u/periwinkle_shrimp

For context: Looking to be a business/econ major. I think it’s been really easy for me to fall into the trap of only looking at reaches and I haven’t really looked into safeties or targets beyond state schools; I’m also a Texas resident if that helps.

Demographics:

Female Asian American student
Go to a decently big public high school
Top 5% of my class
4.45 W GPA, 3.93 UW GPA
1280 SAT (retaking all the way until applications due, considering ACT as well)
10 complete APs, taking 3 more this year (passed every one I’ve taken with primarily 4s and 5s, school offers a decent amount)

ECs:
\-Speech and debate (4 years, largest activity): various officer positions, most recently being a member of the executive council for my team (co presidents) as well as numerous national level success; our team also helps host multiple tournaments a year which count for volunteering.
\-Business professionals of America (4 years): competed on the regional level as well as maintaining officer positions for three years in my school chapter.
\-FCCLA (2 years): officer both years as well as going all the way to nationals, getting 5th place and being a gold medalist.
\-Pre-law club (2 years): recently elected VP, running a club where we bring in local judges and speakers as well as workshops
\-Chick-fil-A leadership academy (1 year): completed in freshman year where I was one of 20 students selected school wide to partner with our local Chick-fil-A for community service projects
\-Student council body member (2 years): participating in discussions and volunteering for school sanctioned events
\-Interact (2 years): attended meetings and participated in
local service projects like cards for hospitalized kids as well as in person events to fundraise for the local chapter.
\-DECA: school just started a chapter for next year, will be a competitor
\-Ignite Her (3 years): president and founder of Ignite Her regional nonprofit chapter in our city that has done volunteer work to support the women in our community (ex. over 1,000 menstrual products raised for a women’s shelter); plan to scale even more this last year.
\-Business member (ongoing): member of my friend’s business’ sales and marketing team where we form partnerships with local businesses and do outreach work to sell our product.
\-Entrepreneur summer camp (1 summer): hosted by my school district, was initially picked from district wide applicants to participate in a 2 week course with guest speakers and creating a full business plan that ended up winning me top 3 at the pitch competition with local entrepreneurs as the judging panel.

Awards:

\-Novice of the year for school speech and debate club
\-NHS member
\-collegeboard AP scholar with distinction
\-Hispanic honor society member
\-5th place and gold medalist at FCCLA nationals
\-NSDA member of superior distinction
\-Collegeboard Capstone diploma
\-T100 speakers at speech and debate nationals
\-Triple octofinalists at speech and debate nationals
\-TOC Qualled
\-semi finalists at national Harvard speech and debate tournament

For context: I think it’s been really easy for me to fall into the trap of only looking at reaches and I haven’t really looked into safeties or targets beyond state schools; I’m also a Texas resident if that helps.

Demographics:

Female Asian American student
Go to a decently big public high school
Top 5% of my class
4.45 W GPA, 3.93 UW GPA
1280 SAT (retaking all the way until applications due, considering ACT as well)
10 complete APs, taking 3 more this year (passed every one I’ve taken with primarily 4s and 5s, school offers a decent amount)

ECs:
-Speech and debate (4 years, largest activity): various officer positions, most recently being a member of the executive council for my team (co presidents) as well as numerous national level success; our team also helps host multiple tournaments a year which count for volunteering.
-Business professionals of America (4 years): competed on the regional level as well as maintaining officer positions for three years in my school chapter.
-FCCLA (2 years): officer both years as well as going all the way to nationals, getting 5th place and being a gold medalist.
-Pre-law club (2 years): recently elected VP, running a club where we bring in local judges and speakers as well as workshops
-Chick-fil-A leadership academy (1 year): completed in freshman year where I was one of 20 students selected school wide to partner with our local Chick-fil-A for community service projects
-Student council body member (2 years): participating in discussions and volunteering for school sanctioned events
-Interact (2 years): attended meetings and participated in
local service projects like cards for hospitalized kids as well as in person events to fundraise for the local chapter.
-DECA: school just started a chapter for next year, will be a competitor
-Ignite Her (3 years): president and founder of Ignite Her regional nonprofit chapter in our city that has done volunteer work to support the women in our community (ex. over 1,000 menstrual products raised for a women’s shelter); plan to scale even more this last year.
-Business member (ongoing): member of my friend’s business’ sales and marketing team where we form partnerships with local businesses and do outreach work to sell our product.
-Entrepreneur summer camp (1 summer): hosted by my school district, was initially picked from district wide applicants to participate in a 2 week course with guest speakers and creating a full business plan that ended up winning me top 3 at the pitch competition with local entrepreneurs as the judging panel.

Awards:

-Novice of the year for school speech and debate club
-NHS member
-collegeboard AP scholar with distinction
-Hispanic honor society member
-5th place and gold medalist at FCCLA nationals
-NSDA member of superior distinction
-Collegeboard Capstone diploma
-T100 speakers at speech and debate nationals
-Triple octofinalists at speech and debate nationals
-TOC Qualled
-semi finalists at national Harvard speech and debate tournament

Essay:
Plan is to write about my hoarding of instant ramen because I want to “wait for the right moment to eat them” and lesson on living presently

Demographics:

Female Asian American student
In state resident
Go to a 5A (decently big) public high school
Top 5% of my class (auto admit for COLA)
4.45 W GPA, 3.93 UW GPA
1280 SAT (retaking all the way until applications due, considering ACT as well)
10 complete APs, taking 3 more this year (passed every one I’ve taken with primarily 4s and 5s, school offers a decent amount)
Legacy (idk if it’s considered): mom, dad, aunt, and uncle all Mccombs alums

ECs:
-Speech and debate (4 years, largest activity): various officer positions, most recently being a member of the executive council for my team (co presidents) as well as numerous national level success; our team also helps host multiple tournaments a year which count for volunteering.
-Business professionals of America (4 years): competed on the regional level as well as maintaining officer positions for three years in my school chapter.
-FCCLA (2 years): officer both years as well as going all the way to nationals, getting 5th place and being a gold medalist.
-Pre-law club (2 years): recently elected VP, running a club where we bring in local judges and speakers as well as workshops
-Chick-fil-A leadership academy (1 year): completed in freshman year where I was one of 20 students selected school wide to partner with our local Chick-fil-A for community service projects
-Student council body member (2 years): participating in discussions and volunteering for school sanctioned events
-Interact (2 years): attended meetings and participated in local service projects like cards for hospitalized kids as well as in person events to fundraise for the local chapter.
-Ignite Her (3 years): president and founder of Ignite Her regional nonprofit chapter in our city that has done volunteer work to support the women in our community (ex. over 1,000 menstrual products raised for a women’s shelter); plan to scale even more this last year.
-Business member (ongoing): member of my friend’s business’ sales and marketing team where we form partnerships with local businesses and do outreach work to sell our product.
-Entrepreneur summer camp (1 summer): hosted by my school district, was initially picked from district wide applicants to participate in a 2 week course with guest speakers and creating a full business plan that ended up winning me top 3 at the pitch competition with local entrepreneurs as the judging panel.

Awards:

-Novice of the year for school speech and debate club
-NHS member
-collegeboard AP scholar with distinction
-Hispanic honor society member
-5th place and gold medalist at FCCLA nationals
-NSDA member of superior distinction
-Collegeboard Capstone diploma
-T100 speakers at speech and debate nationals
-Triple octofinalists at speech and debate nationals
-TOC Qualled
-semi finalists at national Harvard speech and debate tournament

Essay:
Plan is to write about my hoarding of instant ramen because I want to “wait for the right moment to eat them” and lesson on living presently

World schools competitor here, and while framework concepts like util, deontology, Kant philosophies, etc. are most commonly found in LD, the policy-ification of certain aspects in debate events is rapidly changing the landscape of what’s expected. I just want some quick rundowns of the frameworks I already listed/common ones in other forms to have a more holistic understanding when approaching framework debates!

Rising senior here, as someone who’s done debate for the last four years in high school, I was wondering what the strategy is for utilizing it for college apps. Let me preface by saying I’ve been an officer for my team in the past three years (novice coordinator, public relations director, and now executive council) and I primarily participate in world schools debate. I’m not a super accomplished competitor on paper, however I did end up semifinalling Harvard as well as being T100 speakers at nats (triple octos) and qualifying for the TOC (couldn’t go because of funding, still devastated by this). I know it’s not a lot and definitely doesn’t match the amount of passion for this activity that I have, but I can’t change the past. I was wondering how to best optimize these stats to tell a compelling story for my ECs or possibly personal statement and verbalize how important these events are to AOs that have no idea what the magnitude of TOC qualling or etc. is. Please let me know how yall have incorporated debate accomplishments in ur apps!