Decision: Matched
Match to: Princeton!
Schools Ranked: Yale, Stanford, Princeton, Brown, Columbia
Hope to major in Philosophy or Politics.
[Objective:
[ list]
[ *] SAT I (Comp, Essay, CR, M, CW): none
[ *] ACT (Comp, Essay, Eng, Math, Read, Sci): (32, 12, 35, 26, 34, 32)
[ *] SAT II (Type, Score): U.S. History (740), Biology M (720), Literature (700).
[ *] Weighted GPA (out of ??): approx. 4.75 (school uses weird 6.0 scale)
[ *] Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 4.0
[ *] Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 1/255
[ *] AP (place score in parenthesis): AP Human Geography (5), AP United States History (5), AP Comparative Government and Politics (self-studied) (5), AP Biology (4)
[ *] IB (place score in parenthesis): none
[ *] Senior Year Course Load: AP English Lit, Pre-AP Economics/AP U.S. Government, AP Spanish Lang, AP World History, Pre-AP Anatomy and Physiology, Pre-AP Precalculus
[ *] Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): Yale Young Global Scholar, Politics, Law, and Economics; AP Scholar with Honor; Carnegie Mellon Summer Programs for Diversity and Inclusion Scholarship Recipient; UIL State Bronze Medalist in Informative Speech; National Speech and Debate Association Degree of Superior Distinction; Questbridge College Prep Scholar and National College Match Finalist
Subjective:
[ *] Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): Speech and Debate (speech and debate captain, coach), National Honor Society (vice-president and humanities tutor), Theatre Company (One Act Play actor and student director), Union for Student Collegiate Success (founder of non-profit to expand college readiness materials and peer services to low-income students across my school district), Millennial Progressive (founder and editor-in-chief of a progressive philosophical journal, with focus on contemporary political and social issues).
[ *] Job/Work Experience: Domino’s Pizza (summer of sophomore year, to raise money for debate camp and self-study in AP the following year).
[ *] Volunteer/Community service: 100Words (Texas State Representative; Questbridge peer-led charity organization to raise money for educational poverty - I raised for Palestinian Relief Fund) (40 hrs). Tutor for NHS (20 hours). Misc. tutor and seminar work (25-30 hrs).
[ *] Summer Activities: University of Texas National Institute in Forensics, National Speech and Debate Tournament (advanced to double octa-finals in International Extemp); Yale Young Global Scholars.
[ *] Essays: Questbridge Essay 10/10. This made my English teachers cry. I basically talked about how I grew up in struggle and how I found peace through fantasy - I would make imaginary worlds and countries with warring and political histories and would make them interact. Basically, I wrote how these experiences shaped my world-view and influenced me into thinking intellectualism could be a haven for me.
Second Quest Essay: 9-10/10. I wrote about how my dad instilled a love for philosophy in me as a child and how my unending curiosity would often play out in looking at roads. I talked about the road going to Rice for the College Prep Conference last year and how my dad would talk about the meaning of life, the nature of knowing, aesthetics, etc. I talked about how he brought me back to a time when I was just bumblingly curious, but now had a matured philosophic lens, reading Foucault and Kant and Hegel, and how this node of thinking influenced what I want to do for the rest of my life.
Princeton Essay: 10/10. This was seriously super cool. My college counselor from Yale read it and had his English Professor publish it on her blog. I picked the Maslow quote about problems and solutions, etc. I talked about meaninglessness and how social media increasingly robs us of meaning and how it distracts us from what can be meaningful. I used this to transition into me talking about how I found Questbridge and how, even with a litany of support from online groups, that I felt alone. I then claimed that we must have inner-confidence, which can never be claimed through any social platform, if we are ever to fully claim independence for ourselves. I did some narrative work comparing the pixels on my screen to increasingly redundant ballerina dances, some weird stuff. I really liked it.
[ *] Teacher Recommendations: Rec 1 10/10. This one was from my Biology and Anatomy Teacher. Although STEM isn’t my particular area of focus, she talked about how I always brought a curious and cynical philosophic lens into biology. She helped me find my non-profit and explained how we went into that process and how it helped me mature into a leader. Solid and very specific.
Rec 2 10/10. This was my debate coach and was seriously a moving rec. He opened it with a narrative about him scouting a debate practice on the first day he was at my school and how I invited him along and showed him the ropes - he then constructed some kind of flashback and talked about how my drive for curiosity and leadership with my newbies in debate shaped me into a proud and diligent scholar. It was incredibly poetic and personal.
Rec 3 (extra rec) 8/10. This came from my social studies (APUSH and WHAP) teacher. It was a bit shorter and much more straightforward, but described my evolution as a student of history from meek to outspoken and humorous. She really has got to see my humor over the years and made it shine through.
[ *] Counselor Rec: 8/10. I’m not super close to my counselor, but she let me read her rec with the SSR and it was, for some reason, really good. It was mainly academic, but just talked about how gifted she thought I was and how I had a lot of integrity, etc. I liked it.
Other:
[ list]
[ *] State (if domestic applicant): Texas
[ *] School Type: Medium, public - below state average, pretty bad actually.
[ *] Ethnicity: White
[ *] Gender: Male
[ *] Income Bracket: <$30,000 (EFC is 0)
[ *] Assets: 0
[ *] Property: 0
[ *] Extenuating Circumstances: Was evicted two weeks before application due-date, lack permanent housing and have outstanding medical bills. Used in my essays, too.
[ *] Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): First-gen, poverty, come from underrepresented school district, single-parent household, as aforementioned, evicted in September.
[ /list]
]Why you think you were matched/not matched and general comments:
I just think I really came off as myself in this process. I didn’t try to be gratuitous and told plenty of jokes and really just talked like a person. I also think I really communicated my main interests in philosophy in my ECs, Essays, and life experiences. Overall, this is certainly a matter of luck and often things you have no control over. If you didn’t match, don’t be discouraged. I know it is easier said than done, but everything will seriously be okay. If you’re a Finalist, rest assured that RD will go swimmingly and even at worse you will get some great offers. Go Tigers!