Demographics
- Gender: Male
- Race/Ethnicity: White
- Residence: Arizona
- Income Bracket: ~300k
- Type of School: Moderately-competitive public
- Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): None
Intended Major(s): Math everywhere with a second degree in econ if possible.
Academics
- GPA (UW/W): 4/4.76
- Rank (or percentile): ~2.5%
- # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: taken 10 APs, 5 AICE (all AS-level), and 5 honors before senior year
- Senior Year Course Load: taking 5 APs (stats, gov, macro, physics 2, and lit) and intro to ceramics
Standardized Testing
List the highest scores earned and all scores that were reported.
- SAT I: 1550 (760RW, 790M)
- ACT: 35 (36E, 35M, 35R, 34S)
- AP/IB: Human Geography (5), World History (5), Computer Science Principles (5), Precalculus (5), Chemistry (5), Calculus BC (5), Spanish Language and Culture (5), Physics 1 (5), English Language and Composition (5), APUSH (5)
- Other (ex. IELTS, TOEFL, etc.): AICE Travel and Tourism (B), AICE General Paper (A), AICE English Language and Composition (C), AICE Spanish Language (B), AICE Global Perspectives (A)
Extracurriculars/Activities
List all extracurricular involvements, including leadership roles, time commitments, major achievements, etc.
- Assisted a professor at a T30 school with a paper by doing some work on data. My job involved cleaning up and clarifying large amounts of raw data. 15 hours during summer between junior and senior year, 3 hours a week for 5 weeks.
- Worked at Mathnasium since October of my sophomore year. I have taught students, made learning plans, and helped manage and train instructors with a one month gap when I moved from Florida Halloween of my junior year. 10 hours a week, 46 weeks a year.
- I volunteered at my high school's adult education night school program. I helped people register for and find ESL/GED classes. A large part of my job was translating documents and helping people figure out how to pay with the awful school website. Spanish is not my native language, so this was a lot of fun and a good learning opportunity. About 5 hours a week for 6 weeks a year during 10th and 11th grade.
- I tutored low-income students online through a website I won't name for fear of doxxing myself. Most of what I did was math tutoring (middle school all the way through Calc AB), but I taught a whole bunch of other subjects and AP courses like Human Geography that they struggled to find people for. 2 hours a week, 26 weeks a year.
- I did Spanish/English translation work, helped with classroom setup, and setup and repaired chromebooks. 3 hours a week, 10 weeks a year, sophomore and junior year.
- I had the privilege of coaching and assisting adults and children with disabilities with basketball during basketball games. 2.5 hours a week, 10 weeks a year, 3 years. (freshman through junior. I actually delayed my move to Arizona to finish up during Junior year)
- Science Olympiad participant, won nothing. Grades 9 and 10.
- DECA member that did not compete, 10th and 11th grade.
- National Honor Society Member. No board position or anything crazy
- For the past 6 years, I have been learning Mandarin in preparation for the HSK exam. Once a week, my brother and I do a Zoom lesson online with a native speaker who teaches us.
Awards/Honors
List all awards and honors submitted on your application.
- National Merit Finalist (at the time of application submissions, semi-finalist)
- AP Scholar with Distinction
- Cambridge Scholar Award (Idk which one, I got it for a score of C or higher on the 3 exams I took my sophomore year)
- Honor roll every semester
- Outstanding Excellence in AICE Spanish (school-level award given to one student a year)
Letters of Recommendation
- My physics teacher. I love this guy and I know he wrote me a good letter. He hasn't seen a lot of the material in 40 years by his own admission, but he provided materials and helped us do well. He and I get along really well and have a good relationship, and he majored in what I want to major in. 9/10
- APEG teacher. He got me into finance and has me seriously considering shooting for quant as a career. I eat in his room everyday at lunch, and he is one of my favorite teachers ever. 8.5/10 because I asked him to write the letter a bit before I got to know him super well.
Interviews
Georgetown: AWFUL. Maybe a 15-minute call that felt forced and awkward. The only question I really struggled to answer is "Why Georgetown?", which I don't think was appreciated. I also just didn't click with my interviewer.
MIT: This one went better than Georgetown. He and I talked a lot about math and the opportunities that MIT would provide for me. He was a really smart guy and I enjoyed our interview. I think it went pretty well, and it probably wasn't the reason I didn't get in.
Princeton: This one went well. I thought I nailed this one. We went all the way through the maximum time planned on, and conversation flowed easily the whole time. He did a good job of selling me on why life at Princeton outside of the academics is super cool, and I had fun talking with him.
Essays
(Briefly reflect on the quality of your writing, time spent, and topic of main personal statement.)
My personal essay was all about my journey with math. I went from geometry freshman year to Calculus BC junior year because of self study, and I discovered a real passion for the subject. I spent a few hours a week working on it in August, and I periodically read over and revised it every couple weeks before submitting my first application.
Decisions (indicate ED/EA/REA/SCEA/RD)
Acceptances:
- University of Arizona (RD)
- University of Alabama (RD)
- Gonzaga University (RD)
- CSU Humboldt (RD)
- University of Utah (RD)
- University of Florida (EA)
- UC Davis (RD)
- UC Irvine (RD)
- UC Santa Barbara (RD)
- UC San Diego (RD)
- Boston University (RD)
- Cal Poly SLO (RD)
- Cornell (RD)
Waitlists:
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (EA)
- Carnegie Mellon (RD)
- Harvey Mudd (RD)
- Wake Forest (RD)
- Rice (RD)
Rejections:
- University of Michigan (EA)
- Georgetown (EA)
- MIT (EA)
- Notre Dame (RD)
- Tufts (RD)
- Vanderbilt (RD)
- Brown (RD)
- Princeton (RD)
Decision:
>!University of Alabama with National Merit Finalist Package!<
Additional Information:
I moved around a lot growing up, and the most recent move was in the middle of junior year from Florida, where I had only lived since the start of high school. I am currently in state number 5 and will go to a sixth for college.