Please see next post for some more schools and post Admit, waitlist, or rejection predictions, not a chance of reach, match, safety.
Background:
Indian male
~ 200k income
From NY state
Competitive Public high school of class size ~ 300, usually gets about 3 admissions officers to HYPSM total. HYPSM usually never take more than 1 student from our school unless they’re legacy.
Stats:
SAT I: 800M, 780 CR, 780 W (9/12 essay) on only attempt.
SAT II: 800s on math 2, physics, world, u.s history, and chem. 770 and 780 on bio m.
APs: all 5s Calculus BC, World History, Biology, Physics B, U.S History, Statistics (self-study), Physics C both parts, Chemistry, Lang comp.
GPA: 3.92 UW, no weighted. By far my biggest weakness, would be lowest non-legacy gpa to get into a top ~ 10 college in school’s history. Doesn’t help that it’s a downwards trend; aside from a B+ as a 8th grader on honors precalculus due to blowing off HW, straight As up till junior year. In my junior year, I got a B- in AP english language and composition as the teacher is an extremely harsh grader (grades about 20 points lower than the other AP teacher, gave me a 5/9 on practice AP essay (which would make a 5/5 on the AP extremely unlikely), and a 4/6 on the regents practice essay when I got a 6/6 on the actual exam). However, I doubt most colleges will know this and may just assume that I’m another stereotypical asian who just sucks at english and is a tryhard test-taker. (I am actually known in my school for my laziness and would consider myself fairly good, although not brilliant, at English). Doesn’t also help that I got lazy junior year and earned an A- in honors spanish due to late work. Additionally, I received an A- in my first semester creative writing class this year with senioritis, although I have straight As in all my other classes (miraculously).
Class rank: barely in the top 10% if at all.
Course Rigor: very high, have taken more AP exams than anyone has in years, also took linear algebra with differential equations on a full scholarship at the local top 40 university last spring and earned an A. Took Multivariable calculus through my HS as a sophomore, and am currently enrolled in an online probability theory math course through UIUC and a pair of CS courses (through coursera and I need to make an update on this).
Senior year courses: Ap spanish, ap gov pol, apes, ap comp Sci, orchestra, creative writing, literature of social criticism, health, psychology (self-study AP).
Awards: 2x United States of America junior olympiad qualifier (grades 9-10) (have a 50% admit rate to mit, only 250 nationwide out of 200k who take entry level exams), high scorer at American regional mathematics league (~120 people out of 2k participants), 2x high scorer at state math competition; 4th last year. Rennselaer medal (60k merit scholarship to RPI given to 1 junior by participating HSs), national merit semi-finalist, rsi alternate (might be mentioned in rec letter).
ECs (in order from common-app).
Math team: 6-year participant, state qualifier since 8th grade, 2013 team mvp, captain.
Violin: plays for school and local youth orchestra, have played since 3rd grade.
Research internship at local physics laboratory last summer: accomplished nothing of note.
Volleyball: played for school and club teams since 8th grade, accomplished nothing of note.
Mathcounts assistant coach (9-12) saved program after old coach retired, spoke with middle school principal to continue it, have assisted coaches.
HS math circle co-founder: grades 11-12, allow students to participate in more competitions.
Chess team: participated since grade 8, have served as key organizer since grade 9 (no official title), won county championships last year.
Science Olympiad (9-12): pair of state medals, extremely strong performance at regionals competitons. No leadership however, I believe it is a harm.
Hospital volunteering (9-12): ~ 130 hours at a pair of them.
Fbla vice-president (10-12): 2nd, 3rd, 5th last year at states, a single 5th the year before, attended national leadership Confrence in 2014.
Teacher Rec 1; from math team coach and calc III teacher, known me since 7th grad, speaks to incredible accomplishments never done in school history, refers to me as one of her best students, and talks of my leadership skills and growth.
Teacher Rec 2: from grade 10 and current English teacher, Fairly average, says I’m more than what meets the eye, versatile, talks about me winning awards in mun too (where I also probably should have leadership but don’t).
Counselor rec: probably ok, either my ap world or Apush teacher described me as one of their best students ever too in their recs to her, but I unfortunately didn’t ask either for a teacher rec. She said she did quote those parts however, and had the best teacher quotes for me vs any other student (and she has some of my main competitors).
No additional rec
Common app essay: wrote it about internship: lazy topic, not too much substance, lack of mentor rec may be suspicious.
Schools(interview experience, supplementals, competitors, majors).
Stanford (REA): applied for math, somewhat awkward interview, great essays I thought. Had some mix-ups in ECs placed on common app, lower first quarter grades than I ended up with for mid-year. Rejected, a local girl with a below 2200 sat (but high grades and great leaderships and of course sibling alum got in).
MIT: off common app, wrote good essay that spoke to my individuality. Solid interview. Main competitor from my school is an international student with perfect gpa, great Recs, and a solid number of leaderships, but Canadian got him deferred at princeton EA and may similarly ruin him here. Last asian male to get mit from our school was 14 years ago.
Applied for 18C (applied math with CS).
Princeton: same essay as harvard. Good interview though I had some gaffes (notably asking him if he went there for law school (he was a lawyer) based on Carlton and will’s uncle going to princeton law in the fresh prince of bel-air) and him saying mit would be right up my alley, he emailed me randomly 2 weeks later saying he submitted an enthusiastic rec and is wishing me the best. Main competition is the yale kid. I have hopes in princeton’s yield protection; they waitlisted 2 previous star students who both got into harvard, Yale, and stanford (and one of them to mit as well, the other an Asian male with the waitlist). Also applied for math, maybe will change it to applied mathematics.
CMU: good interest essay, terrible interview (she was young and unprofessional, asked around her friends for knowledge about me before she interviewed), trying to get that thrown out. Applied for CS school and applied math as alternate.
Penn: applied for m&t program (engineering Wharton dual degree) with regular EE as a back-up. Skype Interview cut short after m&t alum had personal issue to deal with, only 20 min. Was somewhat awkward. Decent essays.
Duke: ok essay, solid interview. Applied for math in trinity.
Columbia: applied for applied math in engineering. Only ok essays, no interview. Usually takes 2-3 per year from my HS, none so far.
Cornell: good essay I thought, applied to EE, no interview. Will visit againnext week to show interest and see a class. Really hope to get in, they are supposed to like upstate ny and take about 20-30+ kids a year from my school, and the average gpa for once is lower than mine. Here I hope they don’t think I will lower their yield-rate as I think it is unlikely I would.
Please see next post for some more schools and post Admit, waitlist, or rejection predictions, not a chance of reach, math, safety.
