<p>Deferred</p>
<p>Stats:[ul]
[<em>]SAT: 2360/2400 - 800 Critical Reading, 760 Math, 800 Writing, 1 take
[</em>]SAT II: 800 Chemistry, 780 Math II, 800 Literature
[<em>]ACT: 35/36 - 36 Writing, 36 Math, 36 Reading, 31 Science (ouch)
[</em>]GPA: 4.0/4.0 UW
[<em>]Rank: 4/639 (though I’ve taken more rig. classes than all of the three people above me and have gotten As in all of those - I took a summer school class before freshman year, brought down rank because it was unweighted, that’s all)
[</em>]Other Tests (AMC, AP, IB): 5 US History, 5 English Language, 5 US Government, 5 Psychology, 5 Microeconomics, 4 Macroeconomics, 4 Physics[/ul]
Subjective[ul]
[<em>]Essays: Not that great, nothing standout, but nothing written by a caveman either, though. Spent 99% of my time on UChicago essays, finished MIT the day the application was due in a few hours.
[</em>]Recs: One probably great rec from my APUSH teacher 2 years ago, one fairly generic from my Physics teacher
[<em>]Supplementary Material:
[</em>]Summer Activities: Undergrad. courses at UChicago and Harvard last two summers, fair amount of volunteering (Museum of Science and Industry, homeless shelter, health center)
[<em>]Hook(recruited athlete, legacy, Nobel Prize):[/ul]
Personal[ul]
[</em>]Location: Plainfield, IL
[<em>]High School Type: Public, suburban, permeated thickly with incompetence, but I probably perceive more hurt than do impartial observers : ), ~2000 students
[</em>]Ethnicity: Chinese, Asian (though in reality I am far more Western minded - all I do to identify myself with China is to eat rice and speak thick fragmented sentences in what I believe is Mandarin)
[<em>]Gender:Male[/ul]
Other[ul]
[</em>]Extracurriculars:Founded humanitarian org (ProjectHuman.org), Captain of Chess, Co-Captain of Scholastic Bowl, Ass. Event Chair on Speech Team, Math Team, stuff here and there for standard things like NHS and French NHS/Club
[<em>]Awards:National Merit Semifinalist, AP Scholar with Distinction, pretty much nothing.
[</em>]Why you think you were accepted/deferred/rejected: One, my rushed essays probably showed through - almost definitely so, to a veteran eye, I would assume. Two, my background is not at all zoned in on Science/Math, though that is definitely the field I want to pursue, and though I definitely love that field very, very much. My profile is more diversified, and I definitely think I would be better somewhere else, and MIT probably, in their great wiseness, thinks the same thing.
[li]Advice? Commiserations? Feel like bragging?:[/li]Deferred. I expected this would happen. Honestly, I feel great, and am even happy - not as much as if I had gotten in, of course, but not getting in didn’t detract at all from how happy I was before. UChicago was always my top choice, MIT was always something of a shot, and I really doubt I would have gone had I gotten in, or if I do later, either.</p>
<p>My mom’s not believing me right now when I say I’m fine. She’s just like “uh huh”, and then tries to console me subtly. Haha. Good song to listen to while opening up the decision (though by now it’s too late) - Tupthumping, Chumbawamba</p>
<p>Now, after writing this (I wrote the end first), I actually feel happy about the deferral itself. I like to think I was deferred for all the right reasons, and this gives me hope for idealism in college admissions after all : ). Congrats to everyone who got accepted, and for everyone who didn’t and now feels like killing themselves, just remember you’d probably feel the same way after being admitted too, with MIT’s record suicide rate - just kidding, don’t jump on me and kill me for that!</p>
<p>Cheerio,
Ben[/ul]</p>
