This is part 1 of my interview with Seth where he tells us about his college application that got him into Brown University. He shares both his published research and internship experience.

Part 2 is here.

Transcription

Kamila
Hey college kids. Welcome back to my podcast to cares about college. This is part one of my interview with Seth from Brown University. I’m just here to remind you as usual to check out my blog college reality check.com And follow me on Instagram at underscore a college kid underscore enjoy

Hey, college kids, welcome back to my podcast who cares about college? In today’s episode, I’ll be interviewing Seth. So if you could introduce yourself?

Seth
Yeah. My name is Seth. I’m from Washington, DC, majoring in math and computer science and I am a rising sophomore at Brown

Kamila
University, University. Okay, so let’s start all the way back. Whenever this was for you, what was your expectation or your family’s expectation with higher education? Were you expected to first of all go to college and then second, go to an elite top university?

Seth
Um, I was definitely expected to go to college. Both my parents also went to college. In terms of an elite university, I’d say no, I mean, I think they expected me to go to a good college. Not necessarily something like brown. Like, I think they just wanted me to go somewhere that was a good fit and, you know, was was reasonably good.

Kamila
And can you give us a quick, I guess, summary of your demographics like race, gender, socioeconomic status. So we know what the admissions officers saw when they opened your application?

Seth
Yeah. So they would have seen my race is mostly white and a little bit Middle Eastern. I think that might have just been I just be white on the Yeah, I think it is classic college application. genders male socio economic status, I would say upper middle class.

Kamila
Yeah. All right. And to start off with your high school, what kind of high school did you attend? You know, first, like, was it public or private? And was it a rigorous High School? Did they offer a lot of those advanced placement courses? And do they send a lot of students to like, you know, good top universities?

Seth
Yes. So I went to a public magnet school, here in DC. And I would say that it was somewhat pretty rigorous. I mean, it was it was competitive. There were a lot of AP courses, a lot of people. So two courses at the George Washington University, which is actually on the campus of so there is there’s a relationship between my high school and GW. So yeah, I would say it was pretty competitive. And we did. We did generally send quite a few kids to really good schools, like, you know, the Ivy’s Stanford UCs and stuff like that.

Kamila
And can you quickly explain what is a public magnet school? Yeah, so

Seth
public magnet school basically takes kids so it’s like a city thing. They it takes kids from all over the all over the city. And it is there’s usually, like an application, you might have to like, do some testing interviews in order to get in? And yet compared to like, most like, public schools in cities, usually they only take from a certain area in the city rather than the entire city.

Kamila
And was your school concentrated on something like was it an engineering focus school or like a humanities focus school?

Seth
Yeah, I’d say definitely the focus was humanities, which is not at all what I’m focused on now. But yeah, it was it was somewhat humanities focused. But I mean, everything was pretty good. And you really had the option to do like to kind of focus a little bit more on what you wanted, especially with that that program was the George Washington University. In fact, some students actually did all their junior and senior classes at GW. I didn’t do that. But some people did that, too.

Kamila
So let’s first talk about you know, you like your courses, GPA, LSAT, before we get into your extracurriculars and such. So with your, let’s say, classes, can you walk us through high school and say, like, how many AP classes you ended up taking? And if you did, partake in that GW program, and then what did your GPA both unweighted and weighted come out to be?

Seth
Yes, I think I took like 10 or 11. Aps. And then yeah, so I did take quite a few classes at GW. I took all math classes. And I think I took I took three and my unweighted GPA was gonna say like 3.8 and then waited maybe 4.2 or 4.3.

Kamila
And I have a question. So with because there’s a difference between doing an enrollment in like a community college and high school versus what you did, and I’ve interviewed some people who have done like similar programs at their high school, like one guy, he was in New York, and he, his high school offered people to take classes at Columbia University. So can you tell me how those classes affected your whether they did or did not affect your like GPA? And how your like different classes were weighted to colleges view you differently than other applicants? Because you already took college classes?

Seth
Oh, yeah. So it had no absolutely no effect on my, my high school GPA for people who were taking all their classes that was like a particular program. And in that case, you’re getting high school and college credits. But for that I was just exclusively getting college credits. So had no effect to my high school GPA and colleges I applied to I, you know, I submitted that my GW transcripts so that they saw that too. So yeah, they didn’t see that. And it certainly may have helped to show that I could do well in college causes.

Kamila
Alright, so let’s go on to actually one more thing. You know, I want to know, how do you study for AP tests? Like, what did you do to study for your 10? To 11? Oh, if you did take the test? Um, yeah.

Seth
I mean, I think I will say that mainly, I would just use the, like the one of those like the barons, like guides, honestly, like, I took AP starting in like eighth grade all the way through 12th. So when I was younger, I probably didn’t study as much as I should have. But yeah, I think those guide books were generally pretty helpful. Some I study more than others like, for like math, I generally didn’t study too much, because that was something I was stronger at, versus the humanities, I tended to study a little bit more. And there were also I think the school is pretty good at giving us a lot of time, at the end of the year, like leading up to the AP to like, study and review stuff. So I didn’t need to do too much outside of school.

Kamila
Okay, so they helped you with the AP test.

Seth
I mean, just like in classes, like their review sessions, but there weren’t any like, I mean, there might have been, but I didn’t do any, like after school opportunities or anything like that. But yeah, I didn’t study a ton. But yeah, I think those Barron’s guides, Princeton Review, are all pretty helpful. Just to review content.

Kamila
Alright, so let’s move on to SCT. AC T, walk me through the whole process. When did you start thinking about taking either the sh t, or AC T? What preparations did you do? Yeah, so

Seth
So for preparation, I think I started thinking about it like junior year, I took, I did like the Khan Academy. I thought that was a really great resource.

Seth
This is for LSAT, LSAT, I

Seth
didn’t, I didn’t take the AC t. So I think the first time I took it might have been like, early March. I think though, I think I talked with my school in early March of my junior year, and then October of my senior year, and I also took it on my own ones in June. So I think, yeah, Khan Academy was was pretty helpful. As a resource, it was it’s, you know, it’s free. It’s very comprehensive. There’s a lot of practice tests. And that was, that was mainly what I did.

Kamila
And what did your super score end up being the one that was like, you know, all combined at the colleges. So yeah,

Seth
my super score was a 1540, with an 800 in math and 740 in English.

Kamila
Alright, alright, so let’s go into the more fun stuff, which is extracurriculars. One thing you were definitely, like, I can tell by now that you were definitely stronger in the more like stem area than humanities. But in high school, did you have any sort of idea what you wanted to pursue? Like, as a career? Did you have any idea where you would fall in that?

Seth
Yeah, I mean, sort of, and I still sort of don’t really know. I mean, like, I it changed, like, I was more. I think that when I was maybe like a junior, I was kind of interested in like finance. And more like math. I’ve always been interested in math and don’t want to do something with that. But I was more into like economics and like, you know, stocks and my thinking, Oh, maybe I want to do finance or like investment banking. And I would say that’s definitely not something I want to do anymore. But it’s honestly changed a lot. I feel like yeah, for me, it’s like I’ve always known math is like something that I want to be related to the thing I do, but now I’m more in computer science. So yeah, I can’t really say I ever knew for sure.

Kamila
Okay, so then let’s go into your extracurriculars and see how those relate to your interest in math. Can you walk us through at least the main extracurriculars that you put on your college application?

Seth
Or? Yeah, so I think the number one I saw, like I had a few bigger extracurriculars that were all sort of more like in my Later years in high school, so I think the biggest was probably research. So I actually with that GW program, at the end of my first course, I took a GW the math professor reached out to the students and was like, hey, you know, I’m doing some research with undergraduates and like, if you’re interested reach, like, email me, let me know. So I was like, I’m interested. And, you know, I worked on research with some undergraduates at UW. And we published some research. So I think that was that was one of the biggest things I had.

Kamila
Well tell us all about that. So your professor, you didn’t even have to reach out to him. He reached out to you.

Seth
Yeah. So he, well, he reached out to everyone in the class who took it and was like, hey, you know, this is like a topic I’m interested in. If you’re interested, let me know. And so that was like, right before winter break. So I like I was like, thinking about it. I, I decided, you know, like, this is a good opportunity. And I’m interested in math. So I basically I emailed him back. And he was like, okay, like, there’s a few other students who are also interested. So then in the spring, we started meeting.

Kamila
What was the topic about what were you guys researching? Yeah. So it’s

Seth
in the field of, I guess, like, algebra, and combinatorics. It was like, sort of like, like, he had to teach us more even after the course. So like, it was kind of obscure, honestly, in terms of math. But yeah, so like, we when we like, met with him, he started teaching us some like basic concepts. And then yeah, we were meeting once a week, as well as doing some work outside of our meetings, and kind of working towards solving some problems that he had. He wanted to answer basically.

Kamila
So you guys, as you were a high school student, you worked with the undergraduates to help him solve these problems?

Seth
Yeah. So he sort of like I was basically I was, like, one high school student among like, entirely college students, basically, in this class, like it was, it was just a normal college class. So when he emailed everyone in the class, I was on that list, and I just reached out, but then everyone else was, were were college students. So yeah, I was doing working with like, they’re probably like, sophomores, maybe. Or something like that in college. So I was, yeah, I was working with them.

Kamila
And how can you tell us like how long you do this for? You said, you guys got something published? So can you tell us a little bit about that as well?

Seth
Yeah. So we, I mean, so yeah, I think we started working must have been 2019, right, beginning of 2019. And, by mid July, we had kind of finished it. And you know, the process is kind of long, like once you finish a paper takes a while before you know you’re editing it and you have to send it to a paper, you know, that process can just be pretty slow. So we have like kind of finished in July. And I think it may be a few months later we published it to this thing called archive which is run by Cornell it’s just like a huge database. Like before you publish your paper in like an actual journal, you might you kind of put it there first, just so that you know, you put your you put your paper out there people anyone can access it, but it’s not. It’s like unofficially published. So yeah, we put that one there. And then I also started working on like a similar problem with a friend actually, who also went to my high school and was also taking classes at GW. And with that paper, he also got that on the archive and are like working with actually right right now we’re kind of working with, like an undergraduate journal. So yeah, that’s kind of the process with our first paper actually don’t know if we submitted it to a journal, but it just takes a long time. So yeah,

Kamila
wait, what you’re doing with your friend, the research, like the paper trying to get published with your friend. Is that was that part of high school? Like you were in high school? Now? You’re in college, you’re still doing or just college?

Seth
Oh, no, that was with the same professor. Oh, it was kind of it was kind of random, because he was a friend. And he also like really into math. He’s actually doing the full GW program where He’s taking all this classes at GW. And he also took a class with that professor. The same one I took, actually and then kind of got involved. Also got involved with some new research the restaurant, this professor was like, very active in like getting undergraduates to do research with them, which was really cool. And fortunate for me. So like, yeah, I was like, hey, like, you know, like, you want to like work on this problem together. And like, well, he was working with these new undergraduates, which was pretty similar. So yeah, we were just kind of working on together under the guidance of the same professor that we both had.

Kamila
Can you explain to me so like, I have not done research, let alone like math research. So you’re doing research for like math specifically? What exactly are you researching because like science do the experiments. But what do you do with math? Yeah,

Seth
so math research is definitely very different. So it’s pretty much the the idea is that you have some type of problem, or like theorem that you want to that you want to prove. And with risk with what makes it research is that this is a thing that has never been proven before by anyone else. So you have some, some theory, or some idea, like a hypothesis, but in a math context that you want to prove. And the way you go about it is honestly, like, just trying things. And, you know, there’s ways that you can use computer programs to like assist, especially with like doing calculations that can help lead you to your result. But yeah, that’s that’s kind of the idea. I mean, if you’ve, like, have you ever taken like a math class, and like, you have to, you’re asked to prove something? It’s like that, but like, the problem is probably a lot harder to prove. And it just takes time. And you know, you’re bouncing off ideas. But yeah, you’re not like in a lab, you’re not experimenting really well, you are experimenting, but just more with ideas.

Kamila
So you’re just like on paper, like computer, and you’re just like trying everything to solve this there.

Seth
Yeah, I mean, you’re I mean, that’s kind of the general idea, like, and sometimes you’ll I think one thing that’s generally pretty helpful with, with math research, especially is, you know, trying to get to that intermediate step. So like, often you’ll be working in trying to figure this out, and you’ll get an intermediate step. And you’re like, okay, like, this is getting me closer. And, yeah, so it’s, I mean, it’s a lot of trial and error. It’s also just a lot of like, thinking critically and like problem solving, to try to

Kamila
tell a complicated, well, I’m not a math person.

Seth
Yeah, yeah, I mean, it definitely, it definitely takes time. But it’s super helpful. It was really helpful to have like other undergraduates to work with, as well as the guidance of the professor. This was, again, like a problem that he hadn’t proven, but it was one that I think he thought was manageable for, for undergraduates. So yeah,

Kamila
it’s amazing. Okay, and for college app purposes. So you say you did research, like the first ever research you did was with this professor, and then you did it with the same professor with your friend as well. So can you tell me for college app purposes, when you are writing, you know, research with this? Like, Professor, what did you write for the college app? Because they don’t? Like you can’t tell them all of what you told me. Right? You only have like a few lines. So what did you write for that?

Seth
Yeah. So yeah, I put it like as an extracurricular activity. And like, was it 150 characters? I was I was basically just like, kind of, not even using full sentences. I was just like, conducted something like this, like conducted research at George Washington University, with undergraduates and and like under guidance of professor, I mean, I could, yeah, it was something like that. And just like, and then I think I briefly mentioned what the topic was. But yeah, and like I also mentioned, like, how many hours per week and you know, the duration of how long I’ve been doing it for? But yeah, you can, I can’t really get into details about it. The hope is that they they understand what I’m talking about. Yeah.

Kamila
And one more thing I have with this like, GW, I guess, not just your research, but just the partnership in general. Are you allowed for college apps? Are you allowed to get a recommendation letter from a GW professor?

Seth
Yes, I actually did get a one of my recommendation letters from that professor. And it was I think it was completely fine. Like, I think there might have been a few colleges that didn’t, may have not accepted that. I’m not sure. But, I mean, like I had, I had to two other recommendations from high school teachers. So I figured, like, that was enough, just in case, but I mean, I think I mean, it wasn’t an issue. I just submitted it. And I don’t think any colleges seem to have a problem with it.

Kamila
And do you think you’re, I don’t think you can, like read the recommendation letters. But do you think that recommendation letter from your GW professor was like your strongest one because you had classes and also research with him?

Seth
Yeah. I mean, I would, I would imagine that it probably was, I’m not sure if it was like the best letter but I think for colleges to see that. I know, like, especially with that for the with a class, you know, it took like I improved like it was not easy to go right into a college class. But you know, that improvement and then working on it with research. I think that definitely was like a good relationship that I had with that professor. And I think for colleges, it was probably the strongest.

Kamila
Alright, so we did these, like, we did your research. What other extracurriculars did you do? And you don’t have to like mention everything, just like the main ones that you feel are most important.

Seth
Yeah, I mentioned that. The two of them main ones I think so, again, this was also like, started around junior year. So my high school had like an internship program, where basically you to like take a class for credit. And all you do is just find an internship and go to it. So I am a nurse, I think he’s just called like internship one or something. Yeah. And it was just very generic name. But yeah, so like, I did this internship at a real estate firm. And I, you know, did that for the semester. And then after that, they were like, do you want to keep working with us? We’ll pay you. So I was like, Sure. So how did you? Yeah, I mean, like, you know, minimum wage, like, it was like a, you know, not like a super, like, amazing job. But it was like, I was working at a real estate company sort of doing more, just kind of like helping with whatever they need help with, like, office stuff. Nothing like super advanced or anything. But yeah, so I started doing that for I was working like three to four days a week after school. I continued doing it a bit over the summer. And into the fall. I even work actually, like work there really, until like, around COVID When I it kind of slowed down. But yeah, so that was that was another thing that I think was good, like that work experience.

Kamila
Where did your, I guess interest in real estate come from? Why did you choose a real estate internship?

Seth
Yeah, I mean, that was more along the lines of like that econ I was talking about, and like, I think, I think my friend had told me, so yeah, this is actually, my friend had told me that his his friend who was an upperclassman had done a real estate internship. And so I actually I was like, Oh, cool. Like, that’s something I’m interested in. So I actually reached out to the same real estate company that he worked at, I was okay, like, Would you be interested in having another intern? I worked there for about two weeks. And then they were like, Sorry, we don’t like, like, someone quit, and they didn’t have any work for me. So then they basically fired me, I guess. And then I was like, Okay, I can’t, I was like, something I want to keep trying out. So I called another real estate company. And they’re like, yeah, come in for an interview. So I mean, that’s definitely something that I would say is that if you I think if you’re if there’s something that you’re really interested in, that you want to get experienced with AI, like I did not, I didn’t apply and deed or anything. Like I literally just cold call this random real estate company near my house and was like, Do you want an intern? And, you know, I think that they were like, oh, like, that’s free work. And why not? And so it worked out. I mean, I ended up getting a job there. And it was great. But yeah, that was, I think that was also a really good extracurricular had.

Kamila
And I want to go a little bit deeper into this. So number one, how did you? I guess, how did your school help you find an internship if they helped you at all? And also, can you tell us what you did in your internship, like, what did you do? Every time you came? And what was your role? What was your responsibility? Yeah,

Seth
I mean, I don’t, they didn’t really help you that much. Like, they gave us a list of like, places that were looking, which did not include this place. But it was, I think, that was kind of the point of the class was to, like, you got to figure it out. You got to make those calls apply. And, you know, people found all sorts of jobs that were really interesting. So it wasn’t much help from the from the school and then I guess, my, my tasks there were mainly more like office stuff. So like, I would deal with like, billing, like, kind of like processing like billing documents. I would also work with like, like, agent, like, real estate agents would like have open houses. And they would like request supplies. So like, you know, process those requests, order them online for them. And yeah, like pretty much like just working an office and helping out real estate agents with things they needed was like the main duties and it can really range. But like, those are two main things that I did, I’d say

Kamila
what I guess we could say advice would you give for people trying to find internships and I will say this, like, for me as well, because I’m also part of an inter internship program at my school. Like I’m a junior right now and I’m trying to find an internship. So what advice would you give for finding internships?

Seth
Yeah, I mean, I think the main thing is to just like you know, when you like, I think that what will really impress especially like, older people who are like looking at like, you know, younger people and not being sure if they’re going to be good or if they’re serious about it, because a lot of people do call like RPI looking for internships, they might be taking the same class, but they don’t really care. They’re not really necessarily taking it too seriously. So if you want to set yourself Apart, I think a great thing you can do is, you know, call be super professional, send very formal emails, when you show up to that meeting, or like that interview, you know, dress really nice, present yourself really well. And just so it’s like, in a sense, it’s like superficial, but you’re just showing that you are taking it seriously. I think even if they even like, you know, once you have the job, they don’t care if you show up, like, they wouldn’t even care if I showed up in like shorts and T shirt. If I showed up, like, you know, a suit. I mean, like I, I generally showed up like, you know, more business casual attire, but just showing initially that you’re really serious about it, I think is a great is a great thing to do. And it sets yourself apart. And then also, I mean, just like, looking like on Google, like what I did was like I was on Google Maps, just like, Oh, does this place look cool. And then calling them I think that’s another thing, his emails are really easy to ignore.

Kamila
But when you call, what do you do when you call, like, Hey, can I talk to you like the boss or something,

Seth
he’s like, Hey, I was calling just explained, like, I’m, I’m I go to the school, I am a part of this internship, you know, be transparent about the fact that it’s a course and you’re gonna, you know, like this, I’m taking this internship class at my school. And this is what we have to do. Now, I was just wondering if you had any positions available for me? Or if I could come in for an interview? And they might be like, well, in my case, I think I was pretty lucky. They were like, um, yeah, that, like, what’s your email that that sounds cool to us, like I can for an interview, and it was in one row. But I think that, just like going about that, and just trying a lot of places, because some places might be like, we don’t really have a position for you. Or they might be a cool email you and then they don’t email you. So I think just like putting yourself out there to a bunch of different places. And again, like that con also sets yourself apart, because a lot of people don’t want to have that, you know, verbal communication, they’d rather send an email and, you know, not think about it, but like showing that you’re serious and like con makes that company also feel like, oh, like they actually want to work with us specifically, like they’re taking it seriously.

Kamila
All right. And you said you had one more, I guess you could say like, major main Yeah, important extracurricular. So what was that?

Seth
Yeah. So again, junior year, I was kind of, I didn’t, I wasn’t doing as much in freshman, sophomore years, I probably probably should have been, but yeah, junior year, I, me and my friend founded a club at our school called Personal Finance club. And we we kind of meet every week, and we would kind of discuss, you know, different, like, personal finance topics like, like, you know, debt investing. Student loans, like stuff like that. And it was, you know, it was it was pretty casual club. It was with my friend, like, a lot of fun. And, yeah, I would say that was that was probably the third, like, main thing that I had. And again, it was just something I was interested in. And something that sounded pretty fun to do with my friends. So, yeah,

Kamila
and the other like, potential extracurriculars you had, were they just like one year things, something that you did, like occasionally,

Seth
um, I mean, I had some bigger ones. Like I, I did soccer for like, three years. But like, some of them were, like, pretty small things like, like, I work, like, I worked out like a summer camp for like, a few weeks in the summer of like, sophomore year, like just smaller things generally. Like a little bit of volunteer things, stuff I did. But yeah, like, a lot of things besides that were like more like, one year, one month things.

Kamila
Alright, so we can go on to the actual, like, college application part. So number one, when did you start thinking about schools and creating your list? Did you I don’t know. Maybe your parents are like, let’s go on some college tours, or was your school saying like, let’s look into colleges now? Like what started the the actual college application process for you? And how did you choose the schools you apply to?

Seth
Yeah, I mean, I’ve I did some some tours of colleges in the summer before my senior year. And that was when i i Like honestly didn’t wasn’t thinking much about it until like, later part of junior year. But yeah, so I did some college tours. And then I definitely I have lists that kind of like fluctuate like, I like I have like a solid list probably. Like by the beginning of my senior year, like I mean, another thing is recommendation letters is definitely better to think about that was something I was thinking about in junior year and asked me about towards the end of junior year, not during Senior year because that’s like when a lot of people are asking it can kind of be overwhelming for teachers. So those things I started think about earlier but in terms of the actual colleges I wanted to apply to I was asked seemed more like, you know, after I visit colleges, like in the summer, I was thinking about it creating lists, and

Kamila
which class did you visit? And what were you looking for on the campus?

Seth
Yeah, I mean, I was definitely. So the, I mean, I visited a lot of visits on the East Coast and some of the West Coast. Like I kind of just did like a trip up East Coast trip of the west coast for colleges. And I was actually pretty set on the west coast. So I like for early admissions, I applied to Stanford, I didn’t get in. That was kind of like the dream. And but yeah, besides I was like, so pretty. So on the West Coast, you know, applying to UCS.

Kamila
Why do you like the West Coast over these coasts? You got sick of the East Coast? Yeah, I

Seth
mean, I’ve lived here and my grandparents lived on the West Coast. And it’s just like the beach. It’s nice weather. I mean, it’s kind of just like, just kind of seems like a nicer place to be. So I was I was just kind of set out for that reason. But yeah, so I was like applying to UCS the Claremont schools. And then, yeah, like, on the east coast, I was honestly, like, a lot of the colleges I applied to were, like, in terms of like, the more like, more like the reach schools, I was just like, applying to like, a lot of different good schools. I don’t know. Like, Stanford, I was definitely really wanting to go to, but again, like my thought process was like, you know, just apply to a lot of these, like, reach schools and see if I’ll get into one. And then more like, and then also, again, with UCS, I was more like, okay, these those who reach schools, but it’s like West Coast, and then, you know, I was trying to have that balance, also, with a lot of more like, a few, like, match schools, I guess. And then

Kamila
applying to GW I did

Seth
not apply to GW I didn’t the closest school I applied to you was, like, at least, I don’t even know, probably, at least like 100 or 200 miles from DC.

Kamila
Oh, wait, like, why didn’t you think about applying to GW?

Seth
Um, I mean, like, I would have literally been on the exact same camp, I would have seen my high school, like, all the time, if I went to you. So it was just sort of like, I didn’t really want to, I don’t really want to like stay, too. I honestly didn’t want to stay close to home. So I didn’t apply to any schools really in the area.

Kamila
Okay, okay. Yeah. And what did your how many colleges? Did your final list come down to you have any more of them? But

Seth
yeah, I think it was. Might have been like, like, 15. But, like, a bunch of them are like, you see, so that was all like one application? But yeah, I think it was like that. And like a lot of stuff was I was able to kind of, you know, use for, like, you know, using very similar content for different colleges. So, yeah.

Kamila
And just quick money was not a problem for you, like you were you had more financial, like flexibility in the schools you apply to?

Seth
Um, I think I mean, I definitely had a lot of more like, I’ve definitely more financial flexibility than a lot of people. I mean, I, I did get financial aid at like, brown and a lot of schools, and that was actually consideration with brown. But I will say that, yeah, I definitely didn’t have to think about as much as, like I was anywhere that I think that anywhere I wanted to go to, I would have been able to, like figure it out, probably taking a lot of loans. But yeah, that was not a consideration so much when applying this was when I was applying, I was like, I just want to apply and see where I can get in.

Kamila
Alright, so now let’s go into the actual college application. So first, I want to talk about the I think you’re the first if you’re like one of the first people I’ve interviewed that has applied to like the UC schools. So and I’m really confused about the application for that. So can you quickly explain how the UCS do their applications? Like, is it all as one of them or you can pick and choose? Yeah, so

Seth
you really just you do the UC application. And then you pretty much just check off which schools you want to send it to, for the most part, like there’s not really much variation at all.

Kamila
So if you want to apply to all six schools, you just fill out one application. Yep.

Seth
You just, yeah, you can apply to all of them with one application. And that application consists of it’s really thin grading. So you actually like manually submit all your grades and they don’t ask about like minuses or pluses. So that could be a benefit or a downside depending on how you look at it. But yeah, so like you just ABC, d f. And then they ask about, like, I think they asked about like LSAT via they asked about that. I think they might require the essay. I’m not sure. I wish they did. I think when I was applying, and then you have like a few smaller essays. I don’t even think there’s a couple AP essay, there’s like, there’s like, I think you have to choose two or three, like, couple 100 word essays, and you have like, a list of a bunch of options. So yeah, that’s like the bulk of the application. And then you can

Kamila
just like wherever like to do the individual schools, for example, does UCLA say, Oh, we have these two extra prompts that are specific to UCLA?

Seth
I don’t think there was anything like that, if I remember correctly. Really. It’s just Oh, wow. Yeah. So like, you’re sending the exact same thing to La Berkeley, San Diego, Santa Barbara, all that.

Kamila
And you said there’s no like, big essay.

Seth
I don’t think I remember one. I might be wrong about that. I mean, either way, you can like, I just don’t I don’t think they required that like, Common App essay. Because, yeah, not that remember.

Kamila
Oh, that’s amazing. You can just apply to those six schools, like schools like that. Wow. Okay. And but did you apply common app to most other schools?

Seth
Yeah, most of those I applied. Common App. So yeah, I think all of them actually, were coming up besides that,

Kamila
and your big, like, I think it’s either 600 650 word essay, what topic did you write about? Like, which prompt did you choose? And what did you end up writing

Seth
about? Yeah, so I do not remember what the prompt was. But I the general idea was, it was about how what I kind of wrote about was like, how, when I was younger, I kind of had like a very entrepreneurial, like mindset, like I would always, like be doing lemonade stands, buying snacks, and like, buying snacks and book after school, and then selling them and stuff like that. And I wrote how, basically how, when I was younger, I was my, like, I have this certain view of like, work as like a way to make money. But then as I got older, and actually, I talked about a lot about the internship, how my view on work changed to something more, more so like as a way to get purpose and like, like, a way to, I’m trying to remember exactly, it was like, something like that, like I was talking about how my, my view on work changed. And like how I started out like younger, and I was like always selling stuff and like trying to make money. And then as I was getting older, and like actually having this work experience, like seeing the value and like the purpose I feel getting out of it.

Kamila
And did that topic come relatively easy to you? Or was it like draft after draft after draft and you finally landed on something that seemed like it would work?

Seth
Yes. So um, I think I was definitely thinking of quite a few different options. I think the the second part more about how like, how, like learning about work and like, like gaining purpose from it, and like, feeling like valuable. That was something I came up with pretty early on. But then towards the end was when I started when I was thinking about how I could kind of throw in this part about how when I was younger, I would always be like doing lemonade stands and stuff. So that was that was actually something I threw in a little more towards the end. But yeah, there were definitely quite a few drafts. But I think that that initial idea definitely came a little bit earlier like I was, by the time I applied early to Stanford, that first idea was in that essay, that was like the focus, but then applying to those later schools. That’s when I kind of threw in that earlier idea I was talking about,

Kamila
and with your essay, did you have anybody, like edit it for you? Did you give it to like some sort of teachers to like, you know, revise it and make sure it sounded like you you?

Seth
Yeah, um, so it was was mainly like, my parents that I had, I asked me to, that I asked to help me edit it. And they were a big help. So like, I’m definitely very grateful for that. But besides that, I think I might have had my friends look at it. But mainly, I was getting my advice from my parents on the essay.

Kamila
All right, so I don’t want to really talk about like the supplementals. I mean, unless you have like some advice for those 400 300 word ones.

Seth
Oh, yeah. I mean, I would say I think the main thing and this has to do this is the same advice for the essay is just trying to do something that like stands out. Like, you know, when you’re like applying and like there are a lot of people are doing the exact same thing for the supplemental essays. Like

Kamila
I haven’t, actually yeah, so when you and I don’t know about your life, but like when you have lived quite a I wouldn’t say normal life but a very non eventful life. Like nothing tragic has occurred to you. Like you can’t think of anything off the top your head that seems like such a unique experience. How do you come up with like an essay topic? Yeah. Are you looking for to write about?

Seth
Yeah, I mean, like speaking for personal experience, like Yeah, like my essay wasn’t about anything. Like tragic. like life altering life altering? Exactly. Yeah. I mean, that’s definitely true. And I think, just like, I think, I think the best thing that you could probably do is just try to show that you have like, an interesting insight, interesting perspective. And, like, you know, like, just talk about, I think they really want to see that you’re passionate about something like college in general really want to see that you’re passionate about something. And that, you know, you’ve like, had this maybe unique experience that you’ve learned from, or even if you can’t think of anything that insane. Just, you know, talking about like, something really meaningful to you, I think is really good. And like providing an insight that a lot of other people aren’t providing can like, stand out as like, Oh, wow. Like, that’s really interesting. Like, I didn’t even think about that as like a as a reader of the essay, like, wow, that’s, like insightful, like, wow, that’s really cool. Like, you just want to stand out mainly, in a positive way, of course, but like, a lot of essays, I think, especially this year, like, we’ll definitely will definitely be some really fascinating essays about how COVID has uniquely affected someone’s life, but just talking about, you know, I didn’t like COVID, like, I had to not go to school, like that’s, there’s gonna be so many essays like that, that really doesn’t stand out. Like just as an example. Like, unless you have a really interesting perspective, or like, you went through a particularly hard time compared to like a lot of other people. I don’t think like, that’s something I would probably try to avoid. But yeah, that’s like, that’s just kind of something that’s just like as an example.

Kamila
Alright, and one more like, last thing before we get into the colleges, you got accepted, deferred and rejected from for your recommendation letters you already mentioned. You got one from the GW professor, who were the other two from school that you got. Yeah, so

Seth
then I got besides that, I got one from a math teacher. I had sophomore year. And then I got one for my AP Lang teacher from junior year.

Kamila
And for recommendation letters. I don’t know if it’s like my school. But I’ve often heard that you should get your rec letters from like junior year teachers. Is it okay to go back to like freshman sophomore year to get your letters?

Seth
Yeah, I mean, the reason I did sophomore was because like I had pretty much had to from junior because I had my professor and then my Lang teacher. And with the reason I chose the sophomore specifically was because, like, I know that I did really well in that class. And that teacher really liked me. So with that, I was like, I know I really stood out in this class. Even though I was a sophomore, I think this is going to be a really strong letter. And I know I have to from junior, so I’d say like, I think that it’s fine to get one from a sophomore teacher, freshmen might be pushing it. But if you have like a really, like if this if you know this teacher is just going to really talk well about you. I think that a sophomore is probably fun. And like, you can also if you if you’re worried about it, like you might throw in an extra letter from a junior teacher who maybe weren’t as close with, but I don’t know, that’s just something to consider. Like my main teacher, I wasn’t particularly like, like, she was just like a teacher I had. And I was like, oh, I should probably get some humanities in here. So like, that was kind of the thought process behind that one.

Kamila
Okay, so let’s go on to the college. So you got accepted deferred, and then rejected from can you go through that and tell us what was what?

Seth
Yeah, so I think I mean, Brown was definitely the best college I got into. After that, I would say Carnegie Mellon was the best besides that. Got into like UC San Diego, and then a few more like, like safety type schools. And then yeah, I got wait listed a lot of places actually. Which was kind of weird. Like, like, just like the fact that it should get accepted or rejected from more schools. Like I got waitlisted at Berkeley, LA. I got wait listed at Harvey Mudd, Claremont McKenna and Michigan I think. And by I was like, at that time. Like, I kind of didn’t once I got into Brown, especially because the UCS like, I was like, it was kind of between like, okay, brown or like UCS. And the UCS weren’t offering any financial aid, which they won’t for a lot of out of state people. And I was,

Kamila
like, seems like bad financial aid.

Seth
If you’re, if you’re in state, it’s good. If you’re out of state, it’s bad. So at that point, I was like, like, I kind of brown. I’m not going to even pursue these further. But yeah, that was that was my experience. So I didn’t really I didn’t really pursue any of those waitlists any further.

Kamila
How did you feel when you got accepted into brown Ivy League?

Seth
Um, it was exciting. Yeah, so it was it was really exciting because it was so yeah, it was Ivy day and I’d applied to Princeton, Dartmouth Brown and to remember the fourth Penn UPenn. Yeah. So I applied to those and I like got rejected from all the other three. And then like Brown is the last one I opened. And it was like, wow, like, I cannot believe this. So it was exciting. And honestly, like, it wasn’t like, I was like, super sad on brown. It was just like, honestly, like, I did apply to like, a lot of different schools that I thought were like, good. And like, after Stanford, like, I was like, I really want to, like MIT. And then I got rejected from MIT. So like, yeah, that was pretty much what happened and but once I got in, I was like, you know, like, I knew about it. Like, I don’t know if you’ve heard like, the open curriculum, where you like there’s no core requirements at all. Except for like, you serious or not, yeah, nothing. Like you have to do. I think you have to do one writing class your first two years and then one writing class your second two years and that’s it. There’s nothing else.