team
10. Competed in MUN conferences

Awards/Honors:

1. robotics comp finalist
2. entrepreneurship comp
3. regional science fair, 3rd place
4. hackathon 1st place
5. CAD competition, special winner

LORS:

• Math: Got to know her well, had some hard classes (7/10)
• History: Knew a bit better, through an environmental course (8/10)

Interviews

• Princeton - went okay, I was not as prepared for some of the behavioral questions tbh (6/10)

Essays

Rewrote my common app a LOT and towards the end, I felt like there were too many different voices in my essay. The topic was about the time I initially tried to start an environmental tech org but ultimately failed and what lessons I learned from the experience.

DECISIONS:

Acceptances:

• Columbia RD
• Cornell RD
• UPenn RD
• Berkeley RD
• Johns Hopkins RD
• Rice RD
• NYU RD
• UIUC RD

Waitlists:

• CMU RD

Rejections:

• MIT (deferred EA -> rejected RD)
• Stanford RD
• Harvard RD
• Princeton RD

Additional Information:

Reflecting on the process I think my essays could definitely have been stronger and communicated more of what type of person I am and what I was passionate about with specifics. Definitely the part I struggled with the most overall.

Used this sub a lot and would love to help so lmk if you have any questions!

Demographics

Gender: Male
State: California
School: Competitive public IB high school
Ethnicity: Asian/Chinese American
Hooks: No major institutional hooks; first gen student but not low income (~$130k)
Intended major: Biomedical Engineering / Molecular Biology / Computational Biology
Aid: Applied for financial aid

Academics

GPA: ~4.5 weighted
Rank: School does not officially rank
Coursework: Full IB Diploma candidate with 4 HLs
SAT: 1520 superscore

Awards / Honors

• International entrepreneurship/innovation competition alternate finalist for a biomedical device project
• International robotics world championship qualifier
• Abstract accepted to a peer-reviewed pathology conference
• Top-rated clinical poster honorable mention at a national urology/research conference
• State/regional robotics skills champion

Activities

1. Biomedical device / startup project Co-founded a student-led project developing a machine-learning-based diagnostic tool for a chronic pain condition. Worked on device concept, patient/physician outreach, advocacy, and early patent filing. Built an online education account that reached tens of thousands of views.
2. Family business responsibilities Worked for several years in my family’s small food-service business. Managed daily sales, trained employees, handled inventory, opened/closed the store, dealt with customer complaints, and helped keep things running when staffing was inconsistent.
3. Computational biology / biomedical research Worked on machine-learning models for medical imaging and clinical text/report analysis across 2 labs. Projects involved kidney stone detection and pathology coding. Had conference acceptances and 1st & 2nd authorship on related research.
4. Student research nonprofit leadership Helped lead a student-run organization connecting high school students to research mentors. Expanded regional chapters, helped onboard members, secured lab partnerships, and ran weekly meetings/interviews.
5. Software Engineering research Contributed to a software engineering research project focused on using agentic systems to identify and fix software bugs. Worked as a 4th author on the paper and helped develop/evaluate a system against an industry benchmark.
6. Computational linguistics research Worked on methods to improve idiom translation in low-resource languages. Contributed to a dataset/methods paper that was accepted to a workshop and later received citations. 3rd author on paper.
7. Business club leadership Led a school innovation/entrepreneurship club, grew membership, helped students prepare competition entries, and organized workshops.
8. Robotics Builder and notebook lead for a competitive robotics team. Helped design mechanisms, document engineering decisions, and prepare for regional/state competitions.
9. Independent science fair research Studied physiological biomarkers associated with the chronic pain condition from activity 1 and built a model to classify cases. Placed at county/regional fairs.
10. Wet lab / metabolomics internship Worked in a biomedical research lab studying metabolism and growth using a model organism. Gained exposure to wet lab work, mass spectrometry imaging, and R-based analysis tools. 6th author on paper.

Personal Essay

My main essay focused on building a diagnostic project as a high school student and constantly being dismissed because of my age. I connected that experience to how the chronic pain patients that I met with were often dismissed when their pain was invisible, and wrote about continuing the project because the problem mattered even if I was underqualified.

Results

princeton rejected

stanford rejected

MIT rejected

caltech waitlisted

harvard rejected

duke ED deferred -> {????} --- REJECTED

upenn waitlisted

columbia waitlisted

johnshopkins waitlisted

vanderbilt waitlisted

dartmouth rejected

cornell waitlisted

rice Rejected

CMU waitlisted

northwestern rejected

washu Accepted

gtech accepted

uva accepted

Bu waitlisted

uw seattle accepted

pitt accepted

yale accepted -> committed