I'm sorry for the cross post. However this is killing me. I need some kind of closure, please? Columbia was my first choice. I got:



Accepted

UArk



Waitlisted

Yale



Rejected

Harvard

Columbia

Stanford

Princeton

Brown

Dartmouth

UPenn

MIT

Caltech





Objective:

SAT I (breakdown): 2400 (taken October sophomore year)

ACT (breakdown): 35 (only took once June freshman year)

SAT II: 800 Math II / 800 Chemistry / 800 Physics / 800 French / 790 Spanish

Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 4.0

Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 1/500ish

AP (place score in parenthesis): BC Calc (5), Chemistry (5), Physics C (5), English CompLit (5), APUSH (5), Chinese (5), French (5), Macro (5), Micro (5). Self-studied for half of these.

IB (place score in parenthesis): [N/A]

Senior Year Course Load: WHAP, AP Bio, AP Comp Sci, AP Music, Advanced French (higher than AP), gym, philosophy (AP not offered, just a chill class). Dual enrolled at UARK for real analysis and Honors Physical Chemistry. Independent study with the professor I did research with over the summer.

Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): made the USAMO 10th, 11th, 12th grade, (scored a 1 and 3, third time the charm?). Won state science fair but gave up my place at Intel fair due to a schedule conflict. National AP Scholar. National Physics Olympiad. National Merit. Some state and city piano things, idk if "major".



Subjective:



Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): Student Government (President). National Honor Society (President). Varsity Tennis (Vice Captain). Varsity Track (Vice Captain). Mathletes (Captain solely by virtue of making USAMO). Physics Olympiad (founded at my school, Captain of 4 people Played piano since I was 4, only some minor awards.

Job/Work Experience: [N/A]

Volunteer/Community service: Common Core tutoring for high school students and Boys and Girls club since sophomore year. Founded a districtwide college prep program to bring undergrads at UArk schools to talk to and provide one-on-one college counseling/test prep to students in underperforming public high schools. At one point had 20 college students and 100+ high school students. Habitat for Humanity (2 years). Charity drives through my high school to raise money for MSF in Syria.

Summer Activities: Did unpaid research in physical chemistry at UARK for 2 summers, have a paper "in the works".

Essays (rating 1-10, details): Thought it was a 10? I wrote about how working at different Arkansas public schools helped me to come to terms with my privilege middle-class Asian male with parents who value education. The interwoven exempli gratia was learning Spanish on my own outside school to communicate with a lot of students whom I tutored who were immigrants, which I am independently very proud of, in counterpoint to my having chosen French as a stupid freshman because I thought it was a more "elegant" language. My English teacher told me it was the best she'd ever read.



Supplement essay: my passion for the Core (of course) but also unrepresented voices such as Native Americans and PoC. I meant it to dovetail with my main essay.

Recommendations (rating 1-10, details):



Teacher Rec #1: 10 - aforesaid English teacher, who taught me in AP English as the only sophomore in a class of seniors. She LOVES me

Teacher Rec #2: 9-10 - Physics teacher, went to Columbia. He is more reserved but I got a really good vibe from him, like if no one in the class can solve a problem he mocks resignation and asks me to go up to solve it. He asked me if I wanted to help him start a Physics Olympiad team.

Counselor Rec: 10 - worked with him to start my program. Apparently the number of APs I took and how early I took them was "unprecedented" - he showed the rec to me and it was sincere but almost embarrassingly praiseful, to the point where I almost asked him to tone it down.

Additional Rec: Research supervisor at UARK. Honestly I don't know how good - he seems to like me and was really surprised as a high schooler I knew what physical chemistry was and wanted to go into it, but compared to him I'm an idiot. He hasn't had high schoolers in his lab before which could be a plus (I was very persistent) or a minus (no idea how to write a college rec).



Interview: 8. Interviewed with a lawyer who kept talking about herself. Most of what she said had to do with Columbia Law and told me she had no idea about "that science stuff". She was impressed by my volunteer resume though and said she thought I'd be a great fit?



Other



Applied for Financial Aid?: Yes

Intended Major: Chemistry and Physics

State (if domestic applicant): Arkansas

Country (if international applicant): US Citizen

School Type: Large public

Ethnicity: Chinese

Gender: Male

Income Bracket: $200,000-250,000

Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): Research in physical chemistry in high school, enrolled this year in a PChem class, started a volunteer program, started a club. However even though my Spanish isn't perfect what I am most proud of is learning Spanish independently



Reflection



Strengths: Loaded up on APs sophomore and junior year to show colleges evidence of being able to handle college level work. I test well.

Weaknesses: Asian. Possible weak add'l rec? Bad interview? Essay topic was patronizing? I don't know, I really really don't know.

Why you think you were accepted/deferred/rejected:

Where else were you accepted/deferred/rejected:



General Comments: I am speechless, numb, beside myself. Presumptuous as it sounds, I can't shake the feeling that there has been some mistake. My first rejections were Caltech and MIT but I rationalized to myself that I wanted to do academia, not engineering and I think it showed. The first few were disappointing but I had braced myself; good people get rejected, the officers said, but they always end up getting accepted somewhere just as good, they said. As the rejects piled up however I am questioning my self-worth, everything I have worked for I did it not for college but because I wanted to. I was arrogant - or perhaps gullible - and believed the college officers when they said my "genuine passion" would shine through. I had the mistaken confidence that I fit the college moulds without having to compromise and force myself to do for the resume what I didn't want to do.



Now I am consumed with regret. Is it really this hard? Gosh I knew it was a little harder for Asians but can it be this much harder? I keep futilely replaying scenarios in my head, even the really stupid ones, tormented by the 'what if' - what if I hadn't dropped MUN because I hated it? What if I had pushed a little harder to be Track Captain? What if I had pushed my supervisor to put me on a paper I only did a little for? What if I asked him to show me his rec? Was there one thing I could change about my app to turn everything the other way around?



Yale is my only hope now. I almost didn't apply to UArk and /can't/ go there - no disrespect to the school, but it doesn't have the programs or the opportunities for me to pursue my dreams. The people I know there acknowledge as much. Creating this post was like a shot in the dark for me - I've read CC but never posted or even commented. I'm looking for answers, for closure. What did I do wrong? Please?



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