<p>I decided to make another one of these threads out of curiosity, since I am a Senior now. Do your worst!</p>
<p>Colleges:<br>
Stanford
Berkeley
Cornell
Carnegie Mellon
University of Chicago
University of Pennsylvania
Columbia University
Princeton
Harvard (Doubt I'll get in, but parents want me to apply here anyways)</p>
<p>About me:
Male
Asian
Upper Middle Class (Gross household income is ~150-175k,)
Public School</p>
<p>SAT: 2330 (M: 800 CR: 800 W: 730) - Only took it once, this October.
NMST: 222 (M: 80 CR: 73 W: 69)
SAT II tests: Math II: 800 Chemistry: 800
ACT: 33 (Without writing, was a mandatory that we all had to take as Juniors)</p>
<p>GPA: 4.00 Unweighted, 4.8~ Weighted
Class Rank: 2/770 (I might be valedictorian next semester though)
Course Load: Nothing too rigorous, I guess the important classes are:
Calculus BC and Chemistry</p>
<p>AP Scores are all 5s for the following subjects (8/8):
Human Geography
Comparative Government and Politics
Calculus AB
Calculus BC
Chemistry
English Language & Composition
United States History
Psychology</p>
<p>Senior Courseload is pretty unremarkable, since I kind of ran out of classes to take at my school, they're all weighted courses though.
Relevant is probably AP Physics B. I'm probably taking 7 AP tests at the end of this year.</p>
<p>ECs:
And here's the problem, as indicated by the title, I haven't really done much outside of school, especially in regards to volunteering.</p>
<p>Tutoring (30~ Hours) - I've done a bit of all different types of tutoring, for pay, personal tutoring and math lab (just tutoring after school in classrooms).</p>
<p>NHS, SHS (Spanish Honor Society), Science Club, Math Club (~25 hours) - Haven't really done anything major in any of these.</p>
<p>There have been some other clubs that I've been in or briefly been in, like MUN and Speech and Debate, but I would feel guilty if I actually put those on my application. I don't want to get into a lengthy explanation, because I know it's partially my fault for not being more involved, but I genuinely felt like I was participating in the clubs for the wrong reason (The sole interest of trying to make my college application look better, I wasn't actually interested).</p>
<p>As far as what I'd call "Standard ECs" I've pretty much done the bare minimum required to stay in the organization.</p>
<p>This is where it gets a little weird (still ECs):
Video Game - League of Legends (~1000 Hours)</p>
<p>Not to digress too much, but it's basically a more user-friendly, less-skill based, and more macro-management oriented version of Defense of the Ancients (DoTA). I've been encouraged by many people to talk about this, because it has constituted a significant part of my out-of school life and I do feel like I can talk passionately about this. I legitimately believe I learned a lot about communication and teamwork from playing this game; one of the best skills I've taken away from it is how to keep my cool despite the situation (online disinhibition effect + hormonal teenagers/young adults can get pretty nasty sometimes) and stay focused on greater objectives. Also, the game is a solid example of how paper does not always translate into results; itemization builds which are theoretically the most optimal turn out to be inefficient due to many other variables. </p>
<p>There is a lot of strategy and theory-crafting that goes along with this game, especially when you have a large group of friends that play the game with you. I feel like this has helped make up for some of the deficiencies I've had at school, and at times I do feel challenged on an intellectual level; I learn new things almost every game I play. The game forces you to think on your feet, which is something that rarely happens at school.</p>
<p>As for actual awards: I was ranked Bronze elo season 1 (Top 25% of players), and Gold elo season 2 (Top 10% of players). I'm by no means great at the game, but I am slightly above average.</p>
<p>Other ECs - Weightlifting (~400 Hours)</p>
<p>Again, a personal EC. I don't want to talk too extensively about this one, but it has taught me to be a lot more appreciative of athletes in general. I'll admit I had pretty negative conceptions of athletes before I started lifting, but a lot of that has changed. I feel it was really important for me to do something I'm extremely bad at, because it removed a lot of my pretentiousness in general. For the amount of time I've put into this activity, I'm still hilariously weak, but I'm proud of the progress I've made. Weightlifting also taught me A LOT about setting goals and pushing myself, because grades have always come naturally to me (not trying to sound cocky, but this is a fact >_<).
I didn't compete or anything for this.</p>
<p>School Awards:
My school doesn't give out awards :(.</p>
<p>Recommendations:
1) Calculus BC Teacher - Is going to be awesome!
2) Chemistry Teacher (both for honors and AP) - Is also going to be awesome! They both know me really well and are super smart.
3) Counselor Recommendation - Ok-ish. I don't really visit my counselor on a regular basis, so I haven't really ever talked to her until this year. She said she kind of had trouble getting a full picture of who I was as a person and how to market me to colleges. I will admit I tend to be pretty mechanically functional in real life (I'm also a lot more terse).</p>
<p>Additional Info:
My sister went to Stanford, so I guess that counts as a sort of weak legacy.
I'm planning on majoring in Statistics, with an eventual career of Actuary or Statistician.</p>
<p>A little bit about my general approach:
I'm mainly going to write about how my ECs are a lot different from the conventional competitive student, and hopefully how I can bring something different to the table than simply the class president or varsity sports team leader. Two themes I'm going to emphasize are:</p>
<p>Learning without the intention of learning - For example, the only reason I ended up doing so well on the CR portion of the SATs was because I knew what erudite meant from playing Kingdom of Loathing, an online video game. This isn't a single example, there's been a lot of opportunities where I've been able to apply random things I did/read to academics with great success. I have virtually no academic ECs and I rarely read books or do anything that would make me a more 'learned' person. I believe that every experience is important, you just need to understand how to apply them to other contexts.</p>
<p>Independence and integrity - I did what I wanted to do, not what would get me into colleges. NO REGRETS! :)</p>
<p>Anyways, if you're still reading this, please leave a comment. Thank you if you read every word of this post, I appreciate it! :)</p>