<p>Decision: Rejected</p>
<p>Objective:[ul][<em>] SAT I (breakdown): 2350, 800 CR, 770 Math, 780 Writing
[</em>] SAT II: USH 790, Chinese 770, Chem 800, Math 2 800
[<em>] Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.9-ish, 4.4 weighted
[</em>] Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): All I know is the UCs said top 9%
[<em>] AP (place score in parenthesis): 5 in following: Euro, USH, Calc BC, Chem, Art History, Chinese, Lang
[</em>] Senior Year Course Load: AP Physics B (literally), AP Stats, AP Gov, AP Lit, AP Bio
[<em>] Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.):[/ul] Science Olympiad Regionals 4th in 2 events? not big I know
Subjective:[ul]
[</em>] Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): Music Production (really srs about dis), Video Game Design, Science Olympiad (Technology Manager), Psychology Club (president), member of local orchestra that performed in Australia, linguistics self-study
[<em>] Job/Work Experience: Intern at tech start-up
[</em>] Volunteer/Community service: at tree nursery, tutoring
[<em>] Summer Activities: studying linguistics, programming, volunteering, producing music
[</em>] Essays (rating 1-10, details): Put my personality into full force into all of them, Common App, 7, about me failing to get elected to ASB, cliche-ish but the ending was pretty strong imo
Intellectual Vitality, 9, about the joys of debugging every day
What Matters, 8, about a unique music technique I do
Roommate, no idea 8?, showed my irreverence, yet desire to learn and work together
EC Essay, 7, about volunteering at the tree nursery [/ul]
[<em>] Recommendations (rating 1-10, details):[ul] no numbers because i didn’t read them
[</em>] Teacher Rec #1: APUSH teacher, did a research project with him, and he likes me
[<em>] Teacher Rec #2: Math teacher for 3 years, I was a good student, but not too active in class
[</em>] Counselor Rec: no idea [/ul]
Other[ul]
[<em>] State (if domestic applicant): CA
[</em>] School Type: Public, 500 kids graduate every year
[<em>] Ethnicity: Asian
[</em>] Gender: Male
[<em>] Income Bracket: under $100k
[</em>] Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): none at all[/ul]
Reflection[ul]
[<em>] Strengths: academics, test scores, essays, blasted my personality at every opportunity
[</em>] Weaknesses: no tangible awards or recognition, applying to CS without standing out in that field
[<em>] Why you think you were accepted/waitlisted/rejected: I was super unclear about the awards I did and made them seem like really huge deals, when they weren’t, probably sounded suspicious
[</em>] Where else were you accepted/waitlisted/rejected: no idea yet[/ul]
General Comments: Stanford is the hardest school to get in to in the United States, and it gets worse for Asians applying from California. I love being Asian though (best food evar), and made it clear at various parts of my application, for better or for worse. Plus all the legacy and athlete spots (they totally deserve it, just pointing out that there’s barely any space for a regular person to get in as is) are reserved for EA. Not too bummed about the rejection, since I was fully expecting one. It would have been nice to be done with college apps, but looks like it’s time to start in full force. The essays I have now are pretty solid, though, and I’m sure that they’ll get me into college across the country.
And I’d been thinking about other schools a lot as the decision date neared. I’m pretty glad I didn’t get in to Stanford, actually, because we all know it’s a bubble. While I’d love to be part of it, I can see that going to Stanford would have hindered my music career (which may or may not take off). Looking at colleges in cities with a big music scene right now, so MIT, UC Berkeley, and UCLA are particularly enticing. CMU also has a cool Music program in the CS department, and trying for Princeton, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, UChicago (house producer’s dream school, I tell ya), and Caltech as well.</p>