**Decision: AdMITted! **
Objective:
SAT I (breakdown M/CR/W/Essay): 760 Math/800 Critical Reading/750 Writing/8 Essay
SAT I superscore (breakdown M/CR/W/Essay): Same as above
ACT (breakdown): 35 C: 35 Math/35 Reading/35 English/34 Science, 33 English w/ Writing (10 on Essay)
ACT superscore (breakdown): Same as above
SAT II (subject, score): 800 Math II, 800 Chinese, 790 Chemistry
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.974
Weighted GPA: 4.487
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 1/400 weighted
AP (place score in parentheses): English Language (5), English Literature (5), Chinese (5), Calculus BC (4), Calculus AB subscore (5), Chemistry (4), Statistics (4) NOTE: MY SCHOOL OFFERS NO AP CLASSES. We are an IB school.
IB (place score in parentheses): None
Senior Year Course Load: IB English HL, IB Computer Science SL, IB Astronomy SL, IB Biology HL, US History, publications, Linear Algebra and Differential Equations at local university
Number of other EA applicants in your school: Not sure, but I know of at least 4 or 5 other people.
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel, etc.): National Scholastic Art and Writing Silver Medal for writing, published in The Best Teen Writing (an anthology of about 70 works chosen from the 500 National-Medal-winning pieces), 1st place in the Sierra Nevada Review High School Writing Contest (another national writing contest), two-time AIME qualifier, qualified for Math Prize for Girls at MIT (competition for top 300 girls nationally) and got a score that placed me in the top half there
Common Awards (AP Scholar, honor roll, NM things, etc.): 3 Gold Keys, 2 Silver Keys and 4 Honorable Mentions from the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards regionally, AP Scholar with Distinction, National Merit Semifinalist, a bunch of other smaller city/school-level awards in math and writing, school champion for Chemistry Olympiad, small city/state-level awards for badminton
Subjective:
Extracurriculars (name, grade levels, leadership, description): Started a creative writing mentorship program to help kids, youth poet ambassador for my city, poetry reviewer for submissions to a national literary magazine, on teen advisory board for community library, did math, played badminton
Job/Work Experience: Writing tutor for over 15+ kids weekly
Volunteer/Community Service: None other than the things already listed
Summer Experience: Worked on my mentorship program, attended Iowa Young Writers’ Studio in 2014, took online math classes from The Art of Problem Solving, went to driver’s ed, did a computer science research internship at a local university (also watched a lot of Netflix)
Writing (Subject, 1-10 rating, details):
Essays:
(don’t think I can rate them objectively, but I’d say I’m a relatively strong writer and my main EC’s centered around writing, so they should’ve been good)
What You Do For Pleasure: Completely geeked out about K-pop.
Department at MIT: Interested in their unique writing department, mentioned their courses Writing About Race and connected that back to what I want to do in the future.
Contribution to Community: This probably helped me get in. I talked about organizing a team at my school to compete at the Harvard-MIT Math Tournament my sophomore year, and how I wanted to promote more interest in STEM at my school. I also mentioned the mentorship program I set up, and gave an anecdote about one of the girls I mentored who told me she was excited because she came from India, where there aren’t many opportunities for young writers.
World You Come From: Talked about how I discovered slam poetry after signing up for my school’s contest junior year because I thought there would be free food (there wasn’t). Through slam poetry, I realized that writing’s a way to create social change, and as an LGBT woman of color I want to bring a unique perspective to our society’s dialogue.
Significant Challenge: Super-personal sob story. Honestly, I was afraid it was going to work against me, but I guess it was okay 
Additional Essay/QB Essays: None.
Other (teacher’s subject, 1-10 rating, details):
(again, don’t think I can rate them objectively, but I would assume they didn’t help nor hurt me)
Teacher Recommendation #1: My math teacher, who is also adviser of the math club and supervises all the math competitions at our school. He likes me and knows me outside of the classroom due to all the contests, but I wasn’t an incredible student in his class, so I don’t think it was amazing. Probably solid, though.
Teacher Recommendation #2: My English teacher, who also helped me prepare a few slam poetry pieces outside of class. She likes me and saw my improvement in her class, but I didn’t participate that much in her class. Probably solid.
Counselor Rec: She likes me, and thinks I’m smart and talented. I’ve been talking to her since freshman year about non-academic stuff. It was probably solid as well.
Additional Info/Rec: None!
Interview: Good interview, lasted for an hour and fifteen minutes. In high school she was into creative writing, too, so we connected over that. She did mention that she had “a lot of good material” to write about at the end of the interview.
Art Supplement: None
Other
Date Submitted App: October 31st (future applicants: don’t procrastinate like me)
U.S. State/Territory or Country: Oregon
School Type: Public
Ethnicity: Asian
Gender: Female
Income Bracket Range: 200k
Hooks (URM, first generation, recruited athelete, development): none!
Reflection
Strengths: GPA and class rank, extracurriculars and awards, maybe essays?
Weaknesses: Class rigor (I only took six classes sophomore and junior year, while most other people took seven or eight). My recommendations probably weren’t amazing, and given it’s MIT, my math and science test scores aren’t that strong (760 on SAT Math and 4’s on AP math/science exams). Also, I was afraid my interest in writing would work against me.
Why you think you were accepted/deferred/rejected: I think it was my unique combination of creative writing and math that got me in. Being a female AIME qualifier probably helped. In all honesty, maybe being LGBTQ+ did as well.
What would you have done differently?: I shouldn’t have stressed out as much. Seriously, a few days ago I sat down and wrote out a list of reasons why MIT wouldn’t accept me. I woke up at 4:30 a.m. today because I was so nervous and felt nauseous all day today before the decision. I even read an MIT rejection letter online just to prepare myself. But a college decision doesn’t define me, and it’s definitely not endgame.
Where else did you apply? Hearing back from UChicago EA in two days, and then it’s onto Harvard, UPenn, Princeton and Stanford RD. Already got into the University of Oregon, waiting to hear from University of Washington, UC Berkeley, UCLA, USC.
General Comments & Advice:
TO FUTURE APPLICANTS: In high school, I didn’t do the things high-achieving kids were expected to do at my school. I didn’t participate in the full IB Diploma program, didn’t join our Constitution Team, didn’t join any community service clubs, didn’t join the International Study Center, didn’t join National Honor Society, didn’t even take that many IB classes my junior or senior years because I simply didn’t want to spend that much time and effort on a subject I wasn’t all that interested in. This meant I had a ton of free time that I got to spend on working on the things I loved–math and writing.
DO WHAT YOU LOVE. High school is about so much more than doing things to get into college. Pursue the things you’re interested in. That way, no matter the outcome, it would have been worth it.
Hope this helped!
[/noparse]
)