Srinidhi's Blog

College Apps Reflection

Introduction

Hello everyone. This post is going to be my college application review and reflection. Basically, a post you would find on r/collegeresults. I applied as Materials Engineering to all schools unless otherwise noted.

Academics

Note: This will be at the time of applying.

GPA (UW/W): 3.97/4.67

Rank: 7/97 (UC’s don’t look at this)

Courseload:

9th Grade

10th Grade

11th Grade

12th Grade

Extracurriculars

This is the order I reported on Common App.

  1. Mathematics Tutor @ College of the Canyons (work, paid)
  2. President of Imagining the Future Club
  3. Treasurer of Math & Physics Club
  4. Vice President of COC Math Club
  5. Co-Captain of Science Olympiad Team
  6. Teaching Assistant @ Kumon (work, paid)
  7. Tamil Teacher Assistant @ Santa Clarita Tamil Academy (community service)
  8. Carnatic Flute (hobby)
  9. Python Instructor @ The STEAM Foundation (community service)

Awards/Honors

I think this was probably the weakest section of my app.

  1. International Tamil Academy Certificate of Achievement
  2. IGETC Certification
  3. National Honor Society
  4. Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society
  5. Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement

Letters of Recommendation

For my early apps (Georgia Tech & Purdue), I asked Professor Matsumoto, who I took Calc 3 with and Mr. Koegle, a past teacher and club advisor. I think Mr. Koegle’s LOR was probably a 10/10 as he is known for his LORs, and I’ve also interacted with him a lot due to him being the advisor for 3 of my biggest activities. I think Prof. Matsumoto’s was probably a 5 or 6/10 because calc 3 was a hybrid class, so I didn’t really talk to him much. Mrs. Garvar also wrote one LOR for Stanford as they require a humanities rec, so I think this one might be a 7/10 as we interacted closely with Project Linus and I think I was a good student in her English 11 class. UCs and CSU’s don’t require LORs (unless asked for).

Essays

My common app essay wasn’t super strong I would say. I wrote a draft in english 12, and that’s what I ended up using as my final version (though I did revise it a bit before submitting). I wrote about Tamil culture. My supplementals for the common app schools were very strong and unique. I really liked them and I think they were what set me apart from other applicants. I doubt anyone wrote about what I did. For PIQs, I really liked my PIQs too. I think they were very strong and answered all the prompts well. I chose the leadership, creativity, academic subject and community prompt. I talked about Science Olympiad, the flute, math and math and physics club in those PIQs. Common App Essay: 6/10. Supplementals: 9/10. PIQS: 9/10.

Decisions

I cannot lie, I was very surprised by my results. I thought I would be more cooked applying as an Engineering major in the biggest class ever, but I am very grateful that I got these results.

Acceptances

Waitlists

Rejections

Conclusion

In the end, I committed to UCLA for Materials Engineering! Go Bruins!! Until UCLA came out, I had my mind set on going to Georgia Tech, so I was really sad about having to withdraw my application. I ended up choosing UCLA over Georgia Tech due to proximity, cost & campus life. I plan on going to grad school, so I hope I am fortunate enough to attend Georgia Tech then. I don’t know what reasons I got into all these good colleges for, but I believe taking the max courseload along with having good school and community involvement really helped me. Do not do any activities to get into college, but do them because you like them. That’s basically it and I hope this post was helpful.