<p>Choose One:
**Decision: Accepted **</p>
<p>Objective:
SAT I (breakdown): 2300/1520 (800 Math, 720 Reading, 780 Writing (9 essay))
ACT (breakdown): 35 (36 Math, 36 English (11 essay), 35 Reading, 34 Science)
SAT II (place score in parentheses): 800 Math 2, Physics, Biology, 790 Chemistry, 750 US History, 730 Literature
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.77 (upwards trend, extremely difficult courseload)
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): No rank/top 10%
AP (place score in parentheses): NSL (5), Chemistry (5), APUSH (4), BC Calculus (5/5), Biology (4), Chinese L/C (5), English Language/Composition (5), World History (4), Physics B (5).
IB (place score in parentheses): N/A
Senior Year Course Load: AP Environmental Sci, AP Literature, AP Stats, Mol. Bio, MV Calc/Diff Eq, AP Physics C, Health
(Not so) Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): Many chess awards (expert rated USCF/1 international result), math awards (not as major), NMS, AP National Scholar, some others. </p>
<p>[ b]Subjective:**
Extracurriculars (no major “leadership”): Chess: competitor and coach, ranked as a top 100 in age in US, Math: Captain of Math team, competitor (highest scorer in school on multiple math exams); currently writing a mathematics textbook (didn’t say this in application). Ninja Warrior: Obstacle course training; have built obstacles in my backyard to train for when I’m on the show in a few years. Piano: been playing casually for a long time.
Job/Work Experience: NIH Summer internship/Chess coaching
Volunteer/Community Service: Chess Coaching
Summer Activities: NIH internship, chess coaching, chess tournament preparation, math preparation, Ninja warrior training
Essays: I risked it all on the essays;
Common App: Wrote about my experience walking in the streets late at night; revealed my thoughts and contemplations in the tranquil setting. Almost like a “meditation” walk. Anyways, it showed so much about me, because I pretty much summarized my every major thought. It could’ve ended up sounding really really abstruse though, which I was afraid of.
Extended Essay: I felt this was my strongest. Wrote about a town called Nomia, inhabited by even numbers. Each different even number has a different prime factorization, which is a personality. Us humans are just like even numbers. We are all homo sapiens, and that is our common prime of 2. But within each of us, quirks and talents and whatnot are represented by the infinite odd primes. So odd numbers are so odd, well, simply because the odd primes make us odd from one another. (Mathy people will easily find a few holes in the idea, but I thought it was very creative, and felt the adcoms wouldn’t care much about 100% correctness). Also emphasized my passion with mathematics and numbers in general.
Why Uchicago: This one caused me to think I’d have no chance. I accidentally submitted a draft, not the final! It was really cheesy and awkward, but maybe I’m judging too hard? Although it was awkward for me to read, maybe the adcoms thought it was funny? Basically, I got across why Uchic appealed to me: course flexibility, exploration, diversity, highly theoretical (big picture as opposed to details), and academic prowess, ofc. It just wasn’t delivered well at all in the draft. But, UChic is holistic, and maybe they just decided to overlook this one after seeing my other stronger essays.
Optional: Wrote a few sentences and lists of things I liked. Probs didn’t make a huge impact on my decision, but I enjoyed filling it out.
Something interesting (but probs not too consequential) was that I talked about my activity writing a math textbook. I include mathematical exercises, selected from a large test bank of questions I composed. I empathized with the adcoms; when selecting 25 questions out of a hundred suitable questions that are all good for a particular chapter, what can I do but just pick them (or just sit there, wasting time)? It’s the same with college applications, and I basically I said that I understood that, having experienced the same thing (on a lower magnitude) with my book writing.
Teacher Recommendations: I never saw them;
Physics B/C teacher: I don’t know how good it was, but he has a reputation for being able to write strong recs. Probably true! He’s known me for a good while too.
English Lang teacher: she gets probably the most rec requests in the whole school! Probably good, but again, I didn’t see it.
Counselor Rec: Didn’t see it, but she thinks I’m pretty smart.
Additional Rec: N/A
Interview: This was my first ever college interview. While it wasn’t mind-blowingly amazing, it definitely was decent and solid, and I got across pretty much everything I wanted to say. Interviewer was very pleasant and I think she liked me. Lasted around 30-40 mins, and we spent a good amount of time talking about ninja warrior! Could’ve only helped me. </p>
<p>Other
Applied for Financial Aid? Yep
Projected Concentration: STEMmy stuff. Maybe econ, maybe app math.
State (if domestic applicant): MD
Country (if international applicant):
School Type: 2000+ competitive public
Ethnicity: Chinese
Gender: Male
Income Bracket: around 200K/year
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): None, unless chess is considered a hook. </p>
<p>Reflection
Strengths: Extremely rigorous course, very strong 10th/11th grade perf., extended essay
Weaknesses: overall GPA (9th grade), why Uchicago essay,
Why you think you were accepted/deferred/rejected: Basically, I risked it all on my application. I made sure, through my essays, that I would stand out. I didn’t know if it would be in a good or bad way, but I felt that was the only way I’d have a chance. I made sure my essay were atypical and unorthodox, and the risk paid off. My essays could’ve been seen as “weird” or overly complex, but also as highly thoughtful and showing good self-understanding.
UChicago is sooo holistic, so they overlooked my not so stellar gpa for the better parts of my app.
Where else you are applying or have already applied: UMD, UMBC, Emory, Cornell, Rice, JHU, GT, Vandy, UCB, UCLA
General Comments/Advice/Hindsight: I’m really happy I got in! I’ve been so nervous! Good luck to everyone else who’s been deferred. I would highly recommend keeping up contact with Chicago and making sure that you make yourself really stand out.
For most people, I don’t think it’s gonna be about the grades/test scores/objectives, but the fit. I feel Uchicago is careful to only select students who they feel will thrive at their university. So, if you’re rejected/deferred, it may not be your achievements, but simply the “fit”. </p>