Decision: Accepted - RD
Objective:
SAT I (breakdown): 770 CR, 740 M, 800 W
ACT (breakdown): None
SAT II: 780 Lit, 750 US History
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.65 (I know; I’ll write about this later, at the end of this post)
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): lol pretty low
AP (place score in parenthesis): 4 AP Art History, 5 APUSH, 4 AP Bio
IB (place score in parenthesis): None
Senior Year Course Load: English Electives, AP World, AP Calc AB, AP Drawing & Painting, Orchestra, Sinfonietta, Self Directed Projects (counts as a full credit class, students study a topic not offered in the curriculum)
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): AP Scholar, National Merit Winner, Scholastic Honorable Mention (Flash Fiction), also was only teenager amongst all adults to receive a city-wide volunteer award from the Red Cross
Subjective:
Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): Orchestra (Prez, 2nd chair), Red Cross (Co-Prez, Youth Council), Diversity Club (Board, Head Discussion Leader), School Paper (Art Editor), Schomburg Jr. Scholars Program (meets on Saturdays to discuss black culture; was super awkward because I was the only non-black kid there lmao), Student Theatre Production Club (Artistic Director), Student Diversity Club Publication (Board of Editors, Art Editor), diversity zine that I started with a friend (co-founder, Racial division editor)… also chosen for/went to SDLC, an annual diversity conference
Job/Work Experience: Babysitting (mentioned that this took up a lot of time, was used to help pay bills for a while), intern at a financial research group (same as previous)
Volunteer/Community service: lots of Red Cross stuff. like a LOT
Summer Activities: work mainly. also more Red Cross stuff.
Essays (rating 1-10, details):
Common App: excellent. wrote about my neighbor who was murdered and how I helped his family recover, the meaning of community and how I moved a lot, etc.
Academic Interests: p good. wrote about all my various interests and how though i was leaning towards East Asian studies, Brown’s open curriculum would allow me to keep all my passions alive.
Why Brown: as close to a perfect college app essay I ever wrote. Quirky, funny, mentioned different classes, building names and professors, had really great one-liners, was slightly edgy in a cute way.
Where you lived: p good: I’ve lived in a LOT of different places, many of them parent/job search/poor immigrant related, so I turned each place into a little haiku-ish sentence, heavy on visuals, played up specific examples of economic hardships.
Communities: bs. This was so so last minute. talked about how i was part of the all you can eat buffet community bc of all the different cultures I’ve come from, like how i can eat both cereal and frog legs. not my best, but not terrible.
Recommendations (rating 1-10, details):
Teacher Rec #1: 9.5; apparently he wrote everyone who asked a glowing rec, but I don’t mind.
Teacher Rec #2: 8?; asked my Chinese teacher who doesn’t speak English that well…We’re pretty close though.
Counselor Rec: 7-8; knew her pretty well, idk though
Additional Rec: none
Interview: for some reason I told her about the panic attack I’d had before I came to the interview so I think she took pity on me lol
Other:
Applied for Financial Aid?: yeah
Intended Major: East Asian Studies/ visual art (i think?)
State (if domestic applicant): Connecticut
Country (if international applicant):
School Type: very, very competitive/hard
Ethnicity: East Asian
Gender: Female
Income Bracket: 100k; was around 50k for majority of highschool though
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): none. maybe that i moved around so much?
Reflection:
Strengths: ESSAYS, recs, extracurriculars
Weaknesses: my gpa, especially for the east asian gpa bracket lol; lack of awards
Why you think you were accepted/waitlisted/rejected: the committee was having a nice day
Where else were you accepted/waitlisted/rejected: too lazy to type out; most of the schools I got into were nowhere near as prestigious/ competitive as Brown though
General Comments:
i made this post specifically to give college and CC obsessed juniors some hope
here’s my take on my low gpa:
in a nutshell: my grandfather passed away, we had to pay for his bills, my dad lost his job, I had to work to cover shit, my emotions were going through some shit, and my grades dropped.
lots of schools will tell you they do “holistic review,” that you’re not just a grade. that’s bs, for a good percentage of them, unless you have extraordinary circumstances. Like you fought off sharks on your refugee boat that you engineered yourself circumstances.
I will say though that Brown truly is a holistic school. I really believe that they’re willing to disregard a slightly lower GPA in favor of a good personality, high involvement in school clubs and local community, as well as hard work, dedication, and a real, true passion for what you do. In other words, you are not just a number here; you truly are a person.
So, advice if you have a low gpa: tell them why and explain human to human, but show them improvement (my grades for senior year were all A’s, vs soph year where I had B’s and B minuses), show them you care through all the other aspects of your application, and you’ll have just as much of a chance as anybody else.
Go Bears <3
8/10 supplements: A bit/very generic, talked about how I’ve always loved both the humanities and the arts, how the open curriculum would be a great fit for me