What did I do wrong?

Applying to College Admission Stories
21

Looking back–yeah, maybe some of it was the essays (been reading over a couple of them, cringed a little but then again, 20/20 hindsight and all), maybe it was having a controversial extracurricular (wrote about firearms and the shooting sports in many of my essays, probably got a black mark from some of the liberals in charge of adcoms), maybe, as I’ve wondered, it could have just been being an Asian male.

I took a lot of inspiration for my Common App essay from Kwasi Enin (the Ghanaian-American guy who’d swept the Ivy League last year), who’d written his essay about music but then outright declared at the end that he’d just study medicine and be a doctor–not a musician. Thus I thought that writing about a hobby that didn’t necessarily have much to do with my intended major could work (and this hobby, writing that novel, was something that I’d legitimately sunk a lot of time and effort into), but I suppose that I miscalculated on that.

By contrast, a friend of mine who’d gotten into some very nice schools showed me his essays–and they didn’t particularly reveal anything that he DID, just showed his general thoughts and interest about the STEM field he planned on going into. His Common App essay (that I actually helped him with) was very personal, but not 1 in a million unique by his own admission.

So I don’t know. I really don’t know. My history teacher told me that if I’d tried again with identical essays and stats the previous year or the next year, things could’ve been wholly different.

I mean, this year only 2 Asian males in my entire school can be said to have “won,” in terms of the Ivy League and Ivy League-tier schools, a sharp drop from the 15 or so last year. Those were the two who’d made it into Columbia. Of these two, only one was the absolute wunderkind I saw coming; the other was a black sheep admit who frankly Buddha himself couldn’t have seen coming. The other Asian males were sentenced either to Berkeley like me or smaller private institutions that frankly I never heard of; the others who’d made it into the top schools were girls, URMs, or URM girls.

@sattut I disagree about the college adviser. I knew many people this year who spent $3000 on them and ended up at a UC school, and others who’d gone at it alone (with limited teacher/parent editing) and ended up at an Ivy. Granted that’s anecdotal evidence–but nevertheless I believe that it doesn’t take hours of doctoring and thousands of your parents’ money to write something that reflects your personality.

22

Right, but obviously the novel essay didn’t work, maybe wasn’t convincing, or seemed like it was artificial, and didn’t reflect who you really were. Not sure if you needed lots of doctoring, but maybe professional advice on the essay and where to apply to would have been helpful.

23

As far as how the other Asian males in your school did, they obviously weren’t valedictorians, and they probably didn’t have your test scores.

You were not only accepted at UCs. You got into Amherst. If you had applied to places like Johns Hopkins, Duke, Washington StL, Haverford, Swarthmore, Georgetown, etc., you would have gotten into some of them. Maybe you would have gone to Berkeley anyway, but that doesn’t mean you could only get into Berkeley. Seems like it makes a lot of sense to pick Berkeley, as you are instate and it has a good EE/CS program.

IMO you probably made some mistakes in the applications/essays and where to apply to.

24

@Firebolt1176

My honest assessment? No one, including your guidance counselor, helped you manage your expectations. And, you have a tin ear.

25

@circuitrider Hey–maybe you’re right. I talked this over with my father some more, and his opinion–in our dealings with my guidance counselor–was that she’d underestimated me and thus wrote a lackluster letter of recommendation for me. And hey, maybe I do have a “tin ear.” I looked over my essays over the past week, and honestly speaking would’ve written from a different angle on different subjects if I had the opportunity to do it all over again.

@sattut Yeah, ultimately what made me pick Berkeley was the money and the engineering factor; the only places truly “better” than it in prestige, MIT and Stanford, were non-options for me. The other schools that you mentioned were ones that I were considering, but with 19 schools already on the plate I elected not to apply to them.

The one decisive error I believe I made was selecting ROTC, firearms, and the shooting sports to write about in my essays; I dedicated a section of my novel essay to these things. From what I understand, the vast majority of admissions officers hold politically liberal viewpoints and (though they SAY they value all perspective, they are only human like the rest of us) may’ve reacted unfavorably to my interests. Of course there are going to be some outliers (for me, Cooper Union and Amherst) who looked past those things, but in retrospect, I believe most schools didn’t appreciate this kind of ideological diversity.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-myth-of-american-meritocracy/
(The bulk of the article, dealing with the question of Jewish admits, is somewhat suspect to say the least. But Ctrl+F “ROTC” and you’ll find the relevant bit.)

26

@Firebolt1176 . Your stats are amazing. And so is UCB EECS. My son has quite a few friends with similar stats who have gone into that program over the last couple years. They are all relatively happy and certainly challenged by the program. You are going to one of the best programs in the world. Study hard (and fight the grade deflation) and you can do an Ivy grad school if you still have the itch in 4 years.

The gun angle probably didn’t help you but I would have loved your app and put it right at the top of all the admit piles.

You are going to have a great degree and probably a great life. Enjoy your awesomeness. And the public school tuition.

27

OP should definitely get into a top graduate school. There is some issue with quotas with graduate school admissions, but it is based much more an academic qualifications, not on ECs, essays, or other “holistic” factors.

Shooting probably didn’t make OP seem dangerous, but might not have been a plus. It doesn’t make him seem social or creative.

The novel would be great if it was believable. Did open publish stories in some school paper or something? Was the novel or parts of it available to view online? Was OP’s writing style in the essays consistent with being a novelist. I am not sure if the admissions staffs were sure there really was a novel. If they didn’t believe it, it could be a significant negative.

I don’t mean to add insult to injury, but OP’s academic qualification are so good, it seems likely that his application must have made a bad impression that he didn’t get accepted at a little better schools than he did.

28

@sattut Yeah, I’ve heard that grad school admissions focus much more on the person you have become, rather than the person that they think you will become. For this reason I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I’ll do well over the next 4 years and have better fortune if/when I apply to grad school.

And let me put it this way–during my application season, there was a lot of fallout on the news over random nutters shooting up public places, and all the usual debate about gun control afterward. I think it’s at least plausible that this could’ve had a significant effect on my results, the more I think about it.

The believability aspect was something that I’d considered when I’d written up my essay; my safeguard against it was to have my teachers confirm its existence in their letters of recommendation; I sent a copy to my history teacher. My thinking was–a lot of successful essays banked on personal anecdotes, whether it was a conversation over making dumplings or a philosophical trip to the beach. Who can “confirm” that these stories happened, and weren’t just the result of creative writing? By contrast, I made sure to give a detailed account of the novel I’d written up and how it related to my life, on top of the teachers that I had vouch for me.

Finally–well, the results are what they are. And I agree with your statement. But when you consider that there are many thousands of applicants with stats just as good as mine, I believe that what made this “bad impression” was that what made me different, made me look deviant and unpalatable instead.

29

Maybe it’s cliched, but you will probably do very well no matter where you go. You didn’t get your credentials by being a mediocre student.

If it were me I’d use this as motivation to go out and do great things. Where you go to school does not define who you are as a person.

It definitely hurts but this can also be a great turning point in your life if you use it the right way.

Good luck.

30

@Firebolt1176 I feel ya man. I had similar stats (not quite as accomplished, but a 2300 SAT, decent extracurriculars and GPA, etc).

MIT: deferred, later rejected
Caltech: deferred, later rejected
Stanford: rejected
Carnegie Mellon: waitlisted, later rejected
Princeton: rejected
UPenn: waitlisted, didn’t accept waitlist

Accepted to Cornell, GIT, RPI and RIT.

It sucks getting rejected from so many schools, but honestly Berkeley is an amazing school too. Also, looking back, I realize I shouldn’t have applied to so many reach schools and should’ve balanced my list with safeties and target schools.

31

OK, I’ll bite. Yes, a private counselor would have helped. You are obviously a strong student but your list looks like you threw applications at all the top schools to see what would stick. 19 apps is too many, and that often affects the quality of the essay specific to each school, which is super important for many of those schools. A good counselor would have tried to help you see that. You want EE and CS? Perhaps Columbia, Wharton and Williams should have been scratched from the list. And Cal is a great option-- congrats. But your friend "only " got to choose between MIT and Penn? Really?? Come on .

32

I think a lot of the schools OP applied to don’t have EE/CS programs. So yes, I think he could have paired the list. Also, could have applied to more schools at a slightly lower level than Ivies.

No offence, but I am still not convinced that OP wrote a novel, so the admissions people probably weren’t either, which would make it a big negative.

33

@sattut Then what would have been your recommendation? Attach a whole copy of the novel to the application?

34

Published it, probably.

35

Then that was my mistake, then. I hadn’t written the book in full until right around the time college apps started, and while I would’ve liked to get it published and written out then I had no time. I suppose that Nixon’s quote about doing things halfway applies here.

36

You weren’t admitted into Caltech either and Caltech doesn’t even use affirmative action, so that may not necessarily be the reason why.

37

I might just chalk this up to the vagaries and unpredictability of the college application process. Berkeley is an excellent school and I wish you the best if times there.

38

As far as the novel, you could self publish it, perhaps as an ebook. Also, you could make all or part of it viewable on online in various ways. You could include a short excerpt with your application.

39

You got into Berkley, so I’d say tou did nothing wrong…

As for the “tin ear”, I’m not sure you “get” that comment…when you phrase things like, “he only got into mIT and Princeton”, or “didn’t horizontally sweep”, it shows you don’t really understand the process realities. NO one gets into those school, and that guy got into both! wow. Tens of thousands of kids get rejected from Berkley…you got in. Wow. Why would anyone even apply to all the ivys, let alone think they could sweep them? Even the smartest guy at Google could not sweep the top 10 jobs in the US, as they are all so different, and he would not be qualified for all of them.

Be proud. Who cares if X# ivy league schools rejected you? You got into a dream school. It sounds like your dream though was to get into many dream schools, which is just ego. Let it go and be proud of your accomplishments. I’m giving you a kick in the pants here. You need it. Be proud of what you did, not envious or resentful (useless emotions).

40

This is a pretty interesting thread in terms of lessons learned. OP has academics that would get most people into everywhere. One lesson is that shooting is not a good thing to put on your application, unless you are on the Olympic team or something. You want something a little more warm and fuzzy. If you had a novel, you could include excerpts or something. You should want to find a way to show them something about it. I don’t think you convinced them that there was a novel, and that was also a big negative. You need to show things real about yourself and preferably give the impression you are interesting, talented outside academics, and social.

I also had problems with my college applications a long time ago. My high school record and education was a little messed up, and I handled the applications process poorly and did not have good advice. I also may have had issues with quotas. I didn’t like where I was going, and transferred to Johns Hopkins. This was way above the school I was going to and I was very happy with that. I only had 800 on one SAT II. It was a good and bad experience at Johns Hopkins, and it wasn’t the school most suited to me.

As others have pointed out, EE/CS at Berkeley is an excellent choice if that is what you want to study. However, if you want to transfer, you should have good chances it some more prestigious schools. You also should get into a top graduate school. A lot of people go to Berkeley for financial reasons, because they don’t want to travel to the east, and/or it is a top university. It will look fine to have a degree from there presumably with top grades.