Hey everyone! I’m a Junior right now and I’m trying to build a strong portfolio for extremely selective colleges in the admissions process, particularly for Princeton, Harvard, Columbia & Brown. I’m relatively new to the country and the college system, so I’d love every bit of feedback I could get from you guys!
These are my stats, please feel free to share any advice!
Background: I am an Asian male (yikes!) who goes to an extremely competitive public school in the Silicon Valley, CA (my school is 90% asian and its average SAT score is 1500. double yikes!). I was born in Princeton NJ, but moved to my native India when I was 6 years old. I lived in India for most of my life, and I only moved last year to CA at the beginning of 10th grade. I am of a relatively wealthy background like most of my peers here, my father having gone to a prestigious engineering university in India and then later doing business at Wharton.
Intended Major: Literature/Creative Writing/Cultural Studies/Foreign Language (this is a stark contrast to the extreme science-mathy tilt at my Silicon Valley school here haha)
GPA: 4.0 unweighted. My school does not weight, but my weighted gpa would be 4.67 or sth
-SAT: Taking it tomorrow, wish me luck! I usually get 1570ish in practice tests.
APs: Took AP Calc AB and AP Spanish as a sophomore (scored 5 in both); am currently taking AP Language and Composition, AP Bio, AP US history, and AP statistics as a junior; will take AP Chinese, AP govt, AP Chem and AP lit as a senior
Awards/Accomplishments: Scholastic Art and Writing Awards: National Gold Medal winner, won national Best-In-Grade Scholarship (only 24 out of the 320,000+ pieces submitted were awarded this honor), later a recipient of the Herb Alpert Award for recognition as an outstanding artist in the field of Creative writing, Bluefire Short Story Contest international grade-level winner, etc. Won a special recognition award by faculty of my school for linguistic achievement as well.
Extracurriculars -
1.Writing: won several national awards, short stories published in 8+ established literary journals and displayed in galleries in New York. Was invited to Carnegie Hall for outstanding literary achievement. Am a California Scholar in the Arts for Creative Writing, and received a Governor's Medallion for this; I have accrued thousands of dollars of scholarship prizes for my writing as well. I am working on a novel manuscript and will hopefully have it sent out to publication houses this year!
Language learning: I can speak Spanish, English, Hindi, Sanskrit and Mandarin Chinese with complete certified fluency, can speak Swahili, Arabic and Russian with partial fluency; self-taught in most of these. I regularly read literature in these other languages and publish criticism of these works. This also connects to my love for travel (40+ countries), where I get inspired for my writing through my interactions w/native cultures.
Some other relatively minor activities: Theatre, was on the main cast of the first ever production of The Lion, The Witch, The Wardrobe in India, commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company, audience of thousands and widespread press coverage. On another occasion, was appointed as the director and publicity manager of the annual production, and was awarded as the theatre Student of the Year in the city. On another note, I've been learning the piano for 13 years but I'm really shy about it and am nowhere near as good as some of my friends LOL
Special Projects: I am the founder and president of a program that helps regularly organize conferences between celebrated authors and talented student writers, and have managed to do this with international bestsellers, Pulitzer prize winners, etc. The participants of this program write about their experiences, which are regularly updated onto a blog which I run and self-translate into 4 different languages.
Clubs: Literary Magazine (Editor-In-Chief), Newspaper(editor), Chinese Honor Society, Spanish Honor Society [note that i couldn't get a very strong club thing going since I moved in the middle of high school,,, will this disadvantage me?]
Work: I freelance write and earn lots of money, all of which I use for a fund I created to promote literacy in my native India and promote access to books
Summer: Did a prestigious writing course, got recognized as the top writer from the batch of ~80 people selected and was given a generous scholarship
Essays: 11/10 if you can't tell already writing is my thing lmao, excited about getting some awesome essays out.
-Rec Letters: English Teacher loves me cuz she gets recognition for my awards and gets chunks of scholarship money too, I might also get a rec letter from a famous professional author whom I have worked closely with; Bio teacher is also very helpful as a separate eval but not as standout as the other two.
Some concerns I have:
-I took Calc AB when most of the other competitive students in my grade take BC. The reason? I’m a huge humanities tilt, so I didn’t want to waste time on Math. Would this affect me?
-I wont get ENC position in my newspaper, and I wont get high leader positions in some clubs simply because I came late to this school and there is a required number of years to get a particular position in a club. Many of my competitors will be club presidents. I’m relying on my national achievements and my litmag ENC position to distinguish myself aghhagh
-Is it okay that i have such a laser focus on literature and culture? Kind of worried since everyone seems to be going for the well-rounded thing here,
Thanks so much for reading through my app! I look forward to hearing what you think
Unique interests that make you stand out from the stereotypical Asian STEM major could catch the eye of an adcom. All of your schools are sub-10% percent acceptance rates, but your application will be looked at.
You will need some match/safety schools of course. I might consider Georgetown or Tufts as low reach schools. If you love foreign languages and don’t mind an LAC, Middlebury comes to mind.
I already take AP stats as I mentioned in my post, but I’m definitely not considering a Political Science/Public Policy major since my interests and achievements in literature and foreign language are way stronger. Thanks for the suggestions!
You’ve been here a year, the India play may not count much. Are you involved in theater here? Speakig multi languages is no tip. You can’t estimate your own w gpa, all schools that weight use different formulas. (Besides that, top adcoms look at the transcript, see actual rigor and grades.) Same for honor societies. No, you don’t use a “famous professional author” for an LoR covering your performance in class.
The rest is good but not complete. Service in India can’t trump resonsibilities and some impact in your local community. (You’d want work with the needy, not another lit effort.) The conference may or may not weigh. Here one year and you got famous folks involved? With what help?
You really need to be looking at your targets (what they say and show, not bloggy info or forums) and what they ask for, what they want to see in you. It’s more than stats and awards. More than the glossy parts.
I think you have a shot at any of these schools on your list but as noted up thread, have match and safeties since acceptance rates are so.
Don’t worry about having a more “pointy” application. It is what it is and will make you stand out in a different way.
I don’t think Calc AB will have any impact on your application and schools will see that you moved during high school. Your GC can even mention that some EC leadership positions were unavailable to you as a result.
You didn’t make it clear the author wouldbe a supp. And as with other LoRs, being famous is no pull.
Perhaps, by conference, you didn’t mean the sort we refer to: a group meeting to discuss various relevant topics.
Lots of kids learn multi languages. especially kids from India.
You don’t want to make the mistake of over-rating your own accomplishments and ambition. To be blunt, sorry, it can reflect not being informed enough of what matters to Ivies. And perhaps other issues.
They are not looking for confidence. Nor passion, per se. tHe whole para about service is so off. Show that attitude to a tippy top college and forget it. That’s why I recommend you dig into what the colleges say. Never let confidence and assumptions guide your app/supp decisions, whn you can do easy research.
Helping the local needy is NOT a waste of time. It actually reflects character and vision in ways more writing awards or supporting a distant land cannot. Much to learn, miles to go. Try learning more. It will help.
@lookingforward Something about my post has come across negatively to you, and I apologize for that. Maybe being famous is no pull, but it’s certainly better than having a suppLoR from someone like a third schoolteacher or a coach, which is something I’m very happy about.
As for building character, I’ve lived poor for years myself in India when my father was so ridden with cancer that he couldn’t work anymore. I had to work as a literal servant in seven different households until he got better because all his savings were going toward his own medication. I never had a mother. I am not a product of college research and planning like all my peers in the US are, because I have never been able to afford that luxury. Even after my father’s recovery two years ago, I think that this struggle is an important part of my life and I find it a little rude of you to call the setting of it a “distant land.”
Also I had never met anyone in India who could speak more than four languages, and I lived there for a decade. If anyone came close, they only knew Indian languages. I know Russian, Swahili, Chinese, Spanish, for starters, and I’m actually doing things with my passion for languages rather than just knowing them.
I’m sorry if I seem overconfident to you, because I’m really quite the opposite. I am a fish out of water here, as I am everywhere. But if anything, I’ve learned to just do things that interest me rather than things people think that a college would like to see. I am not going to help out in a soup kitchen or the “needy” because it doesn’t ring true, especially after all the years I was in a worse position myself. I would much rather spend this opportune time I have writing, because it’s something that makes me much more happy. Wouldn’t you agree?
Read the colleges web sites. There’s good in your record but some misunderstandings are evident.
“I’ve learned to just do things that interest me rather than things people think that a college would like to see.”
That can backfire. It’s another way I suspect you’re missing understanding. Tippy top colleges are looking for depth and breadth…and compassion, among other things. Not everything in life- or tippy top admission- needs to ring true to you.
@lookingforward Thank you so much for the help! Will definitely take your suggestion and read more into the college websites, though I have done so to a large extent already.
I do believe that I have achieved great depth in my writing pursuits, but I fear for the breadth in my activities. I have only two or three real activities, even though I’ve accomplished much within each. I think rather than trying to layer on more things, I would rather just stick with what I’m doing and accomplish greater things within them. Does that sound right to you?
I hope my credential aren’t gloss. To the contrary, I would say they are a raw and unadulterated representation of myself, as opposed to the manicured profiles that many other applicants would present; they often talk about how amazing helping the poor is to them or how xyz club is great when in fact they have very little understanding of the same. I’m just trying to present a simple story here of myself - a kid who writes and is culturally stimulated through art and travel; who has had very unique life experiences due to living in over 6 different cities/villages, and shaped through family struggles.
Again, thanks for taking out the time for the advice, I really appreciate it!
I looked at that link and my kid didn’t have a 4.0 unweighted (more like 3.67) and had pretty generic ECs and is in a Top-20 school.
OP, you are a very compelling candidate. Most kids from your high school (which can’t be mentioned since es ist verboten) are going to be the stereotypical Asian STEM students. Write some solid essays and you will get into a good school.
For extracurriculars quality trumps quantity. Concentrate on the ones you’re most dedicated to and be your own self.
Being a National Gold medal winner from Scholastic is incredibly impressive, particularly when accompanied by so many other creative writing awards. Your grades and challenge level are terrific. Sounds like you are likely to deliver a very competitive SAT score.
So I think you stand a strong chance. That being said, the four schools you mentioned are all extremely competitive, and turn away many stellar candidates every single year; therefore, you should also apply to some more moderately selective and less selective schools as well. Happily, there are many other schools that are excellent for creative writing which have less competitive admissions than Princeton, Harvard, Columbia, and Brown and which would be equally amazing places to spend four years. For example, Emory and NYU are both quite competitive, but they do accept more than a single digit percentage of applicants and they are both considered absolutely top notch for creative writing! Sarah Lawrence and Emerson might be possibilities for safeties. (I’m assuming from your choice of Ivies that you prefer relatively urban settings.) There are many great options out there for creative writing students. If you are still connected with faculty from your summer writing program, you might want to pick their brains for suggestions.
“I might also get a rec letter from a famous professional author whom I have worked closely with” - make sure this person has substantive things to say about you. The Brown admissions rep told the kids at our school when she visited to NOT have “big names” write letters on their behalf. It doesn’t help unless this person knows you very, very well and can attest to your skills, work ethic and talents. Best of luck to you!