— ACT (breakdown): 30
— Unweighted GPA: 4.0
— Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 1/278
— AP (place score in parenthesis): AP Calc senior year. I’m self-studying AP Psychology, APES, APUSH, and AP Human Geo. while I’m in my gap year. I’m not sure if I’ll take the tests at the end of the year because I mean… I’m just self-studying them because they’re all interesting classes I wasn’t able to take, lol. (school started offering the AP classes for underclassmen when I was already a sophomore, and I couldn’t fit APES into my schedule unless I missed the entire first semester of the course… my school was ridiculous. there’s more information about this in my other post.)
— Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): um… unless you count being part of Top 10% and a Valedictorian major awards, then I don’t have any. I received teacher-chosen excellence awards in both history and English my junior and senior years respectively, so yeehaw.
— Extracurriculars:
- Family Tutor: my brother struggles with ADHD, so I’m the one who helps him (and my mother, really) understand/teach him his homework. 9, 10, 11, 12, GY (GY = Gap Year).
- Self-Studying the AP courses I listed: GY.
- Self-Taught Tumblr Theme Coder: exactly what it sounds like, lol. I taught myself how to code tumblr themes in ninth grade. I stopped for a while because senior year ate my time up. I’ve made sixteen-seventeen, and, together, they have garnered around 12.5K uses. 9, 10, 11, GY.
- Blog-Runner: sooo… when in high school, I decided to make a blog documenting five important years of my life (from eighteen until twenty-three). it’s kind of an advice/experience blog where I write what’s on my mind and share quirky information about myself. I included how I want to expand this when I head to college. 12, GY.
- Poetry Writer: poetry is a big part of my life. I didn’t start a blog for it until my gap year, but i’ve been writing it since ninth grade. I was always afraid to share it out of fear of people finding the blog and such. terrible excuse, I know. 9, 10, 11, 12, GY.
- Foreign Language Learner: ayyye, okay, so I decided to learn dutch during my gap year, study some korean, and expand my french. (I took up to honors french iii in high school. french iv wasn’t offered.) I want to be fluent in at least some other language besides english before I die. GY.
7.-8. The same old “community service” and “academic” clubs (beta, etc.) everyone does.
— Essays:
- Common App: 8/10? I wrote about how I use ten minutes at the end of every week to reflect on that week’s events. I incorporated my love of writing. I mean, it’s not the “I fled my country to survive” kind of essay, but I thought it was good? It was reviewed by three people on here, and they all helped me revise it and said it was well written, so I don’t know.
- Supplemental: Most of my schools did not or do not require supplemental essays, but I thought my bowdoin supplemental essay was pretty good. I chose “to count nature a familiar acquaintance” and talked about how the mountains in Maine and the mountains in Tennessee call my name to lure me to explore them. I can’t really rank this one.
— Recommendations:
Senior year English teacher: my favorite teacher I’ve ever had. I regularly keep in contact with her over email/snapchat. 10/10
Senior year AP Calc teacher: she was an amazing teacher, and we had a great relationship. I’m not as close with her as my first teacher, but it was still probably pretty good. 8/10
Counselor: hmmm… probably very generic. we have three counselors for, like, ~1,200 kids, so I don’t blame her at all. 5/10
Additional Rec: hahaha, I chose to include a peer recommendation because why not? no one knows you, your personality, your work ethic, etc. better than your friends. 10/10.
— Other:
Applied for Financial Aid?: yes
Intended Major: Cognitive Science (if offered) or Psychology with a Neuroscience concentration and an English minor.
State (if domestic applicant): TN
School Type: severely underfunded public, lol
Ethnicity: white
Gender: male
Income Bracket: ~$63,000 (my parents are divorced, and I live with my mom)?
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): I’m first generation
— Applied: bates, bowdoin (test optional), colby, connecticut college, grinnell (ED2), middlebury, rhodes, uofmiami, wesleyan (test optional), indiana university, case western reserve
— Will Apply: carleton, kenyon, macalester, oberlin, occidental, union, rochester
— Additional: honestly, I think the only schools to which I’ll be accepted are rhodes, IU-B, and uofmiami, and I’m very okay with that. rhodes is stunningly beautiful, IU-B’s cogsci department is top notch, and umiami’s weather and location can’t be beaten. each school is great in its own way. I’ll be extremely content if I get into just these three. also, although I’ve shown interest in ALL of these schools, I’ve shown extreme interest in grinnell, connecticut college, kenyon, case western reserve, and oberlin. I know I’m not an extremely qualified applicant, but do I stand a chance at at least some of these other school? I’ve been confident up until now. feel a little crappy, lol. thanks for reading this and getting back to me.
