Decision: Accepted Walsh School of Foreign Service
Objective:
SAT I (breakdown): (710 CR 800 M 720 W) 2230
ACT (breakdown): 33 C (34 E 31 M 32 R 36 S); 33 C (33 E 34 M 34 R 30 S); did not send to Georgetown
SAT II: 760 math II, 750 US history (only took two rip)
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 4.0
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 1 / 33
AP (place score in parenthesis): AP World (5), AP Comp Sci. (4), AP Human Geography (4), AP Chem (4), AP English Lang (5), AP Macroeconomics (5), AP Calculus AB (5), AP US History (4)
IB (place score in parenthesis): n/a
Senior Year Course Load: Japanese II, AP US Gov, AP Eng Lit, AP Calc BC, AP Physics 1, P.E.
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): regional awards for debate and outstanding delegate at Harvard Model Congress Asia
Subjective:
Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis):
Harvard Model Congress Asia [9-12] [Captain 10, 11, 12] [Honorable Mention 1x] [Outstanding Delegate 2x]
Online Model United Nations [Executive Administrative Officer for Korea] – Organize debates online for students who enjoy MUN around the world. I teach parliamentary procedure and moderate debates, which give me excellent experience for a MUN conference later in the year.
Varsity Tennis [Captain 12] [Most Improved 10] [Far East Tennis 9-12] – Not much to show.
Student Council [Class VP 9] [Class President 10] [Class Parliamentarian 11] [Class Secretary 12]
Hiking – I enjoy hiking on weekends.
Minjoo Party of Korea – Worked for a local representative’s office during the 2016 Korean parliamentary elections.
Seosan Law Firm – internship at a law firm that helped me understand the courtroom better and confirmed my initial interests in the law.
DoDEA Pacific Advisory Council – selected to represent over 10,000 students at an education board that includes the director of our school region.
Global Mission Church – Pianist for the praise team; humanitarian projects through the church.
Job/Work Experience: summer translator job online (Korean-english, english-korean)
Volunteer/Community service: through church, NHS
Summer Activities: some listed above, and if there were a short essay about my summer, I would have written “spent hours perfecting my serve.”
Essays (rating 1-10, details):
Common App – 7/8 : I wrote about how my curiosities lead me to do different things, and basically used a story where my curiosity about Robert’s Rules of Order (checking out the book in a library) and the book’s deceptive cover led me to wonder why governments have to have such strict procedure, revealing me to the world of debate.
School specific SFS essay – 7 : I wrote about my personal connection to the North Korean people, and proposed a policy change from waiting out the Kim regime in the North and instead staging a regime change. Analytical and reflective.
Supplemental essay - 6: Used my UChicago portal essay. Talked about how much hate there is in the United States, and how my volunteer work is a part of a bigger vision of mine to remove that hate from the world. I used a “portal to a more generous and kind alternate universe,” and forging a bridge to it as a metaphor. Although, now that I think about it, building a bridge to a portal would be counter-intuitive… because it’s a portal. lol.
Recommendations (rating 1-10, details):
Teacher Rec #1: 8 – APUSH teacher. Great letter. We’re really close, and it showed (I might have added some lines)
Teacher Rec #2: 6 – AP Chem / AP Physics teacher. I’m not sure about this one… I gave him a guideline about what to write, but I have not read it.
Counselor Rec: 7 – Have not read it; we’re close, but I feel like she uses a template. Not sure.
Additional Rec: Nada
Interview: Lasted about an hour and a half. I talked with genuinely and sincerely. He was a really nice guy and a great listener. I started talking about my life problems lol.
Other
Applied for Financial Aid?: Yes
Intended Major: International Economics (will change to like International Political Economy or International Politics if enrolling)
State (if domestic applicant): Resident of CA
Country (if international applicant):
School Type: Public Department of Defense
Ethnicity: Asian (Korean)
Gender: Male
Income Bracket: 60~70K
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): nope.
Reflection
Strengths: GPA, focused on several extracurriculars (large depth).
Weaknesses: lack of an additional subject test
Why you think you were accepted/deferred/rejected: ESSAYS. They really convey your personality, and it’s the make or break portion of your application.
Where else were you accepted/deferred/rejected: Yale (deferred), Harvard, Princeton, Duke (waitlisted), Cornell, Columbia, Brown, Stanford, UChicago (waitlisted), Penn, USC (accepted), UC Berkeley, UCLA (accepted), UC Irvine (accepted with regents and honors), Georgetown, UVA (accepted)
General Comments : Financial aid?
Rejected: Harvard and Yale. Wait listed: Nowhere.