Demographics

Asian male
Texas
Private IB school
Full pay
No hooks

Intended Major

Biochemistry / pre-med (some BME interest)

Academics

GPA: 87.38/100 (school only counts junior year, reports gpa out of 100)

9th grade: 90.2 10th grade: 93.8 (both years only visible on transcript)

UW: ~3.55/4 (academic classes only) otherwise 3.69/4
W: ~4.47/5
Coursework: Full IB (HL Physics, HL Chemistry, HL Math AA)

Context: My GPA drop was mainly due to English. I tend to process language very literally, which made literary analysis harder despite putting in effort and getting help.

Testing

ACT: 36
SAT: 1500 (1520 superscore) (not reported anywhere)

ECs (brief)

• Bioinformatics research at Houston Methodist (ML + PCA work)
• Brown Pre-College (Cancer Informatics, ML models)
• Rice genome engineering course
• Independent STEM projects (cellular automata, DIY builds)
• 3+ years volunteering with special needs children
• Church refugee camp volunteer
• Medical Club volunteering

Awards

• U.S. Presidential Scholars Program Nominee
• Scholastic Art & Writing National Silver Medal
• Scholastic Art & Writing Gold Key (2)

Essay

Wrote my Common App essay about building a DIY VR headset as a kid using cardboard and an iPhone because I couldn’t afford one, and how that experience sparked my interest in creating things under constraints. Connected it to later projects like a makeshift Mars rover for a competition and how building became both a problem-solving approach and a way to connect with others.

Decisions

Acceptances:
Purdue, RPI (38k yearly), SMU (37.5k yearly), Baylor (30k yearly), Trinity (24k yearly), Clarkson (43k yearly), Ithaca College (35k yearly), University of Puget Sound (38k yearly), University of Tulsa (27k yearly), Saint Louis University (36k yearly), Calvin (18k yearly) , UCCS (6.25k yearly), Allegheny (48k yearly), UF Online (applied on accident), HCU (full tuition), NAU (15k yearly)

Waitlists:
UChicago, UW Seattle, Wisconsin, RIT, UCSB

Rejections:
Rice, UCLA, UCI, UC Berkeley, UCSD, Georgetown, Emory, UVA, UMich, WashU, Cornell, Brown, Duke, Columbia, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, MIT, Pomona, Wesleyan, Bowdoin, CMU, UIUC, Texas A&M

Other:
UT Austin CAP

Awaiting:

UMD, Colorado School of Mines, Penn State, UT Dallas, Berea, Depauw, La Verne, Wooster, University of Oklahoma

Reflection

I think my GPA likely prevented me from making it past the first round at many top schools. Even with a 36 ACT, the 87 average, especially coming from a system where only junior year is counted, probably made my academics look less consistent.

The UChicago waitlist stood out to me because it suggests my application was at least somewhat competitive, but still not strong enough academically to push through. I was surprised by it, the same way I surprised when I got PSA at TAMU after opting in for the waitlist.

At the same time, the 36 ACT did have a major upside. It helped me receive a large amount of merit-based scholarships at lower-ranked schools, totaling at least 1.2 million dollars. So while it didn’t fully offset GPA at top schools, it clearly made a big difference in admissions and cost at other schools.

I also applied to a lot of far reaches, which definitely inflated the rejection list.

Overall, this process made it clear that testing alone cannot compensate for GPA at highly selective schools, but it can still be extremely valuable depending on where you apply.