<p>Hey!</p>
<p>I'm currently a sophomore attending a private school in Singapore. Recently, although maybe not so relevant yet, I've been really hung up on the colleges I want to attend after I graduate.</p>
<p>Stanford has always been my dream school, since I was little. I'm unsure of my reasons then, but it's easily justifiable now (which I'll explain now). I've always had this natural intuition that it was out of reach (not because of my grades; just because of pure probability, and when you're just in elementary school it's hard to fathom being one of those few who get accepted into top schools), but recently now that I've been thinking about my IB package and colleges, with (a lot) of hard work I feel like I can get there.</p>
<p>Currently, I do the IGCSE course (freshman + sophomore), and I'll do the IB course in junior/senior. I'm currently getting 7 A<em>s and 3 As, which I consider very good (I'm hoping to expand it to all A</em>s for my finals in May). And in IB, the subjects I am contemplating taking are:
- HL Math
- HL Physics
- HL Computer Science
- SL Business
- SL English LangLit
- SL Ab Initio Spanish
I'm not extremely competitive in academics - whilst I am in the top bands of Maths, and get great grades in all subjects, I don't participate in things like olympiads and competitions, mostly because of my other hobbies (coding and playing piano/guitar).</p>
<p>Since Middle School, I've been learning how to write code and build apps/websites - essentially become a developer. I've had numerous achievements including:
- creating an app for one of the IB's conferences; received a certificate of appreciation handed by the IB director general Jeffrey Beard
- built many client apps on the App Store
- attended Apple's WWDC 2013 (WorldWide Developer Conference) on student scholarship
- launched a personal project; travel app (Travelog: Travel Info You Need, Fast.)
- did a programming internship at Singapore Post during the summer of after my freshman year (my mentor / boss at my Singapore Post internship has offered to write me a college recommendation.)
My next steps are to:
- try and score high on my IB (junior and senior year) and testing like SATs
- do more internships; currently exploring something in The Bay next summer (I've got a few contacts at Kiip, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Quora and a few other startups from my Singapore Post mentor)
- launch the next major app I'm working on (it's called Contra; a social debating app for current affairs, I invested quite a bit of money into graphic design, and I'm really aiming for a professional app that can be widely adopted, I'm even trying to get it featured by Apple with the contacts I made at WWDC)
- start a programming club at school (or something like that)
- write a research paper on a topic I'm interested about (probably Machine Learning)</p>
<p>I think a few key areas I have that Stanford admission officers identify with are:</p>
<p>Passion & specialization - although I find that I'm well rounded (I have academics, music and programming), I definitely specialize in one passion (programming), and have ambitious goals for the future and achievements in the past</p>
<p>Independent learning - I learnt coding all by myself (books, YouTube, forums) when I was young</p>
<p>Learning because I like to - Also tied in with independent learning, sometimes I just feel like I learn stuff for the sake of it. For example, I spent 10 hours online learning Calculus, and more on Coursera courses about data science (machine learning), cryptography, etc. because it genuinely interested in.</p>
<p>I don't know why I'm so worried about college right now. I just know that Stanford is my dream school. The perfect location, entrepreneurial spirit, ties with Silicon Valley, alumni, classes - like Sam Altman did a startup class there, the lovely campus. And so naturally I'm spending hours researching and asking stuff online, almost for self-assurance, and for tips/advice I can capitalise on in the next two year. Maybe I'm not worried; maybe I'm just excited.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>