My results! (international, not full pay at some, low-ish GPA, math major got into T20s!)
I was accepted to UCLA after high school and was not able to attend due to financial and personal reasons. I was rejected by almost all the colleges I applied to after my gap year besides two T100 (?) state schools, one of which I chose to attend.
GPA: 3.7
SAT: 1520
Credits: 72 credits after sophomore fall (including a semester of 23 credits, graduate course in progress sophomore spring, took calc 3+differential equations+linear algebra+electrical engineering coursework (discrete math, intro course) my very first semester for context- rigorous schedule, did not have any AP/IB/DE credits and i was taking a bunch of classes to try to graduate early)
HS GPA: 92ish/100 (national curriculum, this was objectively pretty good but only slightly above average for my (very competitve but not feeder public school with 120ish students in my graduating class, however only a couple people at my school applied to US colleges)
College: T100 state school
Residence: international from a highly competitive country, not a US citizen or permanent resident, but did live in the US for a decade before hs
Hooks: woman in STEM (?)
Major: math+electrical engineering double major, applied as a math major for most schools
Extracurriculars (in no specific order, these are >10, i tweaked depending on the college):
(hs) led an after-school math circle that grew quite a bit, i documented everything on my blog including p-sets i made
(college) field hockey club member, played a couple round robin tournaments
(college) math club room manager, volunteered to manage the club library sometimes, tabled at admitted students' day, coordinated talks by professors/grad students, recorded/uploaded talks to youtube channels
(hs) published my latex notes/personal research on organic and computational chemistry and listed it on sale (and sold some!) on amazon
(college) TA for college freshman seminar, a math course and a language course
(college) climate modelling research for a year in the lab of a well-known professor
(hs) worked as a GIS intern at a UAV startup
(hs-college) scuba diving- almost a PADI master diver rn, worked at a dive shop many summers, instructed people from around the world, started a dive against debris chapter, led workshops
(hs-college) volunteer docent at a math museum in college and at a science museum back home
(college) internship at a small firm related to geographic information systems
(college) TA'ed a well-known summer program after freshman year. related to major/niche
(college) led a classical languages club. my hobby is language learning (took, TA'd or audited language courses every semester and i speak almost 10)
Awards:
national round math olympiad (USAMO-equivalent) qualifier
international math communication prize
a small grant awarded for positive contributions to society, i was awarded one to keep a hs math circle going
geography bee national round
the fifth one, i listed different things at different colleges but not very major awards
Letters of Recommendation
Classics professor: i was very involved and active in her class and my final project was on ai-assisted archaeological remains detection. we bonded a lot too over shared experiences (kicked out of home, she'd studied abroad in my country during her masters and much more). had to have been a 10/10, she is a brilliant writer. i also invited her as a guest speaker at a club i started at school
mathematics independent study mentor: well-known professor, obtained credit for probability under him, probably very good! we joke around together a lot
Essays
about realizing how to use writing as a tool for math, related to my math blog and math circle. reviewed by my writing professor. i thought it was beautiful
for UChicago i poured my heart and soul into my essay, i dont remember what prompt i chose but it linked graph theory, history and linguistics together and it was really funny and a very good representation of me.
of course some colleges had their own versions of essays, but in general my essays were very good. i like writing so i poured a lot of energy in them and had them reviewed my many people.
Accepted
Cornell (with aid)
NYU
Georgia Tech
UMich
Rejected
USC
UChicago :(
Carnegie Mellon
University of Washington Seattle
Columbia
UCLA
UCSD :(
Waiting on
UMD
In the end, I've been pleasantly surprised by my results. I've committed, but there's a strong possibility that I might stay at my current school!