Hello,
I did a chance me thread a couple months back, so this is just a recap of that and exactly how I said all of that stuff in my application.
GPA: Actually a 3.85 UW W 4.2. I have 2 Bs in math and a D in PE. But, most of my college classes have like 105 (lowest 97) and I got a 122 in astronomy for my honors research!
Ranking: top 5% now of 420 (public school)
Sat: 1420/1600 M 660 Essay 6 7 6 Never got better, but it did get worse 1390/1600 670 M 720 W
Sat 2: Took in January. LIT and MATH 1
AP: Human Geography (4) U.S. History (no score: couldn’t pay and I’d used all fee waivers). Due to family commitments I ONLY took dual enrollment or online AP courses. I am an honors college student (full time, sophomore) at my local state school.
Hooks: URM (AA Black), Low Income >50,000 for 6/7 people(my pregnant aunt moved in with us) and medical/therapy bills Girl in Astronomy, but I put Humanities for my Harvard app b/c I was worried my math would be too low for astronomy. Researched with 2 profs from Harvard and used alot of their software. Almost first gen: I went to the same school my parents attended 4 months after they graduated.
Awards: Questbridge College Prep Scholar, Competed in philosophy of physics for MIT Inspire last year, Competing in Davidson Fellows this year. I am proposing a very theoretical idea for virtual time travel using sense perception (basically same project as MIT Inspire philosophy of physics). I put a few school/uni wide awards (Dean’s List, High Honors, Science Fairs)
Extracurricular:
-Family Commitment: I am the eldest of 4, and my youngest sister has severe non-verbal autism. As my parents recently graduated college (last year) and are now starting their first careers, I take on most of the responsibility of caring for my sister. Most of my time goes here. This is why decided to do early college and online. Only having two lectures a week, I am able to remain at home the other 3.
-Currently researching a high energy X-ray binary system: Cygnus X1 (may be published)
-Assisted 2 profs from the Harvard CFA write a Hubble Space Telescope proposal to view CEN X4 and SCO X1 (later)
-Minor research in psych: Behavior correction for children with severe non-verbal autism. (will not be published)
-HOSA (only 9,10)
-Drama Club/Courses (10 to current): Didn’t talk about specifically, but I got a rec from my Drama teacher.
-NHS
-State Uni’s Honors Program
-Rotaract Club
-Assisting 2 autistic twins research in astronomy
-Graphic and web design: Small school/uni-wide projects, one state wide, and I’ve designed a few info graphics for the NASA JPL. I wrote the book cover for my uni’s English textbook I did NOT put these in supp. material. I was worried they weren’t good enough. I am regretting it a bit now.
Community Service/Job:
-Alot through my University’s Honors Program. Wrote about being a campus tour guide for adult program students.
-Initiative: Register new voters on my Uni’s campus and the surrounding community. Generally Speaking, the community is low income, young, and African American. So, unfortunately, many voices here do not reach a ballot. I visited political science classes in the spring and gave short presentations about the importance of voting and then registered
the interested to vote.
-Summer volunteer at a local primary school and their community library. I also started working a janitorial job there. I talked about how that helped us buy food when my parents got pay cuts.
-Rotaract Club: Organized several leadership conferences each year. Last year we helped make hundreds of WAPIs (Water Pasteurization Indicators) for donation to a somewhat well known charity.
Essays:
CA: Got really personal. I talked about my parents beating my sister after she used our floors for toilets (she has severe autism, fecal smearing) and how I convinced them to stop. Tied it into how it taught me why it is so important to listen and understand other people’s perspectives no matter who they are.
This was really vivid, but everyone loved it. One of the schools I applied to early action called me and my counselor to talk more about it.
Supplement:
I cried while writing this one. It was a very vivid description of looking up to see my 230 pound sister sitting at the top of our stair rail (wooden balcony type thing in our house) covered in her own feces. I talked about going to get her and just holding her. I talked about how the doctors gave her so many medicines to try to calm her down, but they either made her very aggressive or completely mute/unresponsive. From this, I went to talk about how I have a different perspective on how autistic children could communicate with their loved ones. Involving virtual time travel and sense perception like I discussed before (also touched on this in CA).
I did not put the supplemental essay in the common app, because it was more creative writing and it was closely related to the CA one. I submitted it as a creative writing sample. (IDK if this is okay or if I should call admissions to ask)
Extracurricular Essay:
About teaching mildly autistic twins how to use Harvard’s SAO Ds9 and Microobservatory to analyze the light curves of Cygnus X1 with me. We analyzed over 400 images each, and we may submit our findings to our Uni’s Honors College spring conference!
Recommendations:
Two profs at my Uni. I didn’t read them, but I think they were good.
Counselor: Talked about me doing my best in school, and going to college to learn more.
SCHOOLS:
Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth (lol)
Georgetown
Boston College
Oberlin *Spelling mistake in supplemental essay :’( *
