Demographics:
Gender: male
Race/Ethnicity: Asian
Residence: Cali (Not bay area)
Income Bracket: Upper Middle
-Type of School: Competitive Private
-Hooks: none
Intended Major:
Race, Ethnicity, & Migration, political science, public policy, education

Academics:
-GPA 4.0/4.75
-Rank: top 10%
-APs: 15 APs, all 5s except 2 fours
- Senior Course Load: AP Art History, Multivariate/Linear Algebra, AP Psych, AP Physics E&M, AP Gov (took it a bit lighter cause I took 6 APs junior)
Standardized Testing:
1550 SAT single sitting
ECs/Activities:

1. Founder of National Campaign - huge policy impact, lots of credible ppl joined

2. Policy Director & Region President for organization - policy advocacy

3. One off {{TASS, NDLS, and Boy’s Nation}}

4. School Reformer & Researcher - independently audited school and pressured it to change bunch of stuff in their curriculum

5. Executive Director of Cultural Museum - huge credited impact + first youth E.D. + a lot of advocacy 

6. National History Day President - revitalized mentorship program + pretty good school impact 

7. Researcher @ T30 - did lit review, sole hs researcher + contributed to paper (race relations)

8. Researcher @ T30 - sole hs researcher + pretty good involvement by pitching a project and accepted (race relations)

9. School Curriculum Creator - basically also independently audited courses over 5 years and created lectures that were mandatory for students

10. Male Ballerino - rlly time consuming + lead roles + unique (?)

11. Additional Info: (in no particular order)

12. Intern @ City Commission

13. Policy Researcher @ County Education

14. Independent Researcher (published in concord review)

15. Semi-selective research program (<10% acceptance rate)

16. Selective leadership program (<10% acceptance rate)

17. Volunteering for students

18. Journalist (wrote unironically female empowering articles for over a year… as a guy..)

19. Flute (bunch of natl awards)

20. mock trial attorney & VP (MVP + 2nd in county)

21. Speech and Debate (won first speaker awards at multiple invitationals)

LoRs:
Eng teacher (9.5/10?) - said that I was the first student in 30 years to change her outlook on race
Sci teacher (9.5/10?) - was really close w her and I led and created curriculum for her classes for the last like 4 weeks of school
Counselor - idk was kind of close
Supplemental Letter from my campaign (9.5/10) - said I would be future congressman (don’t know if that’s good… haha)

Awards:
- concord review published
- city leader award (only youth to receive it given by mayor)
- another city award
- bunch of school awards
- bunch of flute national awards

Essays:
I’m a pretty natural writer due to writing so much for different programs. Write about discrimination as a male Ballerino -> advocacy journey

Results:

Acceptances:
-Harvard (committed)
-Stanford (REA)
-Yale
-Princeton
-Brown
-Dartmouth
-UPenn
-Columbia
-Northwestern
-UCB
-UCLA
-UCSD
-UCSB
-Duke
-UChicago
-Safeties

Waitlists:
-CWRU
-Vanderbilt
- Emory
-Cornell

Rejections:
-None!

Pls don’t doxx me if you know me… overall rlly happy w results!

Demographics:

• Male

• Asian (Chinese/Filipino)

• Bay Area (Med-High Income)

• No Hooks

Intended Major

• Physics

Academics

• 4.0uw/4.63w (Valedictorian, Rank 1/96)

• 1580 SAT (800RW, 780M)

• 10 APs:

  • AP Calculus BC (5)

  • AP Computer Science A (5)

  • AP Physics 1 (5)

  • AP Statistics (5)

  • AP English Language & Composition (5)

  • AP World History (5)

  • AP United States History (5)

  • AP English Literature & Composition (Waiting)

  • AP Chemistry (Waiting)

  • AP United States Government & Politics (Waiting)

Extracurriculars/Activities:

1. ASB President (Former Business Manager)

2. Quantum Computing Research Mentorship: I cold emailed a bunch of graduate students and got some responses from a local state school. They helped me find/refine an idea from a project and gave me advice while I was working on the project, though no actual publication or anything came out of it :(

3. Founder/President of Elementary School Tutoring Org

4. Varsity Volleyball Team Captain & Starting Libero

5. Self-Taught Programmer (I literally learned all coding on my own since freshman year through online websites, YouTube videos, and practice. I didn't learn anything from AP Comp Sci due to my teacher tbh).

6. Girls Volleyball Team Manager

7. Mathnasium Math Instructor

8. Class President

9. FTC Robotics Founding Member & Lead Programmer

10. Babysitter

Awards/Honors:

1. National Merit Semifinalist

2. AP Scholar w/ Distinction

3. Science/Math Scholarship (awarded to 1/~300 students within my school)

4. Presidential scholarship (awarded to ~15/100 students within my class)

5. National Honor Society

Essays:

• Common App essay was okay. I wrote about my role and relationship within my Filipino family's ten grandchildren, and how my dynamic with each cousin/sibling demonstrates a different side/skill of mine. My counselor said it was great but idk if it stacks up to a lot of others here.

• Supplementals were probably good. I tried to be very authentic in showing my passion and identity. I discussed my passion for quantum computing and my struggles with being "short" in many ways.

Letters of Recommendation:

• Physics Teacher/Dean of Academics: 10/10 we definitely got along in the one class we had together junior year and I was told he's a great writer

• Calculus Teacher: 9/10 he's an old guy and my class with him only had 6 people so he probably had a lot of specific things to talk about

• English Teacher: 9/10 I had him as my homeroom teacher for four years so beyond my performance in his class, he got to know me as a person and friend among my peers. Also a great writer.

• Counselor: 10/10 we met so many times throughout the year and we got along very well

Interviews:

• The only interview I had was with Harvard and I just winged it. Probably didn't go amazing (~6/10)

Decisions:

Rejections:

• Stanford (REA) :(

• USC (EA: Deferred -> Rejected)

• Harvard

• Yale

• Dartmouth

Acceptances:

• San Jose State University

• Cal Poly SLO

• UC Berkeley

• UCLA (Committed originally)

• UC San Diego

• UC Irvine

• UC Davis

• UC Santa Barbara

• UC Santa Cruz

• UC Riverside

Waitlists:

• UChicago

• Northwestern

• UPenn

• Princeton

• Columbia

• Cornell

Off the waitlist for... Princeton

holy cow bro i'm actually shocked and so happy. LA was great but the #1 school for my major is crazy. never would've thought my application would stack up against other cracked kids but who knows what goes on during admissions. hoora

Demographics

• Gender: Male

• Race/Ethnicity: White/Asian

• Residence: Northeast US

• Income Bracket: Full pay

• Type of School: Very small and pretty competitive private school

• Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): MIT + Columbia legacy

Intended Major(s): Some combination of Math/Chemistry/Physics

Academics

• GPA (UW/W): 4.0/4.8

• Rank (or percentile): N/A

• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: School doesn't have APs, but all of the classes I took were honors/advanced/college level (no dual enrollment).

• Senior Year Course Load: Calculus Based Physics (post AP physics C stuff), Multivariable Calculus, Linear Algebra, Algorithms, Diff eqs, english/foreign language.

Standardized Testing

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

• SAT I: 1590 (790 RW, 800 M)

• AP/IB: I took AP exams at a different school nearby. Just took Calc BC (5), Chem (5), and both Physics Cs (5s).

Extracurriculars/Activities

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

I am going to be quite vague here.

1. Research at a very prestigious institution with an extreamly well known professor (in a pretty niche field). Worked in person during summers and virtually during the school year. Published papers in Q1s as 2nd author, 3rd author ect. This was a major time commitment and something I enjoyed greatly.

2. Varsity sport captain. Won a good bit.

3. Nationally ranked athlete for the same sport outside of school team. Huge time commitment until start of 11th grade as I would often be traveling. Still practice around 15 hours a week even after I stopped competing nationally.

4. Meaningful volunteering. I was able to write great essays about it, and it was one of my favorite things I was able to do. Very broad but it was not volunteering just to get hours, ect.

5. Volunteer tutor for people from underserved communities for SAT/classes at school.

6. President of a STEM related club

7. President of a club that relates to the volunteering in #4.

8. Class president. School is very small so not a huge deal.

9. Summer program (pretty prestigious, but I did not want one that would not allow me to also work on my research)

10. Honestly don't remember; something pretty filler.

Awards/Honors

List all awards and honors submitted on your application.

Did not do any olympiads/other nonsense like that. My parents are both in academia so they look down on competitions in the natural sciences/math (heavily discouraged from doing olympiads and I was never interested in changing that) As a result, my award section was pretty weak/repetitive.

1. Research

2. Research

3. Research

4. Sport

5. School award

Letters of Recommendation

Math Teacher: Knew him very well and did well in his notoriously difficult class. Could speak to how I would always help my peers, ect. Probably an 8/10.

Physics Teacher: She liked me a lot and 'interviewed' me multiple times to figure out exactly how she would write it. She is known to write amazing letters. Probably a 9/10.

History Teacher: He would always tell me how sad he was that I am looking to pursue STEM and that I was the best history student he had ever taught. Probably a 9/10

Lab PI: This was the ace up my sleeve. He told me he wrote that I functioned in his lab like an undergrad (he would take 1-2 3rd/4th year undergrads a year from his top institution). Very likely a 10/10.

Interviews

Got interviews from MIT, Princeton, Harvard, and Yale. All were in person and went very well. The best was my Princeton interview and we talked for around 3 hours. He told me he would write an additional email to Princeton saying "it would be a mistake to not admit ____". My view is that interviews don't matter that much at all and are used mostly to keep alumni/applicants interested. You will see why shortly...

Essays

Spent a lot of time (like, a lot) and thought they were very good. Personal statement was very personal (I mean it is a personal statement!) and I was very vulnerable. Supplemental essays were varied and I think portrayed me well.

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

Acceptances:

• MIT

• Stanford

• Columbia (Committed!!)

• Cornell

• Yale

• Duke (A.B. Scholarship)

• Penn

Waitlists:

• Harvard (Did not pursue as I preferred the options I had!)

Rejections:

• Princeton :(

Additional Information:

I never intended to make one of these posts until I realized just how problematic the thinking about top colleges on Reddit can be. The idea that HYPSM, or whatever acronym people are using, exists in a league of its own was completely unfamiliar to me and my parents (who are in academia and have studied, worked, or conducted research at most of those schools throughout their careers).

I took my college decision very seriously and spoke with people across many fields (math, physics, quantitative finance, law, etc.). Independently, they all gave me essentially the same advice: you should choose between Columbia, Stanford, MIT, and Yale and pick the one you like the most.

I absolutely loved Columbia when I visited, and I'm grateful I wasn't on this website while making my decision because I probably would have made the wrong choice for me. I've had people here call me "crazy," "delusional," and tell me I made a "life-defining mistake" by not choosing a HYPSM school. Ironically, I only started using Reddit to check movement on the Chicago waitlist for a friend.

Princeton was definitely my top choice, and, of course, it was the one school that rejected me (I was very hopeful after my interview). Even so, I'm not complaining at all; I feel incredibly fortunate to have had the options I did.

My message is for people who find themselves in a similar position. Make an informed decision, and don't let a magazine ranking or anonymous people online make it for you. Nearly everyone I've spoken with has said that HYPSM, Columbia, and Chicago are viewed equivalently in the vast majority of situations (with obvious exceptions like Penn for finance or Caltech for certain STEM fields). Furthermore, they mentioned how people who went to other ivies/top schools regularly get chosen for jobs, grad school, ect over people who attended the aforementioned schools.

All that is to say is when talking about any of the ivies/other top schools like Duke, JHU, MIT, Stanford, ect. there are amazing people and opportunities (to a very comparable degree), and you should choose the one that you see yourself liking the most. That's my two cents.