Chance me for Ivy Leagues, especially Harvard!! :D
Demographics/Stats:
- GPA: 3.3 UW 3.6 W (My overall final grade in Turkey is 80, I was like in top %3 in school)
- Intended Major: Evolutionary Biology for Undergrad
- ACT: 35
- I am a Turkish student and not an American citizen btw
Extracurriculars: (I will just summarize them)
I worked next to an electrician and learned how to fix electronics and used my new knowledge to fix my laptop that had been broken for 5 years
I lived in a village 150 km away from the nearest city and worked as a beekeeper and a shepherd for 3 months
I did research on local history, contacted villagers for the source of spolia material, and later on found an undocumented Roman structure beneath ground level. Then I reached out to the local university's archaeology department head, and they came to the site and documented the structure
I did research on geologic formations, learned how to read the maps and layers, and I used my knowledge to find fossils in the formation. I ended up forming a Devonian fossil collection, categorised every fossil, and found new species that hadn't been found in the formation before in Istanbul; I reached out to a university, and they took the findings in
I tutored middle school kids, and I wrote a novel on cosmic horror 400 pages long
I self-volunteered to work as a tour guide in Istanbul and gave tours to all kinds of people, some taking even more than 6 hours at single locations
I travelled to 62 cities in Turkey and met people from different cultures. I worked alongside them, I learned their history and their food culture
I read over 780 books in my life and studied Turkish and Russian literature. I also wrote some articles and published them on one of Turkey's most famous science platforms
I also worked in constructionS voluntarily, but that was literally child labour smh smh smh (I mean, I got to meet some Russian women, that was worth it)
These all feel lame omg, I could have done so much better in my free time 😭 (We dont have school clubs in Turkey, so sad, isn't it?)
Awards:
- I was in the first %0.02 (255th out of 1.15 million people) in YKS's social sciences branch (YKS is Turkey's university exam)
- I was in the first %4 in YKS's english branch
- I was in the first %2.88 in YKS's literature + math section
For extra idk:
In primary school, I achieved a perfect score on the nationwide BİLSEM (I guess they are like the most perfect school in Turkey for primary education?) entrance exam, an institutional selection process designed to identify the top 1–2% of gifted and talented students in Turkey. And I achieved a perfect score on the Oxford English B1 exam during 5th grade (I learned English all by myself at such a young age, wow, am proud of myself right now). (Also, the school promised me a tablet. WHERE IS MY TABLET!!!!)
For recommendation letters:
I might get the head excavator of Troy and a professor from the uni I sent the fossils to write me recommendation letters? Maybeh? Would it be worth it?
Essay:
I am really good at story telling, so I trust myself with this one (The only thing I trust myself with)
The schools am considering:
Harvard, Yale, MIT, Brown, Dartmouth, Harvard, Yale, MIT, Brown, Dartmouth, NYU, UT Dallas and Texas A&M
Chance me!!
Btw, the reason my GPA is low is kinda sad. So you see, they used to hand us these tryout exams for YKS, and in every single one of them I was in the top 3 of the school in EVERY branch, and eh they didn't like it. Some arguments happened; they accused me of cheating blah blah blah. And they give us these "participation grades," you see. One time I got 80 on the first physics exam, 100 on the second, and she gave me 50/50 in participation, dropping my grade from 90 to a 70. And this was the case for most of my lessons, so yea, kinda disappointing.