Ima junior in high school, from south India.
I’m multilingual- fluent in 8 Languages (4 Indian and 4 foreign languages including English,Hindi,Telugu,Kannada,Sanskrit,German,French,American sign language)
School basketball team (played for school)
School Indian classical kuchipudi, folk dance team( best dancer at school)
Editor of school magazine
Founder of school English editorial department
Since I can’t do APs, I’m doing courses on Edx . Courses-Philosophy and critical thinking, minds and machines, cosmology, violent universe, contract Law, intellectual property, right to freedom of speech and few more .
Major interests- astronomy, law and philosophy.
Note- I’m currently working on my theory of dualism which is pretty epic. Will write it under research supplement.
I usually get above 95% marks, and a 10/10 GPA.
Considering I do well on the SAT, do you think I have a chance at Cornell ?
Definitely, Cornell as a whole looks for diverse students-- not just: racially, socioeconomically, or any other diversities but intellectually is the key. You depict a clearly diverse academic life, and you have some good EC’s on your resume as well. As you stated, your SAT performance will be critical in your decision but I would categorize you as a likely shot for acceptance.
Thank you very much for taking the time and effort to reply. I’ve been having so much anxiety lately and this helped me!
And also, do you think it’s a good idea to write about my issues with eating disorder and depression? I’m not planning on making it pathetic, I want it to be humorous and I want to focus more on what I learned from it and how it has changed me. Or would you consider it to be too personal? And also, I’m from a traditional South Indian family and it took me years to convince my parents to send my to America for college. Cornell is my only chance as my parents agreed to send me only if I get into an Ivy League college as they cannot pay the fees for other colleges. Do you think this helps with the diversity, and should I include it in my essay?
As someone else whose major interests are in philosophy and law (in fact I’ll be double majoring in Philosophy and Law), and as someone who will be attending an elite university (The University of Chicago) next year, I highly recommend based on my personal experience that you should play up your interest in philosophy especially, and law. And absolutely stress your research inquiry into dualism (very interesting by the way; I would love to hear more about it). Being Indian will not help you (one of the most competitive countries for college admission), so don’t play that up too much, and I don’t think you should focus too much on the depression and eating disorder unless you really want to, as it’s not really as unique as you think. Philosophy, though, and I can say this with a lot of confidence, is unique and will help you stand out. What is your intended major by the way?
I plan to double major in Philosophy and astronomy, or a major in Philosophy with a minor in Astronomy. But I’m still open to other majors, I want to do a few courses and see what interests me but a major in Philosophy is for sure.
And how can I play up my interest in philosophy, I am planning to read a few books, is there anything else I could do? And what would be a good topic to write my essay about- my dog, eating disorder stuff, my favorite book, food or my family background? And yes I would like to share my idea with you. It’s more like a strong evidence for dualism.
@DiyaYolo My entire application was based on philosophy. My CommonApp essay was based on how a fear of death inspired my love for philosophy, which in turn inspired my interests in law (philosophy of law and political philosophy), as well as business (business ethics). I made a connection to philosophy was directly related to all of my extracurriculars. I don’t know if that applies to you, but if it does, you could potentially go that route. I wrote my additional info listing philosophy and history college-level online courses I have taken (similar to what you have done), and I also wrote about 200 words on a research topic as well (mine was on modern ethics, which is a little more closely in line with my interests). You could approach it the same way as I did (with different topics of course since mine don’t apply to you), but in reality pick the topic that best demonstrates you as a student, learner, future college student, etc. Sometimes those topics may be as minute as a favorite book. I could not answer that question for you, but what I can tell you is, if you can show just as much about yourself with a unique topic as with an ordinary one, go for the unique one. Admissions counselors are reading thousands of frankly boring essays (I’ve helped a lot of people applying to Ivy League schools edit their essays because they have asked me for help, and most of them either didn’t show me something about them, or they frankly just weren’t interesting. Generally, ones that show something will be interesting, but uniqueness always helps if it shows something.)
Also, I would come back here after you have taken the SAT’s because we’re missing that crucial piece of information from your profile. If you come back with a 1500 (I’m assuming it will be the new version), then you should be in decent shape.
Are you planning to apply ED to Cornell? Based on your interests, you seem like an excellent fit (if you’re willing to brave the rural coldness of upstate New York). Cornell is excellent for philosophy (personally, I didn’t apply because I wanted to live in an urban area). Good luck!
@jarrett211 yes I will be applying for ED . Yeah I know it’s cold, but it’s my favorite uni and I always wanted to go there.my cousins live 3:30 hrs away in Bluebell so there shouldn’t be much problem. I thought since I can write about my intellectual vitality in the 650 Cornell supplement essay, maybe I should write about something else that reveals my personality?