Hey! I put p much of everything here, so feel free to scan/not read some sections lol. Dream school is Harvard, but I would be very pleased with Georgetown. Let me know where I can improve in the little time we have left!
Demographics
- Gender: Male
- Race/Ethnicity: White
- Residence: Texas
- Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): None
Intended Major(s): Political Science, Global Affairs, International Relations, IPOL @ Gtown (just depends on school lol but u get the point)
Academics
- GPA/Rank (or percentile): 5/413
- Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 13
- Senior Year Course Load: AP Gov, Macro, Environmental Science, Stat, Euro, and Lit + Debate, regular tech class, and TA-ing AP Lang
Standardized Testing
List the highest scores earned and all scores that were reported.
- SAT/ACT: 1540
- AP/IB: 5s on Human Geo, Art Hist, World Hist, US Hist, Lang, Psych, Bio, and Calc BC - AB subscore and 4s on Calc BC and Spanish Lang
Extracurriculars/Activities:
- President, Speech and Debate Team; Instructor at Debate NPO. just normal debate work and taught at this NPO raising 160k+.
- Indep Study and Research. Invited by profs I reached out to to actual classes at (t20 school) and (t5 school) to study nuclear politics. Open-sourced published a paper on nukes that has done p well. Have another paper in peer-review process at a journal now (guaranteed publication in january, worked closely with editor in chief of journal)
- Journalism. published pieces covering domestic politics (25 op-eds, 20.7k words) & analyzing int. security issues (6 papers, 7.5k words); 300k+ site views/month
- Author. I wrote and self-published a novella addressing teen mental health. Donated funds raised to Youth Mental Health Project.
- Campaign Work (gubernatorial and senate candidates). created canvassing routes for 1/2+ million voters; implemented policy to reduce prescription drug cost; provide candidate w/ daily news briefs
- Internship at International NGO (5% hiring rate). wrote 11 pieces on public health/poverty; pillar article on intersection of public health and nukes; lobbied reps to pass int. poverty reduction policy
- Selective Summer Program. Major focused, had a lot of success in the program and one of the rec letters is from the director.
- Activism. Director of Curriculum @ org focused on improving civic education. generated curriculum for 40 lessons to promote civic engagement; partnered with iCivics to distribute to 400+ teachers; lobbied for civics ed. Laws
- Community Service Project. conducted social media/email campaign to raise $4.5k; constructed 1.3k meals; led team of 30+; featured on local news/media
- Sports (varsity lacrosse). First team all-state; 4-year starter; x2 Team Defensive MVP; leads “Try-It” days for prospective players; paid job as a coach
Awards/Honors:
- Top 8 at the Top International Debate Competition; Top 51 at Nats
- National Speech and Debate Association Academic All American and Premier Distinction (top ~.37% of HS debaters)
- Award of Excellence (top 10% of submissions) – JFK Profiles in Courage Essay Contest
- NSLI-Y Scholarship Finalist (10-15% acceptance rate, paid trip to Taiwan for 8 week language immersion on behalf of the State Department – wasn’t able to attend so not in ECs).
- National Merit Semi-Finalist; AP Scholar with Distinction
LORs:
Counselor LOR – we have 2 that write letters for 400+ kids so while they know and like me really well I can’t imagine it will be exceptional. They wrote mine before school started, though, so maybe I’ll get lucky and it will be really solid
Teacher #1 LOR – English and Lang teacher and now TA-ing his Lang class (so three years). As good as a normal teacher rec can get imo. Gave me his student award twice (never done that before), wrote my a letter thanking me for community activism, and is known for good recs
Teacher #2 LOR – AP Bio teacher. Also got their student award. Will be a more traditional but good rec – i.e. hardworking student, curious in class, etc. Also reached out thanking me for community activism and we’ve talked a lot about how science (specifically bio) and policy overlap.
External LOR #1 – prof at t20 that took me into class. Huge mentor in the field i am interested in – got me into t5 class, opps w college kids, etc. they p much told me what the letter says and its p good (says I’m an initiative taker, very curious, articulate, and have future in my field)
External LOR #2 – Georgetown and Yale Prominent Alum that was director of EC #7. Should be really solid and relate to my more general aptitude for politics, and also work at a prestigious private school so I can write good recs.
Essays:
TL;DR: I’ve worked/am working as hard as I can on these. I’ve been told I am a good writer and have tried to be vulnerable, funny, creative, etc. in the essays. Idk how to rank them, but essays will probably be the strongest part of my app.
Common App – i’m my fathers namesake and he’s a narcissist, serial cheater, and overall p bad dude (parents divorced) – but he wasn’t always like that . So the essay is all about watching my idol turn into the thing I never want to be, the lessons i’ve learned from his shortcomings, and this push/pull between wanting to love your parent and also like hating them most of the time. I think its p well done.
Community – there’s two versions of this. One is about this blog I started in the wake of a peers suicide, all about pursuing relentless vulnerability. Another is about leading a student/teacher coalition to keep the school mask mandate. when the mask mandate was no longer required in Texas.
Academic Interest/Global Problem – this is about nuclear weapons lol but not super technical. It’s good I think, I don’t really know.
These are just kind of the stock ones, but some of my favs are the one-offs like UVA’s what piece of lit, music, etc. and Stanford’s what is meaningful and why…can expand on any others if needed
Schools:
- Harvard (REA)
- UVA (Early)
- Columbia
- Dartmouth
- Duke
- Yale
- NYU
- Northeastern
- Northwestern
- Princeton
- Stanford
- GWU
- UPenn
- UVA
- Vandy
- WashU
- Georgetown
- UC Berkeley and LA