Rural Indian cracks T5 CS School

Demographics

• Gender: Male
• Race/Ethnicity: Indian
• Residence: Arkansas
• Income Bracket: 200k+
• Type of School: Public
• Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): Geographic/Region?

Intended Major(s): CS or related

Academics

• GPA (UW/W): 4.61/3.96
• Rank (or percentile): 2/~600
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 10 APs + 15 DE
• Senior Year Course Load: AP Physics C: Mechanics, AP Stats, AP Gov, DE for Game Dev (3 different courses), DE Programming Logic I & II, CS Internship

Standardized Testing

List the highest scores earned and all scores that were reported.

• ACT: 33 (35E, 35M, 29R, 31S)
• AP/IB: AP CSP (3), AP Human Geography (4), AP Environmental Science (3), AP CSA (3), AP World History (4), AP Calculus AB (4), AP Calculus BC (4, AB-subscore: 5), AP Psychology (4)

Extracurriculars/Activities

List all extracurricular involvements, including leadership roles, time commitments, major achievements, etc.

1. Front-End Development Intern at an AI startup
2. Software Engineering Intern working on employer tools and AI matching systems
3. Information Security Intern focused on cybersecurity awareness and employee training
4. Math Instructor tutoring students in Algebra through Precalculus
5. Programming Club Vice President
6. Math Honor Society member and competitive math participant
7. Varsity Quizbowl member specializing in math and mythology
8. Varsity Tennis player and tournament competitor
9. National Honor Society member involved in volunteering and mentoring
10. AR/VR exhibit volunteer and technology showcase guide

Awards/Honors

List all awards and honors submitted on your application.

1. CyberPatriot Platinum Divison
2. 1st place hackathon winner for developing a multilingual AI financial literacy chatbot
3. 2-time state coding competition qualifier and multiple-time regional top placements
4. National Recognition Program Certificate for Outstanding Academic 
5. Best Implementation award recipient for developing an AI-powered fitness/wellness application

Letters of Recommendation

AP Psychology Teacher - 7/10. Doesn't usually write rec letters/ no body really asks him. Also spent a majority of my time just sleeping through his class.

CS Teacher (AP CSP/ AP CSA) - 9/10. Interacted with him for all 4 years of highschool and has seen my growth as a CS student throughout and even got leadership for senior year.

AP Calculus BC - 9/10. Only had this one for MIT. Really loved me and I always talk to her even when I don't have her class. One of my favorite teachers throughout highschool.

Interviews

(Briefly reflect on interview experiences, if applicable.)

Princeton - 8/10. In-person meeting. He was a senior SWE. Had a great time talking about his work and about Princeton. Learned a lot and was very attentive. Got to connect with him on LinkedIn after.

MIT - 7/10. Remote/Zoom Call. She told me a bunch of her stories about MIT as a student. Agreed on a lot of things and really hit it off.

Dartmouth - 4/10. Rescheduled so many times. I also honestly didn't really care enough at that point.

Essays

(Briefly reflect on the quality of your writing, time spent, and topic of main personal statement.)

I am a decent writer. Not the best but it's very personalized, wrote about my name and how I came to accept it as a part of me instead of hating it. Spent maybe around 2 months on this. having multiple drafts and other people read it for peer edits definitely helped.

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

Acceptances:

• University of Arkansas (Full Ride)
• University of Washington (got in for Pre-Science not CS)
• North Carolina State University
• Texas A & M
• Purdue: West Lafayette
• Rochester Institute of Technology
• UC Irvine
• UC Santa Barbara
• UC Santa Cruz
• University of Illinois: Urbana - Champaign
• University of Maryland: College Park
• University of Minnesota Twin Cities
• Georgia Tech (committed)

Waitlists:

• UC Davis (accepted from WL)
• UC San Diego (accepted from WL)
• UNC Chapel Hill
• Dartmouth (really surprised at this)

Rejections:

• Carnegie Mellon
• MIT
• Cornell
• Duke
• Princeton
• Rice
• Stanford
• UC Berkley
• University of Texas: Austin

Additional Information:

It was definitely random. When I started applying, I was just hoping to get into Purdue and I would have been satisfied. It really does take only one. Feel free to comment if you have any questions!