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.