Demographics:

• Asian
• Middle-class family
• South
• No hooks

Rigor: IB Diploma Candidate (all IB classes) 4 HL 2 SL, 5 AP classes, Dual enrollment at highly ranked public university

GPA -  UW: 3.96, W: 4.4 (I know I am in top 10% but no class rank)

SAT/ACT - 1560 (770 RW, 790 M)

Extracurricular Activities:

• Research Internship #1 - Worked with statistics research group at Stanford on project about machine learning; published as second author on paper; presenting at statistics conference at Harvard university as only high school presenter.
• Research Internship #2 - Worked at a Biochemistry Lab summer of sophomore year at at T30 university over the summer, and published a literature review as first author.
• Independent Research - Combining experience from research internships #1 and #2 to write original research to submit to Regeneron STS.
• Boys State Delegate - Participated in Boys State in my state; ultimately elected to a very high level position. Not selected for Boys Nation.
• Mu Alpha Theta - Founder and President for chapter at my school. Grew to 200+ members first year. We offer free tutoring for the disadvantaged children in my community, and organize math events to elementary schoolers.
• Science Olympiad - Team captain, I organize outreach events to the community and started new teams at every elementary and middle school in my school district
• Chemistry Club - President, we offer peer tutoring for first-year chemistry students, and help peers prepare for the USNCO
• USNCO - Did not advance to national round again
• Student Government Association - Class representative, hopefully I win student body president this year
• Band - Clarinet player, successfully auditioned to the All-State band three times, first and only person to be selected to play in my school's wind ensemble (the highest level of band class) as a freshman.
• Swim - Team captain; Varsity for every year in high school, qualified for state every year in high school, selected as an honorable mention for the All-State team.
• Volunteering at Local Science Museum - Volunteered over 250 hours
• Podcast host (non-academic) - Just a fun hobby I like; trying to differentiate myself.

Awards:

• Renassalaer Medal - Selected because I am #1 math student in my school.
• Bausch + Lomb Honorary Science Award - Selected because I am #1 science student in my school.
• Presidential Volunteer Service Award Gold - Hours mainly from the museum and my clubs
• Science Olympiad State Medalist- Won 4th in state for the bungee drop event
• AP Scholar w/ Honor - Our school offers an extremely limited amount of AP courses because we are an IB school, and I took most of the offered AP's
• Thats all 😞

Essays - I am not strong writer, and parents refuse to get counselor, so prolly 2/10

Rec Letters - I am going to get both club sponsors, who know me very well, and also PI from research internship #1, who is stanford professor.

How much help does a letter of recommendation from a tenured professor matter in admissions to a very selective T5 school, if he worked at the school?

This is a sequel to this post

Rising Senior | Asian Male | South | Mid-Sized Public High School

Demographics:

• Asian
• Middle-class family

Rigor: IB Diploma Candidate (all IB classes) 4 HL 2 SL, 5 AP classes, Dual enrollment at highly ranked public university

GPA -  UW: 3.95, W: 4.4 (I know I am in top 10% but no class rank)

SAT/ACT - 1560 (770 RW, 790 M)

Extracurricular Activities:

• Research Internship #1 - Worked with statistics research group at T5 university on project about machine learning; published as second author on paper; presenting at statistics conference at different T5 university as only high school presenter.
• Research Internship #2 - Worked at a Biochemistry Lab summer of sophomore year at at T30 university over the summer, and published a literature review as first author.
• Independent Research - Combining experience from research internships #1 and #2 to write original research to submit to Regeneron STS.
• Boys State Delegate - Participated in Boys State in my state; ultimately elected to a very high level position. Not selected for Boys Nation.
• Mu Alpha Theta - Founder and President for chapter at my school. Grew to 200+ members first year. We offer free tutoring for the disadvantaged children in my community, and organize math events to elementary schoolers.
• Science Olympiad - Team captain, I organize outreach events to the community and started new teams at every elementary and middle school in my school district
• Chemistry Club - President, we offer peer tutoring for first-year chemistry students, and help peers prepare for the USNCO
• USNCO - Did not advance to national round again
• Student Government Association - Class representative, hopefully I win student body president this year
• Band - Clarinet player, successfully auditioned to the All-State band three times, first and only person to be selected to play in my school's wind ensemble (the highest level of band class) as a freshman.
• Swim - Team captain; Varsity for every year in high school, qualified for state every year in high school, selected as an honorable mention for the All-State team.
• Volunteering at Local Science Museum - Volunteered over 250 hours
• Podcast host (non-academic) - Just a fun hobby I like; trying to differentiate myself.

Awards:

• Renassalaer Medal - Selected because I am #1 math student in my school.
• Bausch + Lomb Honorary Science Award - Selected because I am #1 science student in my school.
• Presidential Volunteer Service Award Gold - Hours mainly from the museum and my clubs
• Science Olympiad State Medalist- Won 4th in state for the bungee drop event
• AP Scholar w/ Honor - Our school offers an extremely limited amount of AP courses because we are an IB school, and I took most of the offered AP's
• Thats all 😞

Essays - I am not strong writer, and parents refuse to get counselor, so prolly 2/10

Rec Letters - I am going to get both club sponsors, who know me very well, and also PI from research internship #1.

College List (Intended Major - Chemistry with public policy):

• Auburn
• University of Georgia  
• Georgia Tech
• Emory
• UC Berkeley/LA
• UPenn
• Brown
• Yale
• Harvard
• Stanford

Reflection:

As I begin my senior year and go into college apps, I need advice on whether I have a chance at the T20's or if applying to them is a waste of time. Junior year was very disappointing, with my first B in high school, not being selected for summer programs I applied for, such as GHP, YYGS, SSP, RSI, GTRI, and Emory SSRP, not qualifying for USNCO nationals again, not receiving any national awards, and having a very very lackluster SAT score to be competitive in my demographic for top schools.