Please give me your raw opinion, I’m extremely nervous.
School Profile:
I go to the #1 private school in Michigan, 30% of students are international. It’s extremely competitive and the school limits AP classes per year to two and rarely allows any freshman to take them due to workload of our standard classes. My school only offers 14 APs none of which are English. My school has no class rank system and offers very few honors classes.
Background:
I’m male. Ethnically I’m mixed Arab and Circassian while nationality-wise I’m a first-generation American. Both of my parents immigrated from Syria and most of my family still lives there. I’m culturally muslim but religiously an atheist. I speak fluent Spanish, semi-fluent Arabic and currently learning Japanese outside of school.
Academics:
Unweighted GPA: 3.85 Weighted GPA: 4.04
ACT: 32 (essay: 11) and 33 (essay: 10).
I took one honors class as a sophomore, two APs as a junior and taking two APs as a senior (Spanish V Honors, AP Spanish, AP US History, AP World History, AP European History). Didn’t submit my SAT II’s because they were bad lol.
Extracurricular / Leadership / Awards
Middle Eastern Cultural Association President (2 years and club founder), Model UN (4 years, 5 conferences, 2 awards), Community Service Gardening Club (4 years, president senior year), Stagecrew Costuming (4 years, 9 productions), JV Rowing (1 season), Principal Chair Oboist for the Detroit Youth Philharmonic, 8 years of private oboe lessons, Private Japanese lessons (2 years), Japanese Club (2 years), Gay-Straight Alliance Club (4 years), 3 weeks studying abroad over the summer in Spain, 2 months studying abroad over the summer in Japan, two writing awards, one Spanish Achievement award.
Essays:
ESSAY 1 (Common App): Wrote about being Syrian, activism and the Syrian conflict
ESSAY 2 (Why your Major?): Wrote about how the Syrian conflict inspired me to pursue international relations in order to prevent conflicts like it from happening ever again.
ESSAY 3 (Open Curriculum and Brown Community): Wrote about going to a small, independent school. Intentions to use Brown’s study abroad program, referencing my past study abroad experiences. Wrote about their freshman seminars.
ESSAY 4 (Community): Being Syrian, being an ethnic minority and being racially ambiguous.
Supplementary Materials:
Graded Paper: I submitted an AP Euro paper from first quarter senior year about the rise and fall of Spain wherein I directly quoted Spanish sources and translated them in the footnotes.
Art Portfolio: Submitted an oboe performance video, performing the first movement of Hindemith’s oboe sonata and an Albinoni concerto.
Video Portfolio: A 1:30 video of me briefly introducing myself and explaining the purpose of me choosing to apply to Brown. Boring but every sentence I switched between speaking English, Spanish, Arabic and Japanese. I subtitled the video as well.
Thank you so much!