u/Delicious_Classic_77

My college app experience was certainly odd and extremely lucky. I truly hope this gives someone hope as I saw a similar post about this time a year ago that gave me hope. A lot of people fearmonger about college and I don't want this post to be like that at all! Good luck if you are reading this in hopes of good college results next year.

Demographics

• Gender: Male
• Race/Ethnicity: Hispanic/White
• Residence: CA
• Income Bracket: comfortable
• Type of School: prep school
• Hooks: serious musician (ig this is a hook??? not sure)

Intended Major(s): Music Industry, Music, Music & Technology, Music Production, Economics

Academics

• GPA: 3.85W/3.65UW
• Rank (or percentile): My HS doesn't rank
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 6 APS, 5 honors
• Senior Year Course Load: AP Lit, APES, AP Euro, AP Music Theory, Jazz Ensemble Honors, Calculus

Standardized Testing

SAT I: 1470 superscore (750RW, 720M)

Extracurriculars/Activities

1. Jazz Ensemble @ my school. Played both piano and bass. roughly 7 hours per week, 52 weeks a year. Played all 4 years of HS.
2. Music (as an independent hobby/passion). I practice music via 6 musical instruments, starting with piano since age 4. Played classical & jazz piano, also started making my own music in 6th grade.
3. Community service at my local church, monitoring various tech related things. roughly 2 hours per week for about 40ish weeks per year, all 4 years of HS. Also worked a very short temporary position (paid) at the church.
4. Played 2 years of varsity football. This accounted for a lot of hours.

Extra Stuff: Boy Scouts which I did for a few years and had been doing a while before HS as well. Also did a small amount of student gov stuff. There were a few things that I didn't think were important enough to include on this reddit post as well.

Awards/Honors

List all awards and honors submitted on your application.

1. Woody Herman Jazz Award
2. Head of School honors 3 years

Letters of Recommendation

Had my econ and chem teacher submit letters. Some schools required an additional letter from my music instructor who was my HS band director. Had a great relationship with all three of these and excelled in every class I had with them.

Interviews

Had one in person audition at Cal Poly SLO. This went extremely well in both my performance and my interview. I was able to speak to very specific things about the school, some even that I learned on my tour in the audition. They clearly appreciated my specific notes.

Essays

I spent countless hours on my countless essays. I would like to think that most of them were at the least pretty good ranging from good to extremely well-written. I spent extensive time brainstorming and finding the right ideas as well as editing to perfection. I was able to tie my musical curiosity into my academic drive, a topic I focused on in my common app personal statement essay and a few PIQs possibly, I don't quite remember. The main thing was that I was tying all of my interests together, whether it be in tech, music, economics, etc. Everything was somewhat tied together.

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

Acceptances:

• UC Riverside (econ)
• UC Santa Cruz (econ)
• California Polytechnic University, San Louis Obispo (music)
• Eventual: UCLA ACCEPTED!!!!!! (Off waitlist)

Waitlists:

• UC San Diego (music)
• UC Davis (econ)
• Indiana University (econ)
• University of Washington (econ)
• UCLA (Music Industry)

Rejections:

• UNC Chapel Hill (econ)
• UT Austin (econ)
• USC (Music Production, Economics)
• CMU (Electronic Music, Economics)
• University of Michigan (Music Technology, LSA Undeclared)
• UC Berkeley (music)
• UC Irvine (econ)
• UCSB (econ)
• Princeton (econ)
• Boston College (econ)
• Northwestern (econ)

Additional Information:

UCSD & SLO required moderate supplemental materials for the music and SLO had in person audition. UCLA, CMU, Michigan, and USC had extensive supplemental materials for music that included both essays and music or video submissions.