A Tale of a Redemption Arc and Some Unrequested Guidance from an Ivy & Oxbridge admit on having a sane college application process

 A Tale of a Redemption Arc and Some Unrequested Guidance from an Ivy & Oxbridge admit on having a sane college application process

So Hi ,

Pretty sure most of you don't know me. I'm Prottoy Roy, an incoming freshman at Brown (or maybe Oxford?), who's writing this to share some of his wisdom on dealing with college admissions.

I honestly wasn't sure if I wanted to make this post. But reminding myself of Tasnim Zulfiqar Apu's awesome post on dealing with rejections, I realised I do have something to share with future applicants. The first part of the post would (OF COURSE) be about my offers and stats. The second part (the reason why I'm writing this) would be about some general advice on keeping oneself and one’s expectations rational during the process.

Offers:

US: Brown ED, Bard EA (Immediate Decision Plan), Applied to 6 other EA places but all apps withdrawn, Did not have to do RD

UK: University of Oxford, Warwick, Bristol, Southampton, UCL

Korea: KAIST (Early Action)

Hong Kong: HKUST (Early Round)

Netherlands: Utrecht University (in their selective Honors College i.e. University College Utrecht)

My profile:

1. Academics: 9 O-level subjects, 5 AS subjects, 4 A2 subjects - all A*

2. A-level subjects: Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Biology, Further Mathematics (AS only)

3. SAT: 1510

4. Recommendation letters: along with the 3 normally required ones, I submitted an external LOR from my senior at the Child Health Research Foundation

5. Extracurricular activities:

a) Olympiads - did for 6/7yrs from grades 7-12; mainly Physics and Biology Olympiad

b) Pharmaceutical & Drug Design Researcher - at RGRC + ABCD lab

c) Computational Astrophysics Intern - at Max Planck Institute of Astronomy (MPIA) in Heidelberg, Germany

d) Computational Neuroscience Researcher - Neuromatch Academy

e) Vice-President (Academics) - school's science club

f) Voluntary teacher - at Greenherald Charity School

g) Bioart Curator - "The Lake of Memories" Exhibition: an art project for iGEM

h) Science Educator - Science Film Festival

i) BSB Fellow - working for the Building Scientists for Bangladesh (BSB) team at the Child Health Research Foundation

j) did some music, poetry, and painting here and there

k) Miscellaneous: attended the Princeton Physics of Life Summer School during COVID, participated in BL4S but didn't win, wrote a paper on Bangladesh's education policy for the Virtual World Food Prize Global Youth Institute, also did some independent projects

6. Honors that were placed somewhere on the Commonapp:

a) Gold medal, Int’l Applied Biology Olympiad, Indonesia

b) Champion of the Champions award, National Round of BDPhO in 2020

c) Silver Award, The Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition

d) Finalist + 1st (in Physics category), International Student Research & Innovation Fair

e) Global Talent, UNLEASH Innovation Lab in 2022, India

f) Fully-funded Delegate, Student Energy Summit ‘23, UAE

g) Published a paper for my drug design work at a Wiley journal

7. Essay:

My Commonapp essay was about using the idea of Darwin's Evolutionary theory as an extended metaphor to talk about my journey of exploring science and shifting from a Physics fanboy in middle school to a Biology connoisseur in high school.

8. Interviews:

Gave 2 interviews at Bard (both went awesome)

Gave 2 interviews at Oxford (both went awesome) 

For Brown, I had to submit a Video Portfolio instead of an interview. Here's a link to the video if anyone's interested: https://youtu.be/Dm0X-L0ooio?si=j9XnHeQu-wrzMwjS

9. Additional stuff: Made good use of the 650 words additional section on the Commonapp to elaborate on my ECAs; I submitted an application update to Brown on Dec 3rd, 2023; also submitted a Research Abstract to Brown talking about the research work I had done at the Neuromatch Academy

10. Gap Year explanation: Talked about my BSB fellow position at CHRF and some competitions I did

11. Estimated Family Contribution (EFC): 22,000 USD

12. Intended major: Biophysics, Education Studies

That sums up all the stats part. I gave as clear a picture of my profile as possible. But now the more important part. Some not-so-general advice.

1. Standing Out:

Year by year, the US university admissions process is only getting tougher. Almost all my friends applying with me had all A*, 1530+ SAT, and good ECs. What I did differently was try to stand out in this sea of applications. This is particularly important advice if you want to have a chance of getting into top LACs and Ivies. In my case, I had a unique story of shifting from physics to biology (not something you see in a high schooler) and my intended major was Biophysics - a major where almost no one applies.

2. EFC:

I think the EFC part is more important than your overall profile. There are some schools which won’t even read your application if your EFC is below a certain threshold. No amount of “standing out” will help you here. If I had to give a ballpark estimate, anything less than 20,000 USD puts you in a very very risky place. This number might be true for now, but I think it will only increase year by year. That being said, yes people still get full rides but it is RARE.

3. Expectations and backup plans:

A maximum of 10 people from Bangladesh get into some Ivy/T10 every year. I’m not saying to not apply to top schools but I want you to have solid backups if Ivies don't work out. I applied to HKUST, KAIST, UK, Netherlands, and even Bard just so that I have backups over backups.

4. Timeline:

I dreamt of studying at an Ivy from grade 7. Undoubtedly starting early was integral in my journey. Universities do check from when you started doing a particular EC. If you have all ECs starting in grade 12, you are kinda doomed.

5. Essay writing:

This connects well to the standing out point. See maybe you have an amazing life or maybe just a simple life. But remember for essays, it comes down to how beautifully you portray it. You HAVE to tell your story in a beautiful structure that can stand out. Also, stick to narrative essays and not montage ones. Narratives work better to make you stand out. For people living a mundane life like me, usually, academic interest essays work quite well.

6. Supplemental essay topic selection:

For God’s sake, please talk about things the university wants to hear and NOT what you want to tell them. Let’s take community essays as an example. I was a part of my school's Environmental club. Now as an education studies major applicant if I write an essay about the environmental club, do you think the essay will work? In the community essay, universities would love to hear about my values and experience as a teacher and not an environmentalist.

7. ECA list:

A perfect formula for an awesome ECA list - 4 core major-related ECs, 4 ECs that somehow supplement the core ECs, 1 sports-related EC, 1 performing arts EC like music/dance

**except for Caltech as it requires 7+ research ECs

8. College selection:

Although all colleges indeed want to make a complete classroom, you do have to understand the niche vibe of each college. Like for example my app could have gotten into Columbia, Princeton, Duke, Stanford, Caltech, Pomona, or Cornell CALS. But I can bet that this would have never gotten me into Harvard (wants leadership/debate ECs), MIT (won’t any take non-olympiad kids from BD), Dartmouth (wants quirky and interesting ECs), Uchicago (same as Dartmouth but wants a VERY high EFC), or Yale (similar to Dartmouth).

9. Luck:

And now the most important thing: Luck. See I got rejected from every single place last year despite having an almost similar profile. I mean I did work on designing my profile differently this year, but I do believe I had a good profile last year as well. So please don’t have high hopes. This process isn’t fair and it will never be. But I believe in one thing. Increase the surface area of your luck. Apply strategically and do good research on your ED+ED2 school, cause it's your best chance of getting in. Do work freaking hard on making a standout profile with absolutely 0 mistakes.

I still remember that day: March 31, 2023. I was crying on Mom’s lap thinking why I didn’t get into a single place despite 6yrs of hard work.

I know for a fact this wasn’t my story only. Honestly, I am one of the lucky ones who had the circumstances, energy, and insane amount of zeal to take a gap year and fight for something that I always knew was mine. But anyway, I do hope that this post will slightly make life easier for future applicants. I know this is a very long post and most of you won't read it till the end. But that's what I want actually. I want the truly motivated ones to get into places like Ivies and Oxbridge in the upcoming cycles. In case any of these future applicants need my help, here are my contact details:

Email: hello.prottoyroy@gmail.com

LinkedIn: prottoyroy

Instagram: pratt.101

(N.B. You won’t find me on Facebook so no use trying)

Finally, best of luck to future applicants. In these unpredictable times, be happy with whatever college you end up going to. I can't promise the decisions will be in your favour if you put in the work. But what I can promise is that the grind will never ditch you. Hope to see you guys doing your best and get ahead of the curve!

Godspeed