To the kind stranger on the other side of this screen, it would mean the world if you could chance me for Northwestern University ED.
Basic Information:
Female
Grade 11 IB
Chinese- Canadian (Canadian Citizen)
Ontario
Courses 11/12:
HL English Lit
HL Economics
HL Chemistry
SL Physics (HL is not offered)
SL Mathematics (HL is not offered)
SL French (HL is not offered)
Grades:
Grade 9 Average: 90%
Grade 10 Average: 86.7%
Grade 11 Predicted IB Marks
HL English Lit - 7
HL Economics - 7
HL Chemistry - 5/6, not really sure
SL Physics - 4 :-( (But I have a lot of time to bring it up to a 6! :))
SL Mathematics - 7 (most likely, Exam this May)
SL French - 6 (Exam this May)
note that in Canada our GPA conversions are 80+ = 4.0 :) Yay canada.
Total:
W/ bonus 3: 40
w/o: 37
Have not written SATs, ACTs, or APs... yet.. this summer will be <em>lots</em> of fun
ECs
Employed at Pita Pit 
Band: Played up a year, every year, also in the Toronto Youth Symphonic Winds as a Tubist (Going to try for Ontario Honours band this year :))
Business:
DECA: Qualified to ICDC this year and place 6th (but did not qualify on a tiebreaker) last year (all years of high school so far)
President of Bayview Investors ( Grade 10, 11, 12); Club is ranked 1st for the Target Alpha stock pitch (ontario, nationals have not happened), 5th nationally for investing
Served as National Chief Operating Officer of Target Alpha, Completely Youth-Run Non-Profit; 1000+ student reach for one term (more on this later)
Volunteering:
Vice President of Partnerships: Global Green Alliance Ontario; 1 term so far
Youth Action Committee (Mayor’s Youth Council of Richmond Hill) Ambassador Member; 2 years so far
360 Kids (Youth Shelter) Young Leader’s Challenge: Raised $500 to build a youth shelter in Richmond Hill
Synchronized Swimming Marshall (not really important to be honest)
SHAD Alumni (Queen’s University, 2015) <3
Athletics:
Varsity Girls Soccer (This year)
Provincial Level Synchronized Swimmer (Grade 9 only)
Other Important things:
1) as a preface for all of this I just moved out about 4 months ago because I was in an abusive household... life has been less than spectacular.
My grade 10 marks really collapsed second semester. I had an amazing, but challenging science teacher. Our class average (and our class distribution, being in IB, is very small) was a 73, which was my final mark. I have never in my life worked as hard (until HL Chemistry...), and my parents really did not help, and the abuse got worse. My math mark fell to an 80 (from a 92), and I went into depression. I probably won't tell admissions officers this, but I had a few less-than-sober nights and nearly committed suicide at one point in April.
I went to SHAD that summer, and realized that abuse isn't supposed to happen. We joke so much about being beat up by our parents, and for years that normalized things for me. And that summer I realized I wasn't in a safe place. Everyone else was calling their parents, feeling homesick, etc. I was glad to be gone. Never texted or called. I didn't want to.
In grade 11, I became really close to my HL Chemistry teacher, who noticed I had anxiety problems. I wasn't struggling. I was the first month, great. I was getting a solid 6 (which is good in HL Chem, I think the world average is 4). I had a raw 95+ mark in math (which loosely is translated to a 99 Ontario % grade). I was doing well in English and French too (95s). And things started to slip. My parents' expectations got higher, and by the end of the month, things were back to normal. In the words of my chemistry teacher, I began to loose myself, and by November I had probably ditched enough class to go to guidance to get suspended. My marks in math and chemistry dropped a lot- more so in math ( I had a 78 at one point, but finished with a 83). And then after a partiuclarly violent night early December, I went to my grade 9 English teacher and told her what was happening. I was 16, so I didn't need CAS involved- but i have a now 9 year old brother, and I called on his behalf. I would move out when they came to visit. That was on a Monday. They came on Friday, and that entire week I was on the guidance couch paralyzed from fear.
I will spare you the details of the unpleasant visit. School was hard- I had bottled 9 years of trauma and dealt with it in waves. I have trouble concentrating in class, and showing up to school is a struggle. Thus the crappy physics mark. Math and French are pretty much done, just doing exam prep. I'm a whiz at economics- it's my favourite subject and I distract myself from teh world by reading too many articles about things that are happening now in the econ world (negative interest rates, brexit, etc.) and by binge watching HIMYM. Which is why the chemistry mark is straddeled where it is. I think I could have done really well without this *motions in large circles.
Luckily, that chemistry teacher, my grade 10 science teacher, and guidance counsellor have been amazing supports for me. I couch serfed for a month (don't do that, it's really not fun), stayed at about 9 places before I finally got a permanent housing solution.
With Target Alpha, it broke my heart to leave. When I joined, it was a 20 school program that hosted a stock trading competition very casually. But I loved finance. I took the structure of my own investing club, and it exploded- British Columbia, Quebec, and Alberta. It's now 60 schools, and just finished it's Ontario and British Columbia stock pitches. I wrote a 15 page curriculum for clubs, and resource Dropbox. Unfortunately, with everything happening in my life, I went afk for about two months, and the organization focus had changed when I came back. I wanted to have a decentralized organization- strengthening provinces with weak financial programming. But the Ontario board had started to run over the National board, at least in my opinion, and things started to get messy. Two of the board members were also in DECA with me, which is why I did not go this year, and we had a fight about work distribution (once again went AWOL), and were not the best influences for my mental health. Effectively, being the over-productive person I used to be, I beat myself a lot for not getting things done. The last thing I needed to hear was that my situation was illegitimate. Most importantly, I felt the organization became too hung up with being prestigious in Ontario to realize they were making decisions that put the other provinces' success at jeopardy. And of course, on top of everything happening in my life, I didn't need the extra stress, so I left. I served 8 months on the board, and gave 110%. Maybe things would have turned out better if I hadn't been absent for so long. Once again- I don't know if I should put this in my essays.
Anyways.
I'm going to finish highschool on time, somehow.
But I've always wanted to go to the states to study economics- too many economics programs in Canada are treated as business-program backups, and the profs aren't as esteemed. I want to go to a country to study where they have amazing economic history and economist, and where it's actually an esteemed practice and considered a type of science. I want a liberal arts education to always have music in my education, and of course, I want to go to an amazing school that will push me the way this school has in academic and personal development.
While my grades are okay for now, I can see them dropping. How far can they drop before NW is completely out of reach?
How much financial aid can I expect?
Sorry for the super long-downer post