Hey College Confidential! Could you chance me please?
My stats:
Deferred Cornell IARD CALS back in December, waiting for RD.
SAT: 1970 (CR: 690, Math: 600, Writing: 680)
SAT II: Did not send
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.81 (But has increased from a 3.54 to a 3.75 to a 4.1 in HS, staying at the 4.1 level for the past two school years)
Senior Year Course Load: IB Diploma
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel, etc.): n/a
Common Awards (AP Scholar, honor roll, NM things, etc.): History award, involved citizen’s award (basically great ECs), World Studies award, on the silver or gold honor roll (been on gold for the past 4 semesters)
[ b]Subjective:[ /b]
Extracurriculars:
4 years Model United Nations: SG (Or “President” of the Club) Ran my own conference twice, chaired over thousands of people, appointed to two executive positions by THIMUN, NGO accredited by the UN, write for Best Delegate after applying for a position.
4 years Tri-M Music Honor Society: Secretary for 3 years in a row, raised USD $1500 for charity
4 years experimental gardening: Researched and grew rice and varieties of papaya and jackfruit.
3 years Service Club: President of the Club for one year, now special advisor. Coordinated USD $1600 in fund-raising for oprhans and disable in Kuala Lumpur, multiple foresting and orphanage service trips,
3 years National Honor Society: Vice-President, raied USD $1,000 for charitable purposes, ran events on anti-discrimination pertaining to Sea of Pink (Assembly, Presentation)
3 years HS Newspaper: Journalist. Reported on Malaysian cultural intricacies, language of persuasion in Malaysian newspapers, multiple school events such as Student Council Election
2 years Betta Splendens Breeder: Bred over 50 Betta Splendens, directly involved with fish care, breeding, cultivated microworms and Artemia Salina, kept experimental cross spawn logs.
2 years chicken breeding: Raising a flock of KH-B1 Hybrid Kampung chickens, planned aspects of chicken diet, shelter, and welfare, planned potential future selective breeding
[ b]Writing (Subject, 1-10 rating, details):[ /b]
Essays: Common App was pretty good, or so I was told. 9/10 for the prompt on “backgrounds,” wrote about my struggle to write in the first grade - effective use of imagery and conveyed my Malaysian background, upbringing and vision well.
Recommendations: FERPA Waived (To give more credibility to recs)
Rec #1: Geography teacher that has known me for 5 years, also my MUN director so well informed of my leadership/characteristics - counselor told me one of the best letters she’s seen
Rec #2: History teacher known me for 2 years, IB supervisor for multiple projects, so well acquainted, counselor also highly praised his letter
Interview: CAAN Contact meeting in November, went very very well that my interviewer and I kept in contact thereafter, saw each other again coincidentally a few weeks ago - can tell we built a good connection
School Type: Homeschool
Ethnicity: Asian
Gender: M
Income Bracket Range: Upper-Middle Class
Hooks: None - maybe my Malaysian citizenship and international school upbringing
Planned tests: IB HL History, Geography, and Biology. IB SL Mathematics (not studies), Malay ab initio, and English Lang Lit
Reflection
Strengths: ECs and letters - tried to inject the subjective into my app, increase in GPA shows hard work/determination, also my overall course load.
Weaknesses: SAT. SAT. SAT. My extra-curriculars and the other diploma requirements of IB prevented me from really pushing those SATs up and moving any subjects I took up to acceptable ranges.
Why you think you were accepted/deferred/rejected: SAT.
What would you have done differently?: SAT and the letters I wrote, even though I’m proud of them. There are some stuff you go “YES!, I should’ve wrote that into that tiny bit of space I had left.”
Where else did you apply?
UVA, GWU, American, Boston, UCs (Berkeley, LA, Davis, San Diego, Irvine), Claremont McKenna, Brown, UPenn, and Clark.
Rejected: None yet
Accepted: UC San Diego and Davis, Clark.
The best thing to hear from any of you (in honest terms of course), is “You have as good of a shot as anyone else.”
Thank you very much!!
