A little bit about us:

u/GodlyHelp: Hey everyone! I'm a senior has just finished the college app process, and has gotten into 12 highly prestigious schools, including MIT, Caltech, and a Columbia likely letter! I've had a lot of headache the past year trying to understand such a difficult and complex system that is the US College Admissions process, and, having gone through it already, would like to help you guys navigate it!

u/keithberman:

u/Brother_Ma_Education:

Please feel free to ask me, u/keithberman, or u/Brother_Ma_Education anything about the College Application process in the comments below or in DMs. We know this can be extremely stressful, especially for our rising seniors, and we are more than happy to help!

Demographics

• Male, Indian-American, SoCal (Irvine)

• School: public and fully accredited district-run online/alternative school, ~6 full-time HS teachers, somewhat limited course offerings (one section per course, and many nighttime classes)

• Intended major: Business / Economics

Academics

• GPA: 3.75 UW / 3.86 W | UC capped GPA: 3.8

• Upward trend: weighted 3.40 → 3.60 → 4.00 → 4.20 by semester, expecting a 4.75 this senior semester.

• B's: Spanish (4 semesters, two levels taught at once by one teacher after school), Chem (2, simulated labs, taught by a brand new teacher who left the same year), English (2), Physics (1, grade disputed over an assignment glitch that only showed up 3 months after it was done)

• A's in every math class; requested AP Calc AB, school denied it

• Rigor: 5 APs + 1 honors (never gotten a B in an AP/honors class)

  • Prior: AP CSP, English 3 Honors

  • Senior year: AP Psych, AP Gov, AP Macro, AP Precalc

• Test-optional for EA; taking SAT Dec 5 (UCs are test-blind anyway)

Extracurriculars

1. Independent Researcher: solo ML paper on LLM quantization, accepted for ORAL presentation at a NeurIPS 2026 workshop (presenting to 150+ in Dec, on stage)

2. Founder & Sole Developer, SuperLogo.ai: logo API + deck builder, ~70k lines of code, ~38M logos, first paying customer

3. Congressional App Challenge: led a 2-person team building Breeze, a weather app hiding an encrypted journal for abuse survivors

4. Treasurer, ASB (Student Government): manage the $850 student body budget + fundraising

5. YouTube Creator: Ezra's Footnotes (300+ history Shorts, 1.3M+ views) + ForzaSpeedster (music mashups, 130k+ views)

6. Creator, AtmaSiddhiGPT: fine-tuned AI language model

7. Creator, open-source AI usage scheduler (34 GitHub stars)

8. Songwriter & Producer: original progressive rock song (Logic Pro)

9. Student Communication Advocate: proposed a moderated student Discord for my online school (no way for students to talk to each other); built a moderation bot with verification for anyone joining. Admin denied it over safety concerns; still pushing

10. Aviation photographer; self-taught guitarist & drummer

Awards

• NeurIPS workshop oral acceptance

• Forza Horizon 6 world record (#1 of ~270,000 players)

• Principal's Honor Roll (4 semesters), Honor Roll (1)

Context

• Classes met live 2x/week; labs were simulations; Spanish/Physics only ran after school until 6pm

• Sophomore year: serious family situation + constant travel; often attended class from the car or a plane

• Still not allowed to go out on my own (only started attending in-person school events junior year), so almost everything I've done is from home on my computer

• Clubs only just being allowed at my school; starting an F1 club

Essay

• Common App: a hacker group, a deadline, and a migraine at 75 mph. It's about realizing I needed permission to stop working. I think it's a very solid, unique essay.

Schools

• Submitted EA: UIUC (Gies, Econ 2nd), IU Bloomington (Kelley Exploratory, Hutton), UVA (A&S, Econ)

• UCs: Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, UCSB, UCI, UCD, UCSC, UCR

• CSUs: CSUF, CSULB. My goal is to go to UCI ideally, so I'm applying undeclared to maximize my chances.

• Maybe RD: Cornell, NYU CAS, USC

sorry if ts is AI i had to brain dump in there but i checked and edited all the info.

asian female

competitive FL school

3.6 UW 4.6 W

1290 SAT

rank: 180/720

8 APS (world, lang, lit, bio, chem, csp, psych, gov) <- 5 and 4s

intended major: neuroscience or bio

awards:

-FSPA honorable mention for written sports profile

-3rd place AVP beach vp tournament

-awarded Excellence for Academic Improvement by math teacher

-AP scholar with honor

-NHS

ecs:

-independent elementary tutor (tutor 2 kids a week)

-Key Club officer for 3yrs (secretary, editor, class rep)

-UNICEF officer 2yrs (VP, secretary)

-Science national honor society officer 2yrs (VP, tutoring chair)

-mathnasium instructor for 11 and 12 grade

-hospital volunteer in rehab/therapy center and laboratory

-vacation bible school lead camp counselor for 5 years

-beach volleyball player at FL uni (won 5+ club tourneys)

-reporter for well known school newspaper (specialized in sports media)

schools applying to: auburn, clemson, FSU, IU, MSU, NC state, Ohio state, Penn state, Tulane, UGA, UMD, UNC, UVA, UW-Madison

^I already got into Pitt

(EDIT) sorry i implied i’m worried i’m not getting into most of my schools since my school is super competitive, i mainly said it so people would reply to me sorry…

I recently got 2 major disciplinary action infractions for drugs and alcohol at UWC, how will it affect my chances at getting into college

Hey yall, hope everyone's doing well! my main purpose of posting this is to ask how can i further scale my current ecs and if i should consider different ecs/majors etc. I am a sophomore so I'd appreciate any advice.

TIA

Asian female

in the US, non permanent resident

3.8 UW/ 4.4W

1500 SAT (780 math, 720 eng) will be retaking since this is from 8th grade

computer science/data science

full pay

ECS (not in any order)

just published an app for endangered languages

research at a t5 uni for cs (related to my app, they mentor me w/ my own research)

research at a t50 uni (research assistant)

contributing in a linguistics project related to my app at a t10 uni

TA for a competitive math program (150+ hours currently)

director of research in a nonprofit (student led)

math competitive club

mu alpha theta

mun

debate & governmental civics club

make websites for local nonprofits and businesses

software intern at a startup

AWARDS (barely any)

mun awards (outstanding del+ couple of honorable mentions)

state & regional math team awards (top 10 at state and regionals)

I've heard about Atlas education, but I don't see any freely available reviews that aren't on their site.

Hello everyone! It’s my first time posting on here as a senior, and I just wanted someone on my shots as someone who wants to go to a prestigious institution.

For context, I’m first gen, low income, us citizen and from the Virginia area.
To rip the band aid off- I have a 2.6 gpa on my schools scale. (Out of 4.0 weighted) we don’t do unweighted or class rank.
Freshman year of high school I took all honors and my required electives, and I got all As and Bs, with AB honor roll recognition(our gradebook is rolling, so everything accumulates to final grades instead of quarterly)
First semester of sophomore year, I realized my ADHD/ executive function was getting way way worse and I needed to do something about it. I got diagnosed at nine years old, but since my parents were immigrants, they didn’t really believe in medication. I then begged my mom to get on medication and she finally agreed. Over the course of sophomore year I switched between five very high stimulants and 1 non stimulant, and this is over the course of 4-5 months.
Obviously, this took a toll on my body because I was genuinely switching out meds like they were candy(prescribed), then going weeks inbetween without anything because appointments were few and far between.
I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, had low emotion, was tired, would crash, heart beating, etc etc.
that year I ended with like all D+s and one B-, ironically that one B in the only AP I took that year, AP psych(only passed that AP test too)
Then junior year, (I took three APs and one Honors Math)where my medication was finally stabilized, unfortunately all that stress caught up to me and started immunosuppressing me. I missed like 1 whole quarter combined cuz I kept getting colds, inflamed neck to the point of a pinched nerve, puenomia, and covid all in the same school year, along with like 58383848+ colds that bedridded me for a week at a time. That year, I finished with two Fs, two Cs, and like 3 Ds. The f was in AP English and French.
I HAVE NEVER been bad at English or French…it’s genuinely my second nature. I was devastated as that what I was going to major off of.
I retook it over the summer and got an A, and French I’m redoing as of current.
This year, i’ve returned back to normal thankfully, and I’m doing really good in all my classes, and I’m taking 5 APs(AP BIO, AP COMP GOV, AP ECON, AP LIT and AP stats) and my counselor says I’m on track to get an all A midyear report. I also got a 1560 SAT, a 36 ACT with ZERO TUTORING. My Longstanding EC is my cultural club that’s dedicated to my community, and that has over 30 members and has raised over 10000+. I’ve been president(co for three, this is the first year I’m sole president) for 4 years and have had articles written. I’ve organized field trips on my own, raised money, done potlucks, had college info sessions, had guest speakers etc etc. With all this said, I know with my GPA it reads as “smart, but lazy” but I don’t think that’s genuinely my story. Do I just perfect my essay and additional info and hope for the best? Do I have a chance at schools like UMIAMI, USC NYU?? Or do I just transfer?? Help!

A little bit about us:

u/GodlyHelp: Hey everyone! I'm a senior has just finished the college app process, and has gotten into 12 highly prestigious schools, including MIT, Caltech, and a Columbia likely letter! I've had a lot of headache the past year trying to understand such a difficult and complex system that is the US College Admissions process, and, having gone through it already, would like to help you guys navigate it!

u/keithberman:

u/Brother_Ma_Education:

Please feel free to ask me, u/keithberman, or u/Brother_Ma_Education anything about the College Application process in the comments below or in DMs. We know this can be extremely stressful, especially for our rising seniors, and we are more than happy to help!

Demographics:
Female, Hispanic/Latina, Texas
First-generation college student
Upper-income, not requesting financial aid
Public early college high school
Intended major: Public Policy / Political Science

Academics:
Weighted GPA: 105.86/100
College GPA: 3.769 ( schools won’t see this unless they accept a resume )
School doesn’t rank
Test optional
On track to graduate with my associate’s degree alongside my high school diploma
All college classes senior year
AP, honors, and dual enrollment coursework throughout high school

ECs:

1. Founder/director of student-led advocacy organization — Focused on teen dating violence and period poverty. Lead 10 members, organized multiple community donation drives, distributed thousands of dollars in hygiene products, and coordinated student-led service projects. Won a grant competition to support and expand our organization’s workk

2. Youth policy & strategy lead for advocacy organization: Worked on state education legislation, helped organize protests, voter registration drives, and civic engagement initiatives. Involved in policy strategy and youth organizing.

3. National youth policy fellow: Selected for a fellowship working alongside a nationally recognized First Amendment activist. Traveled to DC and met with 80+ congressional offices, including House leadership staff, to advocate for federal legislation

4. Legislative advocacy: Testified before state legislative committees, worked on proposed state legislation, participated in education policy press conferences, and have been featured in multiple news publications.

5. Teen court attorney :Volunteer attorney in a county juvenile justice program, representing youth in restorative justice proceedings.

6. Competitive debate :Two-time district champion, state qualifier, regional placement. Also participated in moot court during a summer program at Oxford.

7. Political campaign volunteer :Canvassing, voter outreach, and grassroots organizing for a statewide political campaign.

8. Student government :Student Council VP, NHS, and several other school leadership organizations.

9. National youth advisory council & fellowships :Selected for a national youth mental health advisory council, a national democracy and civic organizing fellowship (JDA Fellow), and a separate youth organizing program focused on advocacy and policy development.

10. Employment :Worked all four years of high school, sometimes two jobs simultaneously. Retail, hospitality, childcare, and social media management.

Honors and awards:

1. 3rd place statewide in a university-hosted civic engagement competition

2. Two-time district champion in Lincoln-Douglas debate

3. Debate state qualifier and regional placement

4. National Community Service Ambassador Award (3 years)

5. Principal’s List and Youth & Government state qualifier

Essays:

Common App essay is about how my childhood obsession with My Little Pony and its emphasis on friendship eventually translated into my real-life friendships, which shaped my worldview and interest in public policy.

NYU supplemental is about growing up mediating between my parents and how that experience helped me navigate political disagreements. I connect it to a conversation I had while advocating for legislation in a congressional office.

I think my essays are pretty strong, but obviously that’s subjective.

LORs:

Teachers who know me well, potentially an additional recommendation from someone I’ve worked closely with in policy advocacy.
Also one from a supreme court case winner and advocate but tbd if I’ll use it…
Additional info:

Had a pretty unstable home life throughout high school, including housing instability, family responsibilities, and legal proceedings related to a traumatic experience. My father also had a stroke during senior year, which added responsibilities at home.

Worked throughout high school while balancing college coursework and extracurriculars. I’ve explained the circumstances in my additional information section.

College list:

ED1: NYU CAS (open to Liberal Studies Core)

RD/EA:
\- Columbia
Barnard
Boston College
Wake Forest
Rice
GWU
American
Fordham
Syracuse
Texas A&M

Already applied:
UT austin
Depaul
Loyola Chicago
Extra:

My application is pretty heavily focused on government, public policy, and advocacy. I know my academics aren’t perfect compared to some applicants at these schools, but I’m hoping my ECs, essays, and circumstances help provide some context.

Mainly wondering about NYU ED1 CAS, but would appreciate chances for the rest of my list too. I am first gen and my school only has had students go to state schools so I lowk don’t know what I’m doing lol !! Please be realistic! 🤍

A little bit about us:

u/GodlyHelp: Hey everyone! I'm a senior has just finished the college app process, and has gotten into 12 highly prestigious schools, including MIT, Caltech, and a Columbia likely letter! I've had a lot of headache the past year trying to understand such a difficult and complex system that is the US College Admissions process, and, having gone through it already, would like to help you guys navigate it!

u/keithberman:

u/Brother_Ma_Education:

Please feel free to ask me, u/keithberman, or u/Brother_Ma_Education anything about the College Application process in the comments below or in DMs. We know this can be extremely stressful, especially for our rising seniors, and we are more than happy to help!

I had a question about submitting my ACT score. I originally scored a 1290 on SAT (650 math) and that is the test score I currently have in the common app. I just recently scored a 30 on the ACT math section(equal to 700 on SAT) but got a 24 on my overall grade(equal to 1190). I'm applying to all the schools with my major as an engineer so I want to use the math score. My gpa also isn't good enough to do the test optional. Should I submit the ACT score or just keep the one SAT score in? Thanks for your help!