u/zephoques

Demographics

• Gender: F
• Race/Ethnicity: East Asian/Asian-American
• Residence: new york, high income district
• Income Bracket: <100k
• Type of School: competitive public
• Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): first-gen

Intended Major(s): sociology/maybe film(?)/maybe prelaw (except business for northeastern)

Academics

• GPA (UW/W): 3.98/4.23
• Rank (or percentile): n/a
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: world, seminar, apush, lang, physics 1
• Senior Year Course Load: econ (micro/macro), calc bc, lit, other fun classes i saved for senior year (best decision ever, highly recommend)

Standardized Testing

List the highest scores earned and all scores that were reported.

• SAT I: 1540 (750RW, 790M)
• AP/IB: 5's on all except seminar (3, did not report lol)

Extracurriculars/Activities

List all extracurricular involvements, including leadership roles, time commitments, major achievements, etc.

1. business competition (11): basically mock M&A, i was CLO and CMO. ngl i carried my team cuz only i got invited to the finals lol. it was a cool experience, but did in fact realize i didnt want to go into the business world like that haha
2. sound crew leader (9-12): found out i was a theater kid after i joined. really only got to be "leader" since i was the only freshman that joined in my year so i had most seniority, but i wont say that im bad at my job. i mainly did body mics and stuff for the musicals
3. publication (9, 11): this was a summer program my school does sponsored by Canon. really fun, was able to take photos that related to an overall theme and wrote about my life in relation to that theme. ngl found my interest in photography through this
4. hobby crocheter (10-12): ngl idk why i put this so high up lol, but i crocheted a lot a lot when i first started so it showed time commitment i guess. i think it also contributed to my "uniqueness"
5. secretary of thespian honor society (11): just secretary, had to put like 100+ hours into the club before you can get inducted. i was inducted in my sophomore year and have been part of every show in my highschool career
6. volunteer at social needs camp (8-11): went every summer, was like a week long every time for like full work days. ngl i just went because they have therapy horses, but working with the campers was very cute
7. FIT precollege for marketing (10): ngl paid for this, but it was cool to get to go to the city every day and live a life like that. my favorite part was also the actual technical making of the ads we came up with, so that foreshadowed a lot haha
8. social justice volunteering (11)- it was basically history lessons, but we had a final project to assist our communities and i chose to make crocheted accessories for a homeless shelter
9. private tutoring (11-12): was paid, but i also wrote a supp on it
10. family responsibilities: beginning of highschool family was struggling a little mentally, so i had to do more around the house and take care of my little brother

Awards/Honors

List all awards and honors submitted on your application.

1. the business competition (got to finals from like 20 teams to 5, but they don't say place except first and we didn't win so lol)
2. Scholastic Arts & Writing, 2 Silver Keys and 1 Gold Key for Poetry
3. National Merit Scholarship (didnt get finalist 😞)
4. AP Scholar With Distinction
5. NHS + Thespian HS

Letters of Recommendation

physics 1 teacher: (8/10) she liked me a lot and i tried really hard in her class since physics was a little hard for me, and we ended up having a friendly relationship and she was always very nice towards me. only an 8 tho since in the beginning of the year i rarely talked/participated and it was clear i didnt know what i was doing during class lol

ap lang teacher: (9.5/10): i loveddd her she's so nice and supportive. i did the publication w her so i knew her since 9th grade. we would always talk about books and writing and she alwyas enjoyed reading my poems and stuff. i always tried in her class and participated. she also only took a couple people per year to write letters for.

Interviews

Yale (8/10): had recent alum. she was very nice and pretty easy to talk to. i kinda rambled about my family and stuff but i think(?) she thought it was cute. sometimes i got nervous and didn't know what to say, so she used some of the prewritten questions sometimes but that was always for like academic stuff. overall a pleasant conversation, but she did cut it off around when time was up.

Essays

i wrote my ps about my collection of mugs and how it was my child form of rebellion turned to passion for history and always acquiring more knowledge. i liked my ps and it took me like a week to write it (in the summer). ngl i only really tried for a couple of supps and many of them i started like a day or two before the submission deadline. i wrote like 4 or 5 schools in one night (i think for jan 2 deadline?). personally, i think some of the were really ass. procrastination will be the death of me and i would not recommend anyone do what i did haha. i only wrote really in advance for yale but i was kinda overthinking everything that i was writing (except for the short responses). I wrote a lot about my hobbies and wanting to have a community that would challenge me academically.

Decisions (indicate ED/EA/REA/SCEA/RD)

Acceptances:

• Hamilton (RD)
• Colgate (RD)
• Middlebury (RD)
• >!Amherst (RD, COMMITTED!!)!<

Waitlists:

• UVA (EA -> defer -> waitlist -> withdrawn)
• Emory (RD, oxford college and main campus)
• Vanderbilt (RD)
• Northeastern (RD, Boston campus, withdrawn)
• CMU (RD, withdrawn)
• BU (RD, i dont remember)

Rejections:

• Northwestern (RD)
• Yale (REA + interview -> defer -> rejected ;-;)
• Columbia (lulz)

Additional Information:

if i had one piece of advice to give: DONT FALL FOR THE PRESTIGE TRAP. i spent the summer looking for as many colleges that would fit me, but the yale prestige trapped me man. i tried throughout high school to not have a dream school but i unwillingly fell in love with yale. twas a bad idea, as you can tell. there are so many schools that are not the ivies that are a better fit, whether academically or emotionally. i was pretty hung up and sad about the eventual reject (why did they bait me with the interview and deferral bruh), it took me a while to get over it enough. am very grateful to be able to go to a school like Amherst and have taken my results as a sign that i was meant for a small liberal arts college lol. love the college that loves you back guys !!

hiii so i committed to amherst last thursday, and been around 4 days since then but they still haven’t sent me an email with next steps or anything. i also sent an email to admissions friday afternoon to ask if anything was wrong and haven’t gotten any response yet. just wondering if anyone else who has committed has gotten any follow up email or if i should just a little longer. thanks!