<p>Decision: Accepted</p>
<p>Objective:[ul]
[<em>] SAT I (breakdown):2170 (710CR, 740M, 720W 10 essay) 2nd sitting, 1st sitting was 2050 (690/640/720 12 essay)
[</em>] ACT: n/a
[<em>] SAT II: 690 Lit, 750 Math2 (1st sitting was something like 650 and 540)
[</em>] Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): UK applicant, so n/a but GCSEs were 11A<em>,AS Levels were 4 As in Maths, History, Philosophy and Chemistry, then an A</em> in Maths A level (did further maths which basically ended up being maths a2 in a year, then running screaming from the actual further maths a level in y13)
[<em>] Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): UK applicant, so n/a but as a general guide, if you have straight A</em>s at gcse, straight As at AS and straight A* predictions, you’re gpa is 4.0 and you’re basically #1 in your year (even though, I understand quite a few people tick two or more of these boxes and dont necessarily get flooded with ucas offers, dont let it bother you. In fact, even with the odd A or B, youre still competitive for HYPSMC, cleverer kids than me have been rejected from princeton, its no biggie, theyre not looking for a brain in a jar, they want leaders of the future and fulfilling THAT criteria is what you should be focussing on, not collecting meanignless qualifications )
[<em>] AP (place score in parenthesis): n/a
[</em>] IB (place score in parenthesis): n/a
[<em>] Senior Year Course Load: Chemistry, History and Philosophy A-Level and then EPQ and Critical Thinking AS level.
[</em>] Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): no national academic prizes except Silver award UK Maths Challenge (Intermediate). School awards: academic awards for gcse results etc, prize for languages after gcses, philosophy scholarship for sixth from and subject awards: history, for getting full marks at AS, maths, for getting full marks in S1, M1 and C3 and also full marks in philosophy AS level. But I repeat, in y12, just get your As and concentrate on the subjectives. they are what will make you stand out.
[/ul]Subjective:[ul]
[<em>] Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis):
elected member of youth parliament for my city,
voted regional debate leader,
made speech at the house of commons at the dispatch box and submitted the YouTube video of my speech as the supplementary material thing to all the colleges that accepted extra stuff.
Other youth parliament things include attending council meetings, sitting on boards etc and in particular, negotiating with our bus companies to lower the fares for under 18s.
former member of our citys youth council ,
founded and led something called freedom of voice that Ill talk about later.
Founder and captain of school debating society,
finalist at various comps eg oxford schools, European youth parl comp, Durham etc also was the first winner of the national chrystall public speaking prize from the north of England,
youth researcher for children in need (only a local project about social issues in highly diverse areas in city).
Did bronze, silver and gold duke of Edinburgh awards,
head of marketing in young enterprise (School business team)
played netball since y4, repped school and county,
got coaching and umpiring qualifications and got nominated for this leadership programme though netball.
Head of 6th form events committee,
house captain, and euphonium
grade 5 practical and theory (ABRSM) but didnt play for any bands or anything, and yeah, alter served at church for about 10yrs (ish)
[</em>] Job/Work Experience: part time job supervising homework club at school (basically free money to sit there and do your homework)
work shadowed local mp at Westminster and local member of European parliament in Brussels.
Shadowed a number of barristers at Hardwicke chambers in London (absolutely recommend here if youre struggling to find legal work exp due to the absolute endemic of nepotism in the bar)
got invited to watch this case in Manchester with a truly phenomenal QC at Kings Chambers
[<em>] Volunteer/Community service: overlaps with ECs, although I will say, dont list things that dont contribute to a focused profile of you. Eg I volunteered at the children hospital in our city on and off, even did quite a bit of medical work exp but cos I later decided I didnt want to be a doctor, I didnt put ANY of it onto my comm App
[</em>] Summer Activities: debate academy, young leaders camp (netball), various uni taster courses and stuff with youth parliament
[<em>] Essays: comm. App essay about how my dads childhood experience of being a refugee in the Nigerian civil war led me to founding Freedom of voice (UKs first youth led conversation club [teaches English to asylum seeker/refugee young people in the city]) project got cut by the coalition, but if any English people here can find the funding to pick that up, be my guest (and let me know obvs).
Supplement essay: Reflective piece about how I think culture is not inherently good and that we need to approach it like a tapas bar and not do stuff just for the sake of tradition. Parents cancelled my driving lessons when they heard I sent that essay off (theyre easily the most massively traditional nigerians you’d ever meet. they’re insane.) but something tells me theyre over it now. short answers, i just took the mick. i put that mean girls was my favourite film (which it is) and quoted jake whitehall from ‘bad education.’
[</em>] Teacher Recommendation: begged my head of year not to send my ucas ones (Id seen it already and it was insanely generic) but of course he sent it anyway. When I found out (in mid January) I showed him (again) the samples on the Fulbright commission and MIT websites and they revised them. Best bit of recs were probs the maths one where it noted that I didnt find maths easy and was in a particularly able class of further maths students (my school actually has geniuses there
) but persevered anyway. Always a plus if you can get a good rec from a subject that doesnt come naturally to you
[<em>] Counselor Rec: same thing, sent generic ones then more personal corrective statement later on. The reason my recs were influential is cos they didnt just list superlatives (i.e. ucas reference) it DESCRIBED why I was x superlative. Far more convincing
[</em>] Additional Rec: I sent one from a youth parliament supervisor (because I suspected my school ones wouldnt be descriptive enough) and he did awesome. Basically talked about the socio-economic diversity within youth parliament, and how Im good at getting on with a range of ages, backgrounds etc. talked about me taking initiative, being a leadership figure etc. Its always important to ONLY send additional recs if they can bring something NEW to your app.
[<em>] Interview: on the phone with a lvoely womanwho’d recently graduated. she was such a laugh, we even swore casually while speaking, to each other, it was that laid back! in fairness, i dont think the interview made that much of a difference to my app tho. nothing to be nervous about.
[/ul]Other[ul]
[</em>] State (if domestic applicant): n/a
[<em>] Country (if international applicant): UK
[</em>] School Type: private girls school, but in the north so on the one hand I wasnt eligible for ANY support from Sutton trust cos I was a private school kid, but then my school had never sent anyone abroad before and I couldnt afford an educational consultant (cos private school costs loads - obviously) #***<em>edoff #betterstateschoolsneeded #yorkshiresdeprived #justdiscoveredtwitter #apologies,iknowthisisannoying
[</em>] Ethnicity: Nigerian born but British citizen and brit school
[<em>] Gender: girl
[</em>] Income Bracket: ineligible for FA
[li] Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): dunno, being black british? Northern? </p>[/li]
<p>[/ul]Reflection[ul]
[<em>] Strengths:
essays told that story only I could tell despite not being a unique topic,
grades were faultless (which I hasten to add is not uncommon among top brit applicants so youd best take extra subjects if you want to stand out)
ECs were the sorts I could guarantee no-one else had done, i.e. freedom of voice was a national first, and speaking at the House of Comms, is fairly unique
[</em>] Weaknesses: I refuse to put that my SATs were weaknesses. once you break the 700/700/700 barrier, they stop mattering. So do NOT stress about them.
[<em>] Why you think you were accepted/waitlisted/rejected: unique and focused profile, I particularly thought the video I sent in of my house of commons speech made them look up. And I loved my comm. App essay
[</em>] Where else were you accepted/waitlisted/rejected: Accepted: Yale, Columbia (Kluge Scholar), Brown, Dartmouth and Cornell. Also offers from Durham (PPE), Warwick (PPE) and UCL(Philosophy and Economics). Waitlisted: nowhere thankfully. Rejected: LSE, Oxford (without an interview…the bastards. AND they had the balls to tell me I wasnt academically suited to their oh so rigorous degree programme. Moral of the story? You need a combined average of 65/99 in the TSA or more to have even a glimmer of a shot at PPE at oxford) and Harvard (which is fair enough, ivy admissions are not totally random, but there are enough amazing applicants for you to slip through the net. Therefore, never have a dream school and apply to a fair number of similarly ranked places, cos you could randomly get some, and not some others.) </p>
<p>[/ul]General Comments:
This forum, as well as giving me literally the most invaluable pointers during this unfamiliar application process, mostly made an impact by filling me with misery, anxiety and immense feelings of inferiority. The amount of bragging that goes on in this forum is just horrendous and at times I really did want to give up on applying cos, judging by what certain people said to others about their stats etc, I thought I didnt have a chance. The only reason why Im posting on the decision thread is because these are by far the most helpful and I dont think there is nearly enough free help for british applicants. I know its only a minority who use cc to brag and belittle others but it really really hurts. And as for those whove been helpful, hopefully this has been as helpful as youve been to me. Any further questions from British applicants, feel free to message me somehow (Ive not quite got round to seeing how that works, so I may take a while replying).</p>
Not so good. Felt like the interviewer and myself were trapped in a weird cycle of dumbness. On the plus side, she didn’t think I was a knife-wielding maniac. 6.