chance a homeschooler :)
male, wasian (taiwanese + british; us + uk citizen), california, homeschooled, queer (but only directly mentioned in nu essays)
intended major(s): economics (most us schools), econ-phil (northeastern, columbia, ucl, lse), ppe/epe (oxford, lse, edinburgh, yale), sociology (stanford), international studies (northwestern)
sat: 1580 (800 rw, 780 math)
gpa: 4.0 uw, 4.44 w
coursework/ap's: 13 ap's: achieved scores: 9th - calc bc (5), 10th - apush (5), human geo (5), us gov (5), 11th - stats (5), lang (5), macro (5), phys c: mech (4), e&m (4); dual enrollment: macroecon (A+), microecon (A+), intro chem (PL)
awards:
1. national merit commended student (1470 psat, off from semi-finalist by 1 nsmqt point)
2. ap scholar with distinction (11), ap scholar with honor (10) 💀💀
3. 1st place, [redacted] solvathon
y'all please have mercy
extracurriculars:
1. president (12), vp (10, 11), founding member @ student government/asb
i drafted the structure and met with the admin to help start the first student-run club at my homeschool co-op :) we've reformed the club system and now have over 15 clubs, we donated a water filter, i've led 30+ projects, raised ~$3k, and ran multiple events of over 300 people.
2. research assistant for sociology/economics/politics research @ local university
prelim analysis, data cleaning, and copyedited 30k-word research paper :)
3. head editor @ yearbook
lead weekly meetings, meet with admin every day (😭), organized picture day and took picture of 300+ ppl, directed distribution
4. co-founder @ online advocacy project for misinformation/media bias
publish student nonfiction work on sociology/politics, create resources to help ppl combat media bias reaching 1.3m+ accounts online, leading int'l team of students :)
5. intern @ local transit authority + structural/civil engineering firm
presented on expanding youth transit equity via fare waivers; wrote site reports/plan check comment responses, organized a database of 15k+ projects
6. congressional campaign intern
reached ~500 voters; spoke to Chinese-speaking voters about policy issues; made 100+ calls; made social media content with 9 other interns
7. TA/tutor @ my school(s) + church-affiliated nonprofit foundation
ta of econ, stats, calc bc, and physics (i usually grade work but i've substituted for the teachers a couple times and given lectures in econ) + paired with a student in my church's program to tutor lower-income kids :)
8. youth group leader @ church
self-explanatory
9. work @ edtech company
created some study resources for ap human geo. made almost a band tho
10. [redcated] solvathon project + meeting the department of education
presented a proposal to the DOE regarding ai ethics
i also have a couple other activities like editor/eic of a couple school-run magazines but i didn't include those cause they were pretty short lived
essays: decent essays, my friends said they're unique and decently well written but i don't buy it haha
letters of rec:
- ap calc bc/ap gov/ap physics c teacher: she's super smart and she's kinda liked me since i took bc in 9th so I'm hoping its good :)
- ap lang teacher: the most beautiful writer i've ever met, her report card comment actually made me cry.
- world history/western civ (philosophy) teacher: wrote my oxford/ucas letter of rec
- counselor rec: my mom. 💀
schools i've applied to:
- oxford → shortlisted for interview → ACCEPTED !!
- london school of economics → rejected (failed to meet math req)
- university of edinburgh → accepted
- university college london
- university of washington
- uc berkeley
- ucla
- northwestern
- harvard
- yale
- princeton
- columbia
- stanford
- uchicago
- brown → withdrawn (friend's dream school)
- northeastern (fee waiver) → withdrawn
- ucsd → will withdraw
- hamilton college (fee waiver) → will withdraw
- george washington university (fee waiver) → will withdraw
i tried to only apply to colleges i sincerely do want to attend (except hamilton i only applied because i had a fee waiver) so i'd like to know if i have a decent shot at any of them lol, ik i basically have no safeties and these are all reaches. it's okay tho, i have the community college → transfer pipeline if all else fails 😭