i’m making one of these because i love to overthink and overanalyze yay!!
SORRY THAT WAS NOT A GREAT WAY TO OPEN A THREAD. ANYWAY -
hello, and thanks for clicking on my thread! here are my stats and such. schools i applied to/majors are down below.
GPA: 4.31 W, 4.0 UW GPA
SAT: 2360 (1 sitting - 800M, 800W/10 essay, 760CR)
SAT Subjects: World History: 800, Math II: 780, Chemistry: 770
AP Scores: Chemistry (4), US History (5), English Language (5), World History (5)
Senior Courses: AP Spanish Language, AP Literature, AP US Government, Leadership (student government! gotta have the class to be in it though), AP Physics 1, AP Calculus AB
College Courses: Took Fundamentals of Computer Science & Introduction to Human Development over the summer (A+s in both)
Ranking: 2/390
School type: Small/medium-sized noncompetitive public
Ethnicity: Filipino, Chinese
Legacy: None! (parents both went to school in the PHP)
Awards: AP Scholar with Honor, National Merit Commended, Science Olympiad medals Regionals, NHS (?), couple of school academic/community service awards, Best Freshman Girl in cross country, couple of awards for stories in school-wide writing contests, Congressional Merit Award (award for seniors in 10th Congressional District in CA)
Specifics
Extracurriculars:
- Science Olympiad (11-12): placed in regionals, part of first team. I learned Jmol and protein modeling for protein modeling and it is HANDS DOWN my favorite event! I’m so sad that it’s not a regional event for us this year.
- Performed (Ensemble) in school performance of Aladdin (10). I wish I was in another musical lol - music is life!
- Performing in talent show (11) + general music - Music Club member (10), write own songs + have active Soundcloud/Youtube channel, sang national anthem twice, performed at local festival, self-taught guitar, ukulele (9-12)
- Cross Country/Track (9), continual recreational running, awards in local race (9-12) (I WAS LW VARSITY XC DURING FRESHMAN YEAR BUT I STOPPED RUNNING HAHAHA RIP)
- Key Club - served as Secretary (12)/Treasurer (11) (10-12). First experience working in an officer team!
- Help tutor students in HYPE (tutoring club); tutor (10-12) & VP (12); made a website, various advertising materials for club (10-12). I love this ahh! It’s helped me a lot with public speaking skills.
- Served as freshman mentor (like a Link Crew leader) (11-12)
- Commissioner in KHS Leadership, helped with rallies (esp backdrops, PLANNING - e.g. writing scripts, creating games, assigning jobs, etc.), posters, and promotion for the school; designed senior shirt (11-12). I love Leadership more than I can express, it’s probably the thing I’m most glad I joined in HS because it’s both brought me out of my shell and helped me learn organizational/leadership/time-management/socialization skills.
- Babysitting sister (throughout HS, lol - I’ve helped teach her how to read/walk! Having a sister WAY younger is in turns insane and awesome and annoying)
Summer activities:
- Interned last summer (11-12 summer) at my local newspaper! Super rad because I got to understand the workings of journalism, publish articles, interview people, and learn how to call adult coworkers who are decades older by their first names, lol. Also, I was exposed to the journalistic style of writing, which was pretty interesting, and it changed my entire view on my city.
- Babysitting sister (again, throughout hs)
Recommendations:
- English teacher: Had him for Lang. Apparently he calls me “great” and talks about me a lot BUT HE’S TOTALLY OVERHYPING ME :’) He was super pumped to write me a letter, plus he serves as a sort of mentor to me.
- Calc teacher: Had him for 2 years (Algebra 2 Pre-AP, AP Calc AB). He speaks really highly of me at parent-teacher conferences, according to my mom. Idk how personal it’ll be though?
- Editor of local newspaper I interned at: Extra rec! 7-8/10? He said some pretty nice things about my traits but didn’t necessarily touch on my writing.
-Counselor: I think it’d be okay, he’s talked to me a fair bit while I straightened out my schedule for this year.
Essays (I’m only gonna talk about what I wrote for the core ones because if I wrote about my supplements, there would be too much writing in this post and there’s already a ton ooops):
- MIT essays: Talked about my love for music (opening was about how I thought I could get a guy to like me if I sang around him lol), the departments of Writing/Biochemical Engineering + professors w/in them. Comm service - dishwashing at home led me to pursue community service outside of it; sig challenge - having to adapt from being selfish when my sister was born when I was 12; world you come from - parents encouraged reading, which is why I love it (idk if that one really fit the prompt lol)
- UC essays: (2, 5, 6, 7) - Talked about how puns helped lead me to my best trait, learning to laugh at myself; re-used the dishwashing & signif. challenge; fav subject - English, then bio, tied it into wanting to study bioengineering/chem engineering
- Common App: I FEEL LIKE IT’S BORING BUT W/E wrote about my early love of reading & how that catalyzed my love for writing, then branched out about how I began to write on different subjects - from myself, to other people, and finally to science. I tie it into wanting to study genes/genetic engineering.
Prospective majors:
For all except MIT, I put Bioengineering or Chemical Engineering (in UCB, w/in the College of Chemistry) for my major. At MIT, and for secondary majors at Stanford, NYU, etc., I put Writing, Journalism, or English.
Schools:
MIT EA
(everything else is RD)
UCD
UCM
UCB
UCSD
UCSC
San Jose State
Cal Poly SLO
Harvard
Stanford
Northeastern
Santa Clara University
University of Chicago
NYU
thanks for reading through this!!
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