**Decision: Rejected **
Objective:
[ul][]SAT I (breakdown): Did not submit
[]ACT (breakdown): 35 (36E, 36M, 36R, 33S, and a 12 on Writing)
[]SAT II: 800 M2, 800 Lit, 780 Bio-M
[]Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.93 (4.53 Weighted)
[]Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): My school doesn’t offer rank, but I was salutatorian, so I know I was 2nd.
[]AP (place score in parentheses): Latin (5), APUSH (3), Calc BC (5), Stats (5), Physics I (5), Chem (5), Bio (5), Lang (5), Lit (5), CSP (5), World (5)
[]Senior Year Course Load: AP Lit, AP CSP, Calc 3 (at a college), Linear Algebra (at a college), AP Stats, Literary Magazine
[]Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): National Merit Scholar Finalist[/ul]
Subjective:
[ul][]Extracurriculars (place leadership in parentheses): I mostly played tennis—about 40 hours a week—and not going to lie, I was pretty good at it too. That is to say, I was one of the best in the country for my age, but I got injured and while I’m still playing it, I’m by no means as good as I used to be. I also have been playing piano for about 13 years now.
[]Job/Work Experience: I’m in the midst of a gap year and participated in various internships.
[]Volunteer/Community service: I used to volunteer about 15 hours a week at a Rape Recovery Center. I also used to work as a Teacher’s Assistant.
[]Summer Activities: Mostly tennis given that it’s like a full time job.
[]Essays: I’d like to think my essays were quite good. My CA essay discussed family hardships I’ve been through and how I discovered my identity through reading. My “creative” essay, I created my own prompt and wrote about post-structuralism in daily life. My Why Chicago essay discussed the uniqueness of the school and the desire to learn; I quoted some of my favorite professors and discussed classes I wanted to take.
[]Teacher Recommendation: I didn’t read mine, but I’d like to think they were good?
[]Counselor Rec: Same as above.
[]Additional Rec: n/a
[]Interview: I requested one, but did not have one.
[]Supplementary Material: I submitted me performing a piano piece. I also had the tennis coach’s support.[/ul]
Other
[ul][]Applied for Financial Aid?: Yup
[]State (if domestic applicant): I moved around a lot, but generally on the West Coast and Intermountain West
[]Country (if international applicant): US
[]School Type: Private
[]Ethnicity: Multiracial
[]Gender: Male
[]Income Bracket(mention if FA candidate): My dad is wealthy (250k+), my mom is middle class (around 60k I believe)
[]Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): I was a recruited athlete.[/ul]
Reflection
[ul][]Strengths: Not going to lie, I tend to think I had most things going for me. I was a top athlete, top student; I know I’m a great writer.
[]Weaknesses: I tend to think I’m a very strong athlete.
[]Why you think you were accepted/waitlisted/rejected: To be honest, I don’t really know. While I’m certainly disappointed about my rejection, I respect the admissions office decision, and whatever happens happens, and there’s nothing I can do now.
[]Where else were you accepted/waitlisted/rejected: So I’m in the midst of a gap year, so I’ll do both last year and this year. Last year I was accepted to Yale (RD), Cornell (RD), USC, Cambridge, NYU (RD), Georgetown (Deferred EA, Accepted RD), UMich (EA). I was rejected from Princeton (RD) and UVA (EA).
This year, thus far, I was accepted to MIT (EA), and McGill. I was deferred from UChicago (EA, and now rejected), and Columbia (ED). I also applied to Georgetown, Princeton, Yale (received a likely letter last week), Brown, Swarthmore, Carleton, Davidson, and probably some others that I’m forgetting about.[/ul]
**General Comments: ** Congratulations if you got in! If you didn’t, don’t worry about it too much. Getting rejected sucks, I know, especially from your top school (I really wanted to go to Princeton last year and got rejected, and obviously, I did apply ED2 to Chicago and I just got rejected).
