Indian Kid from the South bags HYPSM
***I'm gonna get doxxed, but yolo (dm me if you need help or want more info on my application)
Demographics
Gender: Male
Race/Ethnicity: Asian (Indian)
Residence: Southern U.S.
Income Bracket: $100-150k
Type of School: Semi-large, public school (~2000 kids)
Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): N/A
Intended Major(s): Computer Science
Academics
GPA (UW/W): 4.0/4.0 (UW), High Weighted GPA
Rank (or percentile): 1/~600
of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 1 Regular, 22 APs, 3 Dual Enrollment Classes (Lin Alg, Diff EQ, Multivariable Calc.), Rest of my classes were Honors/Pre-AP
Senior Year Course Load: AP Art History, AP European History, AP Gov/Econ, AP Physics C, AP Environmental Science, AP English Literature
Standardized Testing
SAT: 1550 (750RW, 800M)
AP/IB: 5s and 4s
Other (ex. IELTS, TOEFL, etc.): N/A
Extracurriculars/Activities
1 Independent Research
2 State Officer for CTSO
3 STEM Non-Profit
4 Intern @ Startup
5 Researcher @ T10
6 Researcher @ T20
7 World Science Scholar
8 AI Club President @ School
9 CS Club President @ School
10 Freelance Tutor
Awards/Honors
1 Special Award @ ISEF, 2x ISEF Finalist
2 Oral Presentation Winner @ National Junior Science and Humanities Symposium
3 2x American Junior Academy of Science Fellow
4 1st Author of 3 Research Publications
5 2nd Place @ DECA ICDC
Letters of Recommendation
CS Teacher: 10/10, knew him really well, helped him out a bunch w/ classwork/other activities
English Teacher: 6/10, was a good student in her class? not sure if I was the best student, but definitely liked her class a lot (and did fairly well overall)
External Rec #1 (Professor): 10/10, worked in his research lab, 1st author of paper
External Rec #2 (Mentor): 10/10, worked at his startup, built some really cool software
Interviews
MIT (EA) - 5/10, super nervous for this interview (was my first one), ~45 mins and not sure if I connected well with my interviewer
Harvard - 7/10, pretty good, run-of-the-mill interview; ~1hr
Duke - 10/10, 2hr interview
Yale - 7/10, got a really late interview request (~2 weeks before decision came out), she grilled me on Shakespeare for almost the entire time lol
Princeton - 10/10, connected well w/ interviewer
Georgia Tech Stamps Scholarship Semifinalist Interview - 8/10, got finalist status (didn't attend weekend)
UT Austin CSB - 10/10, 1hr 30 min convo w/ interviewer
UPenn M&T - 6/10, average interview
Essays
Common App Essay: Finished common app before school yr started. I thought it was a solid 8/10.
Supplementals: Started these around a week before they were due for all of my schools (I got deferred from MIT lol). Was super stressed and definitely crunched for time. For the ivies I applied to, I thought they were fairly good (7/10). For schools I didn't really care all too much (and thus spent very little time on) about they were around a 4/10. In particular, I spent an extraordinary amount of time (relatively) on my supplementals for Harvard, MIT, and UPenn.
Decisions
Acceptances:
UTD (w/ full ride + stipend)
Texas A&M ($3k/yr lol)
Georgia Tech (EA w/ Stamps Finalist, did not attend weekend)
UT Austin (EA w/ Turing Scholars, Computer Science + Business Honors)
UCLA
Rice (w/ Full Ride + 20k Research Stipend)
Cornell (w/ Hunter R. Rawlings III Cornell Presidential Research Scholar)
Duke
Yale
Stanford (Update: Committed!)
Waitlists:
Carnegie Mellon
UPenn
Princeton
Columbia
Harvard
Rejections:
MIT (EA deferred --> rejected, dream school)
Caltech
UC Berkeley
Additional Info:
Put a few extra science/research awards + Coca-Cola Scholar. Talked about special family circumstances.
Reflection/Advice:
- The college admissions process can be unpredictable but it isn't random: Your essays, personality, and extracurriculars are extremely important. There are tons of people on this subreddit with extraordinary qualifications that definitely are capable of performing well at a T10 school, but many don't gain admission. My best advice to anyone is focus less on maximizing your awards/ECs and focus more on enjoying what you do. Throughout high school, I've found great enjoyment and fun in all the activities I participate in. Your essays should reflect that you are a genuine person who has a personality outside academics—what do you do for fun?, are you kind to other people around you?, are you curious?, etc.
- Don't place so much emphasis on landing a top school: Trust me, there's (most probably) going to be a point where you're getting rejection/waitlist after rejection/waitlist. I was in the same position, but what I came to realize amidst these rejections was that I would've been happy at my state school as well. Your activities shape you as a person—if you're genuinely passionate about them, it doesn't matter whether or not you get into a college because of them, you still gained valuable skills/learned something.
- You're probably not going to get into your dream school: My dream school was MIT. My second dream school was Harvard. My third choice was Stanford. I didn't get into my first two choices, and some of the smartest people I know who have far better credentials than I could ever attain (ISEF 1st place winner, Olympiad Qualifiers, RSI, etc.) didn't get into their dream schools. That's completely fine! Like I said before, college admissions is unpredictable, but not random. Before shotgunning or applying to a bunch of schools, remember that there's a high chance you may not get into the school you want to.
I'm going to end this section off with a translated quote from one of my favorite movies of all time (3 Idiots): Don't pursue success; pursue excellence, and success will follow. I think this perfectly encapsulates my experience with college admissions. I've found that the common theme between several HYPSM admits I know is that they didn't care about college admissions until their senior year; instead, they focused on being excellent at what they enjoyed doing. If you do the same, there's a higher chance (although not guaranteed), that you will land one of your top choices.
If you want help in the admissions process, finding research, or tutoring, feel free to private message me, I'd love to help :)