Midwest Physics Girlie applies to 30 schools :D (all Ivies + Stanny + MIT + Caltech + UCs + Duke, etc) Gets some backs and scholarships Early, regular update
**I had an earlier one but am providing updates here** does anyone know what could have gone wrong?
Demographics
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Gender: girl
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Race/Ethnicity: Asian
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Residence: big midwest state
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School: Large public school, sends 15-20 kids to T20s each year
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Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): no hooks
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Intended Major(s): Physics & Political secondary choice major, but primary was Physics Income: 150K
Academics
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GPA/Rank: 4.0/4.0 UW, 4.7 W GPA-
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# of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc: 16 APs, 9 DE classes (I also self studied for a few tests)-Senior year course load + special course load stuff: I'm rly good at math and took high math VERY early (like multi freshman yr early) + finished almost all science APs by 12th grade, Senior yr course load was 5 other APs + DE for Math & an extra college class
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SAT/ACT: 35 (36 M, 33 S , 35 R, 35 W, 12 Essay) --> only took once as baseline w/o studying and was rly happy with the score even with bad science, so I decided to save time and money and submit this
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AP Scores: 7 5s and 5 4s so far, + 5 more tests at the end of this year
Extracurriculars/Activities (being purposefully vague):
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Physics research at T5
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Physics research at T10 (super niche)
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Physics research + research group leader at T20 again
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Very very selective NASA internship (3% acceptance? and high top school matriculation) --> published and presented work
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UN Work
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Very big Nonprofit I started (it actually meant a lot to me, was not for college apps bcs I started it pretty early on + was able to do a lot with it) --> dozens of global chapters, and have reached several hundred thousands of people
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Club prez for two clubs combined (STEM) - increased club sizes significantly and started tons of new engineering projects
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Club prez for two other clubs combined (STEM) - started & captained this team and we won tons of awards nationally + internationally even though it was our first year + worked on lots of diversity initiatives for underrepresented kids in STEM
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Physics paid internship
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Founder/prez of local climate org
Notes: I know I have the typical research + nonprofit combo, but I honestly didn't start thinking about apps till this year. Everything I've done means a lot to me and I'm planning on finding ways to continue it through college. --> also, all the research is different from each other, but I'm trying to be vague bcs they are kinda niche.
Awards/Honors (rly nothing big bcs I wasn't a fan of competing in science fairs, ikik bad bcs it could've been so useful but it is what it is):
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Presented at tons and tons of Conferences (stand out "award" tbh)
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activism award
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publication award
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national competition award
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art award ???? , but I won money and it was related to second major
I didn't include NMSF or AP Scholar., or an of the honors societies, but they prob would've been better than an art award lol when I had nothing else to do with art (Except AP art I guess??)
Essays/LORs:
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common app essay: prompt 6, about love for my future passion
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Supplementals --> edited these kinda last minute for each individual school tho: anywhere from (6/10) - (9/10). I probably had a few (3-4/10)s in there too bcs Idk how to rate my own pieces. basically reused the same 5-7 essays for every school but I think they were generally pretty good. I do think writing is my strength --> may have had a few spelling mistakes here and there even when I checked 100 times :(
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Letters of rec
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AP Physics teacher - 8/10 ? --> spoke a LOT about my ECs and I've known him since I came to the school, doesn't write too many so I know it would be special, and the ones he does write go amazing places + got me great internships, but he never had me as a student until senior year so idk how he could've spoken about me there. I did rly good on the first test tho...
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AP Lang - 7/10 --> again, I was def a standout student in this class and he knew a lot about my intellectual curiosity, but he's kinda lazy and might have procrastinated on this.Research prof- 4/10 --> English isn't their first language and idk if they've written any of these sorts of letters before
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Counselor - 5/10 ? --> at my school counselors aren't that involved in our lives so idk what they know about us except for the form we fill out
Interviews
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Harvard (got interview early round) - 8/10 --> super cute and authentic, lady was nice, may have been a bit nervous tho
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Princeton - 10/10 --> ughhhh I love Princeton so much but didn't want to get rejected early so I didn't REA there. The interview was rly good and we spent most of the time talking about physics, mostly me explaining to him bcs he was a business major tho. He talked about the business aspects of the physical technologies I wanted to work on. Was very cute, but all my friends from previous years had amazing Princeton interviews and were literally told they were getting in, but didn't get in.
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MIT - 7/10 --> nothing bad, just pretty basic. Answered some questions, she learned about me, we had some similarities, and it was done
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Penn - 6/10 --> again just pretty basic
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Northwestern - 5/10 --> basic interview, interviewer was pretty weird tho ngl
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Stanford - 8/10 --> similar to Harvard, a nice cute interview!
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Dartmouth - 10/10 --> we had SOOO many similarities and he sent a cute email after
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Swarthmore video thing - 4/10 --> eh, it was... ok lets just say that
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Did not get: Interviews for Yale or Duke, the two colleges that actually consider it this cycle :D**Decisions (indicate ED/EA/REA/SCEA/RD) !!!!:**
