Indian Hobbit clutches UT Austin, Purdue, PennState and Texas A&M

Demographics

  • Gender: Male
  • Race/Ethnicity: Indian
  • Residence: India, but American citizen
  • Income Bracket: 150-200k
  • Type of School: crappy public school
  • Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): lol no

Note: I'm considered OOS for tuition purposes, but considered Intl for the actual admissions review process

Intended Major(s): Physics

Academics

  • GPA (UW/W): I live in India so no GPA, but my gradewise marks are: 9th: 89%, 10th: 94.4%, 11th: 97.2%, 12th midterms: 95% (CBSE Curriculum of India)
  • Rank (or percentile): ranking is not followed in the CBSE curriculum
  • # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: My school doesn't have APs, but I self studied AP Calc during summer vacation of 11th

Standardized Testing

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

  • SAT I: 1510 (760M , 750R)
  • AP/IB: 5 in Calc BC, 5 on the AB subscore as well

Extracurriculars/Activities

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

  1. Volunteer at an NGO in a remote village (11-12)
  2. Intern at a chemical polymers company (11-12)
  3. Independent Research in Physics, published in a repository (11-12)
  4. Re-Founding member of the engineering lab at my school after it closed down during covid (10)
  5. Teaching Assistant for science and math at my school (9-10)
  6. Leader for physics and chemistry laboratories at my school (11-12)
  7. Project Lead at my school for the engineering lab to create models and experiments to showcase at competitions (10)
  8. Music: Veena player (ancient indian stringed instrument) (9-10)

Awards/Honors (kinda mid)

List all awards and honors submitted on your application.

  1. Certificate of Distinction in the International Chemistry Quiz 2023 (11th grade)
  2. Gold Medal in a national science exam (10th grade)
  3. Selected for the state level science exhibition organised by CBSE (10th grade)
  4. 2X interschool science exhibition 2nd place winner (10th grade)
  5. Certificate of merit for securing 90%+ in the 10th board exams (10th grade)
  6. Selected to present my paper and experiment at a physics convention (12th grade)

(didn't mention the 6th one as an award since it was already in the extracurricular section)

Letters of Recommendation

LOR1 Physics Teacher (9/10): He's my personal mentor and knows me like his son. Wrote really well and added info about determination and stuff

LOR2 Community Service admin member (8/10): she wrote about how I taught village kids in their native tongue and used analogies to make theoretical stuff in textbooks relatable

Counselor LOR: wrote about how I did all this stuff even though there's no support system in my city and it's very hard to do anything really. Also mentioned how I'm the first person to apply from my school in history.

Interviews

Stanford: went well, the interviewer was kinda impressed about my research and stuff but idk

Essays

(9/10) my personal statement was about my physics teacher giving me guidance when I was directionless and made me decide my major way back in 10th grade

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

Acceptances so far as of 15th January:

  • EA Texas A&M
  • EA Penn State Main Campus
  • EA UT Austin
  • EA Purdue

Rejections so far: Stanford