Decision: Accepted
Pick one:
Pratt School of Engineering
Objective:
SAT I (breakdown): Didn’t take
ACT: 34 (35E, 34M, 33R, 35S)
SAT II: 710 Math 2, 680 Physics. Took them once and didn’t study; they’re terrible but I chose to submit them anyway.
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.96
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): School doesn’t rank
AP (place score in parenthesis): Didn’t submit any
IB (place score in parenthesis):
Senior Year Course Load: AP Chem, AP Calc BC, AP Macro, AP Lit/Comp, AP Spanish, Physics II, Religion (mandatory)
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): None
Subjective:
Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): 4 years V Cross Country (Captain), 4 years V Indoor Track(Captain), 4 years V Outdoor Track (Captain), Quiz Bowl, 7 years piano
Job/Work Experience: Started working part-time in summer freshman-junior year tutoring kids (paid)
Volunteer/Community service: 250+ hours of volunteering Junior/Senior year
Summer Activities: Internship in government Synthetic Biology lab
Essays: 7/10, wrote my essays in a day but tried to be genuine and didn’t spend too much time focusing on trying to impress
Teacher Recommendation: 10/10, I am very close with my English and Calc teachers. I’ve been in my calc teacher’s class since freshman year, and am currently self studying Calc BC with her.
Counselor Rec: 9/10, I go to a smaller private school so I know my counselor quite well and I know she wrote a pretty good rec letter.
Additional Rec:
Interview: 9/10, I had a great interviewer. We met at a bookstore and the interview was very interesting since he was a neurosurgeon, and we both had a lot of back and forth conversation. I was prepared and gave him my resume at the end as well as sent him a thank you email a couple hours later.
Other:
State (if domestic applicant): out of state, don’t want to get too specific
Country (if international applicant): USA
Intended major(s): Electrical Engineering
School Type: Private
Ethnicity: Asian (Chinese)
Gender: Male
Income Bracket: 40K-60K
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): First generation college student
Reflection
Strengths: Teacher Recs, Interview. I think my relationship with my teachers meant super genuine rec letters as well as an awesome interview helped me out.
Weaknesses: Essays were my weakness. Although I was genuine, I felt they weren’t as good as I wanted them since I only spent a few hours on them on the last possible day
Why you think you were accepted/deferred/rejected:
Teacher Recs, Interview, Summer Internship, Leadership involvement in sports
General Comments:
Super stoked! I applied last minute thinking I would be denied but decided to give it a shot anyway, and was super shocked to be accepted. The Engineering program is exactly what I’m looking for. A couple of my underclassmen and internship friends all love Duke, so that was also part of the reason I applied. I also didn’t even realize decisions were out until Duke sent me an email of congratulations! My mom & dad are also super happy, as we have family living near Durham so I wouldn’t be as homesick if I were to attend. I haven’t received my financial aid offer yet to make a decision, but I’m excited to visit Blue Devil Days soon and see the campus for myself 