<p>Decision: Accepted! </p>
<p>Stats:[ul]
[<em>] College/Major Applied To: Arts and Sciences / Linguistics + Cognitive Science
[</em>] Fee Waiver Used?: Yes
[<em>] SAT I (by section): 740CR, 690W, 670M (2100 total)
[</em>] SAT IIs: 730 Bio, 760 Physics, Math II 690, Math I 670 (doh!)
[<em>] GPA, Weighted and Unweighted: 93.8% (school doesn't weight)
[</em>] Rank: 18 / 213
[<em>] ACT: 32 composite, 34 English, 33 Math, 32 Reading, 27 Science (was totally alien to me) --- but I never got to send them in to UVA, haha
[</em>] APs (including this year's): AP Calc AB 5, AP Language and Composition 5, AP Biology, AP Physics C, AP World History, AP English Literature; self-study: AP French Language, AP Microeconomics
[<em>] IBs (including this year's: n/a
[</em>] Senior Yr Courseload: AP (Bio, English Lit, Physics C, World Hist), Honors Economics, Art I [haha!]; also dual-enrolled at a local university for French Conversation + Calc B (fall semester) / Linear Algebra + French Phonetics (spring semester)
[<em>] Number of Apps from Your School: I think I was the only one? I'm not sure
[</em>] Other stats (Awards, etc.): pretty mediocre, 2nd place for Novice LD debate, 3rd place JV LD debate at State finals, various chess tournament awards, 5th place for Maine Chess Player of the Year
[/ul]Subjective:[ul]
[<em>] ECs listed on app: Chess (9-12), Debate (12), Swimming (12), "Wikipedia administrator" (10-12)
[</em>] Job/Work Experience: none
[<em>] Essays (subject and responses): I wrote two of these on the last day of the deadline! I recycled and re-edited the "page 217" question from Penn and used it for my 500 word essay, where I wrote about being questioned by the Singapore authorities; the other two concerned music and holding an often mis-interpreted political view
[</em>] Hook (TASP, RSI, Research, etc.): none that I know of
[/ul]Location/Person:[ul]
[<em>] State or Country: Maine resident (green card holder), Singaporean citizen
[</em>] School Type, Average Stats of School (if available): public, but very stratified
[<em>] Ethnicity: Chinese
[</em>] Gender: Male
[<em>] Income Bracket: $43,000 this year, but $0 last year -- most of the new income is going towards our debts
[</em>] Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): none that I know of -- is being in a low-income, single-parent household a "hook"?
[<em>] Strengths: I had my doting phonetics professor write me a rec, I was dual-enrolled; my guidance counselor was a UVA graduate, if that counts for anything
[</em>] Weaknesses: OOS, made like 8 different errors across my 3 essays because I waited till the last day to submit, one of my recommenders also knew of my messiness and sometimes uneven work habits, though I hoped the good would far outweigh the bad! I also had mediocre ECs and only a decent rank
[li] Why you think you were accepted/wait listed/denied: I want to say the essays, but I'm not sure if my family's low-income status (which my guidance counselor may have made light of) counted for anything as well? Maybe recs/dual-enrollment. I was pretty surprised though, because I was OOS and had pretty mediocre stats. I'm also a Singaporean citizen and wrote a bit about Singaporean authoritarian politics for the main essay, but I am not sure if that counted for anything either.[/li][/ul]Other Factors:
General Comments/Congratulations/Venting/Commiserations,etc:</p>
<p>I was rejected by 4 schools (Penn, MIT, Bates, Georgetown) and waitlisted at 3 (Chicago, NYU and Swarth). UVA's acceptance was basically the only thing that prevented me from being consigned to my local state university. It is difficult to express the sheer elation (after being severely disappointed so many times) I got due to this acceptance. </p>
<p>Ironically, I thought UVA was one of my weakest apps, since I had not interviews, nor any text box to explain special circumstances, and I left out a lot of extra EC/activities-elaboration/awards that I included in other apps, as well as a slightly-better ACT score.</p>