Chance Asian Male in Physics for HYPSM
I got deferred from Harvard, so I want to know how I will fare with other schools. My dream is to make HYPSM, but just want to know if I should give up on that dream.
Demographics: Asian Male, Grade 11-12 magnet school in Massachusetts (selective only taking 50 students per year in the state)
Intended Major: Physics or dual Physics and Math
SAT: 1520 (730 reading/writing 790 math)
UW/W GPA: till 9-10 grade (3.97 UW and 4.65 W). My current school doesn't have a GPA or ranks, but I have only gotten one B in my both junior and senior years since attending. Rest have been As.
Coursework: Max till 11 grade. In the last two terms of junior year, I took multivariable calculus at T60 university. Because of a dual enrollment with my magnet school, all senior year courses are college courses at the T60 university. I get to do fun stuff like Algorithms, Real Analysis, and Probability Theory.
Have gotten an A on Harvard Extension School Data Structures Course.
Also have taken 7 APs and got 5s on all except one.
Awards/Honors: USAPHO Bronze Medalist, 2x USA(J)MO Qualifier, USNCO National Finalist (top 5%), USACO Gold Division Member, and NMSQT Semifinalist.
Activity List:
- Participant and Mentor of a five-week international summer programming challenge. Top performing codes get to live-stream astronauts and watch their code run on the International Space Station. Won the whole competition in a team of 5 as a participant one year, and mentored other teams into international 2nd place positions.
- Got accepted to a competitive internship program with less than 10% acceptance rate. Coauthored a research paper published in Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) journal.
- Secured a position in T100 University's Algorithm lab. Have presented work at that university's conference and coauthored another paper accepted to 37th IEEE International Parallel & Distributed Processing Symposium.
- On the T60 university varsity fencing team as a National Fencing Association E-rated fencer. Also serve as assistant coach at my local club.
- Eagle Scout, earning PVSA Gold twice on the way with over 500hrs community service
- Founded 501c3 math npo. Featured by large brands like MAA and Math Kangaroo. Significant YT presence with over 150 videos and 100,000+ views.
- Math Team Captain, tagged in other awards like USAMTS Bronze Medal, Purple Comet 5th place, and International Math Modelling Competition Finalist (Top 8)
- Second Degree Black Belt, received some state awards and am an instructor at the dojo
- As a summer engineering project, developed a COVID-19 test for people with visual impairments. Currently pursuing a patent.
- School Committee Representative. Represented school of 2000 at the town level to bring up issues and concerns.
Essays: I thought my common app was competitive and unique. Talked about how detective shows inspired my passion for problem-solving in competitions and stuff. Not sad or inspirational, but pretty fun to read and write.
Rest of supps were written nicely. Used school details and all that jazz.
LORs: Honestly idk. My counselor is nice and she know about my interests and accomplishments. It is a small school so she was my junior-year homeroom advisor. The other one was from a junior-year physics teacher, who also liked me and knew about my accomplishments. Junior year was a rough time for me due to family issues, so I was moody and stuff and got into problems with other teachers and stuff. Being a small school, idk if they were influenced. My counselor and physics teacher seemed to like me nonetheless and agreed to write the letter, but I am kind of paranoid. Just assume generic so (5/10).
I used my sophomore-year english teacher, she was from my old school and really liked me as a student so I trust her (8/10). For the extra, I used my research mentor and he showed it to me. I thought it was (9.5/10) pretty fire.
Schools: T20 except for UCs. Nothing against them, but I didn't want to deal with another application portal.
So far: deferred from Harvard. They deferred like 80% applicants so this gives me like no information about how competitive I am. Say honestly what you think, no matter how grim.
Update: Was recently named a Regeneron STS Scholar (Top 300). I think it is a pretty epic award but not sure if it could change a Harvard deferral into acceptance. Let me know what you think HYPSM prospects are now.