Chance me at UChicago ED1; Running a real company for 3 years (gap 1 year)

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
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Bio:
-Citizenship: China
-Race: Asian/Chinese
-Gender: Male

School:
-Type: Famous public school at China, one of the best three in my province (like US’s State)
-Graduates (How many go to Ivy’s/top 20): It sent many to Cornell (3),UCB(4), CMU, WUSTL and many other universities
-AP’s Offered: offered only Calculus, and I took it

Academic Profile:
-Unweighted GPA: 3.94, all A’s
-SAT: 1470 (710 CRW 760 M)
-SAT II: only USH (780)
-Rank: TOP 10%- TOP5%
-Course Rigor: Chinese high school offers exactly the same courses to all, and it’s certainly very hard, especially in STEM.

EC:
-CTO and Founder of a local Car Company, offering after-service and selling cars; founded in summer of 2015, raised funds as 35 million Yuan (approximately 5.5 Million US dollar); in 2016 fiscal year, turnover reached 20 million Yuan (3 Million Dollar); hiring 400 employees (including outsourcing staffs and business partners); owns 1 basement (2000 square meters)
In order to run this company, I have self-studied since fall of 2015(grade 11) under the full support of school, and taken every school tests as required; my counselor and teachers will explain the specific situation in recommendations, and I have successfully graduated at July of 2017 as one of six best students.

-President and Founder of a Teenager Career Development Organization, founded at January of 2017; started to help the teenager workers (mostly around 16-18) to train work skills and receive further education. Then I built connections with local vocational school, sending our workers to receive educations and experts to have lectures, and having more than 600 students attending our career-development courses and programs, offering 100 internships and 30 work positions. Take a gap year to further develop this organization.

-Speaker and producer of free online courses; teaching history and philosophy, having 6000 students and followers. Do it mostly after work and study.

-Published a religious philosophy paper at journal and website of Chinese Bureau of Religious Affair, working with many experts

Recommendations:
-Counselors, teachers: all super-supportive; all engaged with my organization and online courses. All are very familiar with my activities, and got their special stories with me.
-My investor and partner: My former boss of part-time job at 10 grade; now partner and chairman of company, investing more than 25 million Yuan; supported my at all businesses. He is a very experienced entrepreneur and car experts, and will tell a full story about our company.
-My tutor: Former UPenn Dean of Admissions, knowing me very well, introduced some business partners for me.

Essays:
-Main essay: about my organization, telling a story about how I helped many teenager worker with my organization.
-UChicago Supplement: about my major failure at beginning stage of company, and how I innovated our system and services to be one of the best car company in my city.
-Additional: Telling the story about how I started to do part-time job to help my uremia cousin, came to decide running a company, and persuaded the school to self-study.
There are so many to tell about myself, and I will get the essays 8 of 10.

I applied UChicago last year at RD round, and got wait-listed. In the appealing letter I said I will do a gap year and applied ED, and describe some of my organization. I think they will be happy to see me fulfilling my promises and giving something brand new (my organization) this year.

Please chance me, I know UChicago has been very nice to Chinese students, and I was very regretful of not applying ED2 last year. But even I got in I will gap year anyway. So how do you guys think of my application? I worry about my SAT1 score, but my tutor told me it’s fine in consideration of my story (last year was worse), and I just focused on the USH test.

BTW, if I’m not in, I will apply NYU-Abu Dhabi as ED2.

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Seems like too lengthy for most people. Appreciate everyone who is willing to take a look, thanks.

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wow…that’s very impressive.

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@rosaliefontaine Thank you for your kind words

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You have a very impressive story, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why you would want to go to the University of Chicago most of all. It’s the most consistently theoretical undergraduate program of which I am aware. It’s trying to offer a little more to entrepreneurial students, but it’s mainly focused on providing a broad, foundational education centered on mainstream Western culture and philosophy- and mathematics-oriented theory. No one is likely to give you a break for helping to run a business on the side. It may very well want you for the sake of diversity in its student body, but I’m not at all sure you should want it.

A couple of other comments:

Your English is good but not quite up to elite university standards. Have you taken the TOEFL? This is an area you really need to work on, wherever you go.

Some of your story doesn’t quite make sense. 400 employees to generate sales of $3 million? That’s not sustainable at all. Either they are not working very much, or you are investing a lot in growth, or you are not really telling the truth about what is happening. Anyway, what you describe looks very precarious to me – less like a successful company and more like a tenuous situation that might succeed but might also fail. It feels like there’s a lot of puffery (bragging, overstatement) in your description of your company and your training institute.

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@JHS Answer your questions at first: you need to know I’m in a very under-developed city of China, not big city of US. People, especially lower-level worker, are most paid less than 6000 US Dollar a year, and it’s enough to feed themselves because of the price of commodities in some China cities.

Mostly we have 100-200 outsource staff who are work on other companies, like a repair shop, but we partner with them and pay them, they’re my employees, and in our big system. And, yes, we’re investing a lot in growth, it’s only the third year, we’re at progress.

And speak of TOEFL, I got 111 so it’s mostly fine. Thank you for the concern, that’s warm.

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@JHS And speak of UChicago, thank you for your concerns and time at first, I appreciate it. That’s what exactly what I though last year, and that’s the reason I was not applying as UChicago ED. But I did some research about UChicago this year, and have noticed many of its entrepreneurship/business programs, especially some working with booth. And they are all very, very good. And its international centers, like Beijing, Hongkong and London, I have come to know some staffs in there and what they offer and trying to achieve is fabulous, I want to be part of it.

BTW, I will not work on my company after I’m in US, there is a careful plan, which my investor will elaborate in his recommendations. What you might not know is how a Chinese company with innovative business ideas and systems wants high-level attention. There are tons of opportunities in China. I might take my business plan and idea, along with a well-running example company, and use Beijing Center and Booth of UChicago to further develop my career.

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You should apply to UChicago and any other school that catches your eye. You seem very accomplished and any university would be lucky to have you. Good luck with the applications this semester.

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Given you probably already applied ED1 to UChicago, it doesn’t matter at this point. Having said that, for other applications you may be working on, I would take @JHS feedback/comments seriously. If there is one way to not get into any top schools in the US is having anything close to “It feels like there’s a lot of puffery (bragging, overstatement) in your description of your company and your training institute.”. A couple of things that may work against your application at the highly competitive colleges in the US (e.g. UChicago)…(1) your SAT score is on the low side; (2) how would someone with your level of success in an on-going startup can benefit from our/X school. Good luck!

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@uocparent Thank you for you kind words, appreciated. Wish you a good day.

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@fivesages I know people knowing me not so well will take my story as little unreal, and that’s the issue I have faced multiple times in my life. But I have my investor, teachers and counselor who know me a long time and get deeply involved with my academics and business, and their recommendations will be more than enough to persuade admission officers.

And Thank you for your advices! I will only apply to the schools in RD round which have very strong entrepreneurial, business and global resources; I’m sure I can benefit a lot from their educations. Appreciate it.