East Asian Male bags Stanford REA, but rejected from every UC (ESSAYS MATTER BRUH)
edit: sorry im not publicly releasing my essays
Edit 2: stop dming me for my essays im not giving them to u bruh
Demographics
Gender: M
Race/Ethnicity: East Asian
Residence: Northeast, high school in city, live in suburban area
Income Bracket: Lower Upper
Type of School: Private somewhat competitive
Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): Legacy Cornell, UC Berkeley, UCLA
Intended Major(s): Applied Computational Biology/Bioengineering/Biomedical Engineering as 1st major depending on school offerings
Always did English/Creative Writing 2nd.
3rd major varied. Yale I did math and philosophy, some schools I did philosophy, others I did engineering things like biomechanical engineering for Stanford.
Academics
GPA (UW/W): 97.03/99.81 Rank (or percentile): Top 10% no rank (I think I was ~7th) Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc: 4 AP, 2 DE, max honors Senior Year Course Load: AP Physics, Combinatorics, Multivariable Calculus, Multivariable Calculus, Proof Based Multivariable Calculus (DE), Differential Equations (DE), Graph Theory, Topics in College Math (Weird mix of game theory, probstats, some intro analysis, combinatorics, other graph theory. was a very weird class ngl), Latin V (after AP), Creative Writing, Another random English elective
Standardized Testing
List the highest scores earned and all scores that were reported.
SAT I: 1560 (770RW, 790M) AP/IB: 5s on English Language, BC Calculus, Latin, CSA, Physics C Mechancs(Senior year so no score when applying) 4 on Euro. School didn't offer many APs and I self studied English and Euro
Other (ex. IELTS, TOEFL, etc.): NA
Extracurriculars/Activities
List all extracurricular involvements, including leadership roles, time commitments, major achievements, etc.
These are really vague to avoid doxxing myself. If you know who I am dm me so i can delete the post ty
- Research intern at lab at local T20 University doing clinical research on a specific disease with a computational/data science emphasis. Started this summer after Freshman year. My work wasn't super amazing bc my mentor didn't rly know how to help me and I'm kind of stupid but it was really interesting and I spent a lot of time on it.
- Independent engineering project building a device to help diagnose and monitor said disease for low cost that was later picked up by a research group with members all over the globe.
- Similar independent engineering project as before with similar goals, but that didn't pick up as much as it required a lot of difficult engineering I struggled to pull off on my own.
- Summer research program in that was honestly really bad bc it was free and online but I managed to manifest an independent project out of it (bioinformatics research) and presented at a conference as 1st author.
- Athletics. Was top 50 in the country for my sport and my school's team was consistently top ~20 in the nation. This one meant a lot to me because I started in 8th grade and really wanted to get recruited to play D1 but ultimately didn't take any offers. Quite honestly trained about ~20 hours a week but reported 15.
- Co-founded school science publication/magazine
- Editor-in-chief of award winning school literary-arts magazine
- Leader of hospital volunteering group that combined writing and volunteering
- Summer writing program (one of kenyon/iowa/sewanee/yyww/juniper)
- Co-Leader of school science club
Additional info: Explained my publications for my 1st internship (1st auth in progress, 2nd and 4th on different manuscripts) Also reported my published writing in various lit mags. I published in all genres, but my focus shifted a lot towards poetry.
Awards/Honors
List all awards and honors submitted on your application.
- Honorable mention on small-ish olympiad related to bio/medicine
- Scholarship to dual enroll at T20 University for free as a result of being a top scorer on an advanced mathematics exam in the state. Got to skip linear algebra requirement to enroll in classes due to status as a scholarship student.
- Honorable mention on another small stem-related olympiad
- Awards for school literary magazine
- John Locke Essay Competition finalist (Theology)
Letters of Recommendation
BC Calculus Teacher: I didn't like math at all until I took his class junior year. Over the next year, I locked in super hard and got really into learning math and physics and he told me I was one of his favorite students and agreed to write my rec even though he was retiring. Probably an okay rec. Based on his report card comments I don't think he's an amazing writer, and also when I asked for his RSI rec he forgot about it until the day before when I asked him lol. I'd guess like 6/10
English 11 Teacher: He was my advisor through high school and oversaw the literary-arts magazine. He knew a lot about my creative writing and philosophy writing endeavors and had a career as a writer so his was probably pretty good. I think he thought really highly of me (higher than what I deserve for sure lmao), but that's also because the average student at my school struggles to put together a coherent paragraph without chatgpt so finding a student who actually liked writing and STEM was probably mind blowing. I'd guess like 8/10
Research Mentor for EC 1: TBH I've met him twice in person, once at a research conference and once at a lab dinner at his house. I don't think he knows me super well except I am doing research in high school which he still thinks it's kind of insane even though everyone and their mom is doing it now. He's really kind and generous though and I'll always be grateful for him for taking me on but I don't know how highly he sees me. He's a really good writer though so I'd guess like 7/10.
School counselor: Thought really highly of me, and we connected really well. I ranted to her a lot about how much I hated high school and how nobody likes me because I do well in school and am passionate about things and whatnot so she really felt for me. She thought my writing was really good as well and would tell me things like "if anybody gets into these schools it's you." Probably 7/10
Interviews
Stanford and MIT interviews went really well. Stanford especially. I talked a lot about wanting to do MD PHD and my mentor did ug+mdphd at Stanford and really resonated with many of the things I said. I kept in touch with her after getting in, and she gave me advice on what to enroll in this upcoming fall. MIT interview I yapped a lot about research, writing, music, philosophy and I think made a pretty good impression. I'd guess like 8/10 Stanford 7/10 MIT.
Essays
I spent a looooooooooot of time writing my essays over the summer. I got smited by summer programs and was unbelievably terrified for apps and as a writer, ended up grinding out essays like crazy. I started in April junior year and followed the process of "if I have an idea even if it sounds shit in my head I will write it out and decide after that." My final document of drafting for my Stanford supplementals was ~75k words after I finished lol.
I personally think my personal statement was the best essay I could've written and fit my profile perfectly. I tied together my interests in theology, space, philosophy, medical research (particularly my disease of interest), and art. My school counselor started cried a lil bit after reading it even though it wasn't a trauma essay or anything. I'd say this is probably the only 10/10 on my application and 100% the reason I was admitted.
My Stanford supplementals were also very good in my opinion. I don't want to be specific about what I wrote about but my counselor read them and said "if you don't get into Stanford with these essays, then it's impossible." I'd say these were a 9/10
My MIT supplementals were kind of bad ngl. I wasn't sure if I wanted to apply after getting Stanford and ended up just throwing together something a few days before. I only applied because a bunch of my best friends got in EA and really wanted me to go. I also didn't get to send in my personal statement which I think transformed my profile from "anotha asian kid in research" to actually interesting and compelling. I'd say these were like a 3/10 or 4/10 aka really bad
My UC essays were ok, but I heard online they're not supposed to be flowery or elegant so I suppressed my writing style a lot. I'd say these were like a perfect 5/10. Not stellar, but they got the point across
Vanderbilt was literally my Stanford supplementals with some random vandy stuff substituted in. It didn't fit as well but the essay was still like a 7 or 8/10 imo.
Decisions (indicate ED/EA/REA/SCEA/RD)
Acceptances: Stanford (REA) UVA (EA) (Rodman Scholars Program admit) UMD (EA) (Didn't get into the honors program lmao)
Waitlists: Vanderbilt (kept application in because I applied for the Cornelius Vanderbilt scholarship) Rejections: UC Berkeley (fuh u axe is ours this yr) UCLA (east asian male from east coast yea was cooked) UCSD (brother what) MIT (expected)
Additional Information: I reported on CommonApp I commute an hour to my school every day so that probably helped.
Final Thoughts: In hindsight I wish I applied to more schools to flex (kidding). All in all, super super super happy with Stanford. I tried to gaslight my parents into thinking it came out a week later than it actually did so I could have a week to process getting rejected from my dream school lol but then my mom went on tiktok and said nonono it comes out today but then I was like ok imma play video games and open it at midnight when ur asleep so I was playing osu at 7pm when it came out and then checked the result and saw confetti and then alt tabbed back to play osu for 5 more minutes to process then emerged victorious from my room and announced i was admitted then collapsed on the carpet and cried for the next 15 minutes till my nose bled and there was a big red spot on the floor anyway that's enough of storytime thanks for reading and good luck with the essay writing everyone