<p>I go to this SAT place and there was this one girl that went there. She was well-known because she scored a 2400 on her SAT and a 36 on her ACT. I found her stats online and was wondering why she was waitlisted/rejected at all these schools when she had an amazing application. </p>
<p>French Club President and Vice President
National Honor Society Communications Coordinator
LASER Co-Secretary and Treasurer
Habitat for Humanity Treasurer
Extreme Youth Build Committee member
Orchestra Historian</p>
<p>Extra-curricular Activities:</p>
<p>Scientific research (RNA-drug interaction, bioinformatics)
Science Fair
Welch Summer Scholar Program
French Club
Student Congress (Student Relations Committee)
National Honor Society
KDCP student worker
Orchestra
Honors/Awards</p>
<p>Welch Summer Scholar
National Merit Scholar
National AP Scholar
Coauthored publication in Biochemistry (paper chosen as highlight of issue)
Presented project at Annual American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB)
National Chemistry Olympiad Competition qualifier
2013 Dallas Regional Science Fair: Special Award for The Most Outstanding Exhibit in Materials Science
2012 TJAS State Science Fair, 2nd place, Medicine and Health
2011 Regional Science Fair, 2nd place, Medicine and Health
2010 F</p>
<p>That said, the rest of the app listed in the OP also looks decent, with a published paper and state level awards in areas relevant to her planned major. It’s possible something else in her app was weak, such as essays and LORs. Or the problem could simply be the linked news story in which says she owes the scores to a private prep tutoring company and says, “I think the SAT is about knowing how to take the test vs knowing knowledge”, then goes to give examples about how to take the test. Her admittance could be perceived as a symbol of favoring students who have access to private SAT/ACT tutors and favoring test taking methods over knowledge. Sometimes one mistake can be enough to override a strong application. For example, last year there was a poster on CC with decent stats who was rejected to all 14 colleges he applied to, even safeties. One of his essays talked about how he used to idolize Hitler.</p>
<p>Plano West kids have a hard time getting in to some of these schools anyway, due to there just being so many. When I applied to TAMs, we were told straight up that Plano West kids had an extra hard time getting in. It is supposed to be a great school, but, puts out too many good students, and the colleges limit how many they will take from any given high school.</p>
<p>Plus, she may have had horrible essay or whatever else. Maybe she acted toward the schools like she would turn down their admission. Even the most qualified person will get turned town if the school thinks they will not take the admission.</p>
<p>Maybe she exaggerated her community service? “Founder of Charity Water Campaign: Amy4Africa” is not exactly what it says. Charity:water is an existing service organization that helps people around the world. She simply set up a Facebook page in which donations would go back to the organization. I wouldn’t say she “founded” anything. It takes no time to set up a Facebook page and do a little promotion at school and in one’s community.</p>
<p>She basically says she owes her scores to a test prep company. Are her other accomplishments due to a real passion and interest, or is she very good at playing the game? She seems spread a little thin to me. You can bet that many students who look just like this young woman on paper were accepted- but maybe they had something else going for them that put them over the top.
She did receive some very nice scholarships and was admitted to Columbia. No reason to complain, imo.</p>
<p>The very simple reality is that these colleges get many more qualified applicants than they have space for. I’m talking 2400/36/4.0 GPA qualified candidates. So some are going to be rejected. Doesn’t mean there’s anything “wrong” with them. Chances are they’ll be rejected from one Ivy and accepted to another. That’s exactly what happened to Amy Xia . . . so what’s the problem?</p>
<p>The kid who gets into ALL his/her high reach schools is the exception, not the rule.</p>
<p>It happened to Silverturtle who was a well known SAT advisor on CC. He got into Columbia and Brown and shut out everywhere else. </p>
<p>It matters where she used SCEA. If Harvard did not admit her, no one else will since they expect themselves to be first preference and if not, they don’t expect the student to show up with those stats. </p>
<p>The other thing that would matter is whether she was ever outside of her comfort zone. Are her parents tied into all the research she did some how (work place if not their lab?).</p>
<p>I couldn’t have the specs as half as good as these even if I tried. But that’s the point. To me, it seems like everything she did wasn’t because she loved to do it, but either her parents made her or she felt like it would look good on her app. If she did, then she didn’t show it enough in her other parts of the essay. Again, I’m not one to judge, but that’s the thing with many Asian students and parents these days. (I’m asian and my parents are like that so I would know. And my high school regularly gets transfer students hoping to do all the stuff at our school) Most asians do the clubs that they know looks good without actually considering whether they want to do it or not. They just do it. Like Debate, Mock Trial, Math Team, etc. The ratio of asians to others in these clubs is staggeringly high, like 80 - 90 percent. Other clubs, like 20-30 max. They’re trying to make clones of themselves. And what’s annoying to me is, they are willing to harm others in their way just to make themselves the top dog. And they’re usually not well liked. Lastly, to me, the way that she was like “Treasurer, Treasurer, historian (what the hell is that?), President” shows that she ran for office for every single one, just to show that she had a leadership position. OMG. It’s not that big of a deal if you’re not the President of some club. It won’t make or break your app. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell my parents for the past three years. I won’t run for office in things that I don’t enjoy. But to sum it up, IMHO, she had too many good things and looked too much like a clone? IDK exactly of course. And I know that what I said is probably going to get me like shunned. Feel free to bash me or rip on me. It’s a free country anyways.</p>
<p>You neglected to include the most important component of the application, her course load. Furthermore, the essays also compose a major component of any application.</p>
<p>I would say that she compiled an impressive scorecard in terms of admissions, with plenty of great schools to pick from. By the way, the outcome and the presence versus absence of certain schools falls in a certain level of predictability with the usual suspects for schools that want to establish selectivity via super high test scores über alles. The real top dogs look … beyond perfect scores and spend more time evaluating the FUTURE contributions of students as a … college student. </p>
<p>Guess how many of the listed activities did the applicant pursue after April or May of her senior HS year. The schools are slowly … learning. Not to mention recognizing the clients of outfits that have been caught by the SAT police for organized cheating on tests. Plano is not different from Great Neck or Newton.</p>