Background: South Asian male w/ immigrant parents, Pell-eligible/Reduced lunch (is low-income canceled out by being asian lol), ruralish suburb of major city, next to no other asians in my community
School: public high school with almost no history of getting students into T20s, but I take my core classes at a selective magnet program for high achieving/gifted students in the region, accelerated core curriculum with interdisciplinary education especially between English and History, many field experiences for each class (my magnet something I want to emphasize in additional information because it shows that I’ve been able to thrive in a core curriculum environment)
Stats: 4.59 W, 3.96 UW (i got one B junior year rip), rank 8/289, 33 ACT, Subject tests: only taken one (should I take more?), Biology-E 770
Course load: 17 AP Courses total, my core classes have only ever been honors or AP, all A’s except one B in APUSH, maxed out all the APs offered at my school so I’m taking one online, taken 8 exams so far
AP Enviro (5), AP Psych (5), AP US Government (5), AP US History (5), AP Biology (4), AP European (3), AP English Lang (3), AP Calculus BC (3), DE Chemistry
Senior year: AP Human Geo, AP Physics, AP Literature, AP Statistics, AP Computer Science, AP Economics, AP German, AP World History
ECs (i think are my strongest suit):
- Founder/Director of community Non-Profit to engage youth to get involved in politics and activism (11, 12), partner with progressive campaigns in the area, connect students to campaign internships and fellowships, organized youth-led candidate forums and other similar events, regular youth-led meetings with reps, recognized by many politicians across the state
- National Youth Organizer of a prominent progressive advocacy organization (11, 12), led nationwide campaigns around gun violence prevention, climate justice, etc. worked on independent community engagement project
- State Chair of High School Democrats, elected position (11, 12), writer for publication
- Field Staffer on state legislature campaign (11,12), one of the youngest campaign staffers in the entire state
- Intern on congressional campaign (10, 11), won and flipped a seat that had a 50-year single-party hold, coordinated volunteers from my city and led youth engagement projects
- Internship in DC with prominent gun violence prevention, policy, and legal organization (summer before 12th), led my own project in voter engagement, successfully lobbied for the passage of bills in Congress, worked in policy research
- Founder/President of MUN (9, 10, 11, 12), compete at JHU, created a financial aid and fundraising program to help students pay for competition costs and tripled MUN participation in a single year, Head Delegate this year
- Class Board VP (9, 10, 11, 12), just a school based thing with the regular event/meeting planning and volunteering
- Coach at local middle school debate team (9, 10, 11, 12), my team has won many recognitions at regional tournaments, highest was 2nd place
- German Club (9,10, 11, 12) this is more of a quirky thing but we’re national champions in gingerbread house making :)), we perform at cultural events and volunteer and stuff
- (Not included, but should i?) Dancer (9,10) competitively danced in a South Asian style of dance but quit because of how far practices were (since there aren’t like any south asians where i live), i didn’t really win anything but i loved it and it really helped me connect w/ my culture
- various honor societies in subjects and languages (regular NHS, german, social studies, math) but no leadership
Other cool things and recognitions (some i’m still trying to find a way to include somewhere on my app, maybe in essays?): - co-organized and spoke at one of the most prominent youth led protests of the past year in Washington DC - was selected to represent youth on my US Senator’s community roundtable on gun violence after an instance of gun violence in our state
- full scholarship to summer program with very prominent national legal advocacy organization
- featured on BBC World for my work in activism
- youth rep at state Dem party’s annual Gala
Essays/LORs:
essays: i think my supplements are good and they talk about something about columbia that i know for a fact no one else is going to talk about because it is very personal. can’t explain without giving too much away but trust me it is lol.
my personal essay is well… a work in progress
LORs: Counselor told me that she’s never met someone with my character in her entire career, teacher 1 is German teacher that loves me (got into a summer language program that is prestigious in my state that she wanted me to apply to, but i didnt end up going, one of the best students shes had), teacher 2 is Gov teacher and he’s letting me help him with the rec