Ami talks about his high school life that involved being a registered student and officially taking classes at Columbia University.

Part 2 is here.

Transcription

Ami
Yeah, thanks for having me. My name is Ami. I’m originally from New York City. But now go to school at a place called Lehigh University, which is in Pennsylvania, specifically Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. I’m currently majoring in Industrial Systems Engineering with minors in designing music. And I’m currently a sophomore. So graduating expected in 2023. But yeah, really excited to be here. Thanks for having me.

Kamila
Of course. So let’s start from the very beginning. Are you the first in your family to go to college in America? Or did you have parents, maybe siblings who went

Ami
I actually am so I’m an only child. So I don’t have any other siblings. And both my parents actually didn’t go to college, technically. One kind of went to college in Japan, but another went to college in Japan as well, which is like a fashion college. So totally different from anything. So yeah, kind of pretty first gen. experience that I’ve had. But yeah,

Kamila
in terms of like guiding you through the college process was your school, I guess, well equipped with resources, APS, IBS, you know, LSAT prep. So Did you at least have your school to tell you what to do with your college application and how to format it?

Ami
Yeah. For me, personally, I will say my school was pretty good in preparing me. So I went to school in New York City, it’s called Columbia secondary school. We’re directly associated with kind of Columbia University. So you got a lot, we got to like two classes at Columbia, which was really helpful. So I kind of got a glimpse at college in that way. And then the college counselor was just really supportive of me. And the classes were pretty rigorous in terms of helping me prepare for college, we only had like three or four MPs, because we have that partnership with Columbia. So we can, instead of taking APS we would take college classes, but yeah, it was, I would say it is a mix. Is there if you you kind of sorted out. And so if you want in support, you can get it but if you didn’t, it was kind of like figure it out. But yeah, it’s smaller, much smaller school. So I would say overall kind of supportive, but you’d have to like really go for it.

Kamila
That’s interesting. So the partnership with Columbia was it you know, you were in class with like, a coat like a you know, a Class A Columbia? Or was it more teachers or professors from Columbia taught you guys classes? So how did that work out

Ami
there? Yeah, um, that’s a good question. It’s, it was literally us getting thrown into a Columbia class. So literally, we were registered Columbia students, I still have my contact ID, email, etc. And we would, yeah, we would be able to kind of sit in to any kind of classes usually they were introduction classes. And so I took economics I took musics, music classes, etc. And yeah, we it’s called dual enrollment. I’ve definitely heard that where you like take classes at a different institution. And usually those credits count towards a degree when you’re going to college so it’s super helpful for me because it saves some some money and some time but yeah, also just got me accustomed into the college environment, which is pretty rigorous. But yeah, it’s also definitely kind of fun to to meet college friends in high school and maybe a little bit have a kind of glimpse of college life. And I did that for another college is that as well called brew College, which is in the city as well. So and then I both Columbia, and we had to kind of like apply to get to get into those classes.

Kamila
Oh, so you had to When did you so you said you had to apply to get into those classes. So it’s not like Columbia was just accepting anyone like from the school like you guys come and take classes,

Ami
right? So you had to have like a certain there’s a certain GPA requirement. So depending on your grade, you have to have over like a 95% or 90 If I were whatever, then you have to have like, like some of these requisites, etc. You have to like write a short essay, then then they would there’s like a committee that approved you disproved you, I would say like, by senior year, probably 25 to 30% of our students in my class had taken Columbia classes, which is a decent amount. So, yeah, it’s definitely like a great program. It’s the same thing for every college thing. It’s called college now, which is like a program in New York City and students can take kind of any college classes at the cuties, which is the city colleges. For free, so, yeah, so basically, after school, you would just like go to go to these causes and take them.

Kamila
I mean, this is really interesting. I’ve never heard of this, like, you can directly I mean, I’ve heard of community college, you know, you do remote enrollment there. But I mean, Columbia. And what was the other college you mentioned?

Ami
It’s called Berbick college. So it’s a city college in New York City. They’re well known for like business. But yeah, they have this program called college now in New York City, specifically, that allows you to allows a lot of different I think, most schools, most students, for most schools, especially public schools, to take these classes on these campuses, as well. So yeah,

Kamila
so did your school, say like, oh, you need to complete? I don’t know, 50% 75% of your classes within school, and then other 25? How many percent you could do in Columbia? Or could you? I know, maybe when you go to junior year, and you’re taking more challenging courses, could you just do the majority of your classes at Columbia, if you wanted,

Ami
so there is a minimum like, requirement to get your high school degree. And so there for my high school, there’s kind of three layers, I would say, the first is like, determine the minimum requirement for all like New York City public schools. So my school is a public school, but it’s like screened. So you have to like, take a test to get in. But yeah, so I would say like, the first was, you just had to make minimum, all these minimum requirements, like, take three or four years of like sciences and or four years of Sciences, and etc, we have to take engineering, four years of engineering and four years of philosophy, we had to take, maybe not actually, you had to take like, four years of math, that at least to like, calculus and math or something, there’s just all these requirements that to get like a New York City, public, high school degree. And then the second one was, like, it’s called a CSS degree, which is like just our school names degree. And then that would just be like the minimum requirements for for the high school degree plus those four years in engineering four years in philosophy, we had to kind of take one or two more extra classes in certain subject areas, and get to like a certain, quote, unquote, level in some of these subject areas. And then yeah, and then most Columbia classes, probably no Columbia classes would count towards any of those degrees. So we’re just literally be for, like, kind of your future. Or if you know, you’ve finished AP Bio in junior year, and you wanted to learn more about bio, you can take a bio class at Columbia, because it’s more advanced. So stuff like that. So for people who kind of already completed those degrees, it’d be really nice or for people who are just like looking to learn more in classes or learn more, take these classes. So we don’t have to pay as much as much for the in the future in college. But yeah,

Kamila
we Okay, so in the end of high school, so after senior year, how many you did tell you how you guys had a few AP, so how many AP credits and then college credits did you have by the time you graduated?

Ami
So I had zero AP credits. And I think I had around like 12 college credits. I’m pretty sure it’s 12. But yeah, so I have like around 12 college credits in zero absolutely no AP because we have like an AP Bio, and I wasn’t really good at bio and I didn’t like bio, we had AP Physics. I was okay at physics, but I didn’t want to take Physics. I was just very lazy and senior years in some points. And then he had APCs. But I didn’t take the test because I had to I was in a different country at that point. And I didn’t want to come back

Kamila
when a different country. Well, yeah.

Ami
Very long story, but I play soccer and I was competing in the country. And yeah, is like, so like, I didn’t, I didn’t actually take any APs. We had AP Lit and laying. But I was in gray. I just wasn’t I guess I wasn’t that like excited in school in general. I wasn’t that motivated in school to do those things. But yeah, we had couple APS, those were probably the extent that we had them to like five or six classes, maybe. And none of them were ones that I really was interested in. But yeah, I took a lot of college classes. So that helped an incredible amount.

Kamila
And Lehigh is a private university and private universities, especially when you get more prestigious. They don’t accept much credit, AP or college, I think, but did your college credits like transfer into Lehigh University?

Ami
Yeah, so I think all of my college credits transferred. I think, was that

Kamila
a strategic move? Or was that like more? Oh, wow, I’ve just realized all of these credits actually can work for me.

Ami
Yeah, it’s pretty strategic, I would say decently. So it’s like, it’s interesting, because it really like you said, depends from school to school. I think with me, I Columbia has a student credibility and reputability ability. So it was really easy to transfer those Columbia CLEP credits, because it’s very institution. Very MOOC was a little bit harder. But the route is also very well, I took business classes there, and they’re really, really well known for business. So I kind of got pretty lucky there in terms of like, transferring credits. Yeah, it really depends on like, the school. The schools relate like your current schools, relationships with, like the other school. I can talk about like the process, like, you usually have to end in always, like, if you take a college class, always keep the syllabus. So. Yeah, so like keeping like, they always asked for the syllabus, they asked for your transcript. And they asked for something else. I think it’s like a write up or something and like a form. So they literally like these professors just look at the syllabus and your grade, and see, okay. Well, you just basically for the higher these, I think most schools, you just have to pass to get the credit. And so it doesn’t count towards your GPA, but it count towards like, credit requirements. But yeah, the professor just they basically look at the university, and they look at the college and they look at the syllabus, so then they say, okay, they probably covered, like, this is probably equivalent. So for example, I took introduction to economics, or principles in economics at Columbia, which is a footprint class, and then I have to take this class called Introduction to economics. And so I was like, Maybe this can transfer over. And so first and look at that. And they said, okay, yeah, like, this makes sense. They recovered basically the same content. It’s basically the same or better rigor. So like, we can transfer these credits into like, an introduction to economics, economics class,

Kamila
was so the school’s name can make a difference. Because, you know, Columbia, of course, it’s an IV, most people know it. That’s like, part of the reason you were able to transfer.

Ami
I think, I think it kind of naked makes a difference. I mean, like, it’s, it’s just, like, more reputable and, quote, legit. You know, it really depends on like I said, the department, the professor, the school. And a lot of schools like for example, Lehigh has a really good relationship with like, nearby schools and the community colleges nearby. So sometimes even like probably at Lehigh. People are are able to transfer credits more often from those like local community colleges than from a Columbia let’s say just because professors are more Yeah, like they’re more accustomed to understanding all These classes and then know more about the classes in general at the local community colleges, but yeah, I really like like, I think it’s a lot of based upon like relationships and etc. So yeah, it’s like a, it’s really like you can’t really tell there’s no like formula for it.

Kamila
So it’s like it just differs based on school to school. Yeah. So I’ve two more questions about your university. No, your your, your school. So taking college credits, I guess I mean, for you, in your specific case, taking college credits when, I guess, admissions officers reading it when they’re reading your college application, and they’re looking at your transcript? Does a college class? Is a college class like the equivalent of an AP? Do they still see it as like really rigorous and such? Yeah, were you I guess, where you consider to like, a really competitive applicant? Because you took those college classes?

Ami
It’s, it’s interesting. I’m not an admissions counselor. So like, I don’t know everything. But I will say it probably like I said, depends on the university. So and it depends on like, what university is wondering well known for? Like, it really depends also on your admissions counselor, to be honest. Yeah. So yeah, it can be I think, like, what my school said, which really holds true is people like, like people like to see, and especially admissions counselors like to see that you took advantage of all the opportunities you could so like, you’re not going to get penalized if you only have three P’s at your school, and then pick one or two, because, you know, you didn’t have as many options as someone who had literally 40. So, it really depends, I will say, probably college credits are somewhat equated to can be equated to AP or IB. And so, yeah, they’re really great to take. It’s basically the same thing. It’s just like, experience, surely, you’re taking it at another school? In another institution, you’ll be taking it with other like, people in college. So I have like friends in Colombia now. Because I took it and yeah, I guess so. That super, like, it really depends, I would say like, obviously, the more reputable the institution, the more impressive it probably looks. But yeah, I would say like the end, the the baseline is like, being able to take advantage of like what around you, um, to the fullest extent. So whatever that is, whatever that if you have a lot of APS on with, obviously, there’s a lot of APS, if there’s a lot of IBS, and a lot of IBS, if you don’t have a PS or IBS, and maybe you can see if there are college classes around you that you can take. Like for Yeah, for me, like I basically barely had any APs. But I took advantage of all the college classes around me. So I think that speaks for something. But yeah, I would just say like bottom line is just like, understanding what you have as an option and then pursuing revenues last

Kamila
year, I mean, that makes sense. And my other question is, so I guess, I don’t know what to call it. But your school is kind of like a sub unit of Columbia University. Not really, but you guys like had a connection there. So I don’t know if you applied to Columbia or not. But in your school, because Columbia does allow the students at your school to take classes at Columbia? Does it give you or your peers an advantage? When applying to Columbia? Do they see like, oh, the student took classes at our school, they succeeded. So they would probably do well here. Does it give you any sort of advantage if you were applying to Columbia specifically?

Ami
Yeah, I mean, I think the huge thing is like we do have a relationship with Colombia, a pretty good one, obviously. And a lot of our students do go to Colombia, it’s not like guaranteed or anything is a thing. They really look at applicants the same way they would look at any other applicant. I think, like, obviously, at the end of the day, like, We also do have a lot of art, like a lot of my grade applied to Columbia, like a lot of our school just in general applied to Columbia or Barnard, which is kind of like the sister school. They’re basically like the same school. I don’t actually know. But yeah. Yeah. So I will say like, the likelihood obviously goes a lot up words, if you have more and more students applying. So we do have a decent amount of people who go to Columbia and Barnard. I think it does have obviously that we have a relationship and it’s I was helped that. Like a lot of people get A’s and stuff in these classes. They show that like, they’re pretty good. But I know people who have literally gotten straight A’s, and like six, seven Columbia classes and haven’t gotten in. So it’s really like situation with all this college stuff it is. But, yeah, it really depends. I will say like, we do get a lot of Columbia students from our school.

Kamila
Yeah, that makes sense. So one more, I guess, last thing of not last thing, but a few couple things left. For transcript, what was your GPA at the end of senior year, both unweighted and weighted? And can you give the scale? Because every school does it differently?

Ami
So at the end of senior year,

Kamila
yeah, whatever you submitted to the colleges, um,

Ami
what I submitted to the colleges are, what my transcript is, at the end of summer, I can give you both

Kamila
the okay. Yeah, if it’s if there’s a major difference, yeah, can you give us both?

Ami
It’s, I don’t think it’s a huge difference. I think I had like a 90 90.5 or 91. Something of the range of lights in between or something so pretty, like very low 90s. At the time of when I was timer when I was applying to colleges, and then at the very end of senior year, I had like a 92 or something. percent difference or something. But yeah, so I had a pretty low 90 GPA. This was, so my school literally. So I didn’t take any APs. So I didn’t have weighted or unweighted. It was literally just like die with my grade. And so yeah, so that was my only grade and it was out of 100. So,

Kamila
yeah, so we if, if, when a school I know cuz some schools calculate GPA based off of like, the actual percent you got in the class, you know, out of 100. But then do you know, for people who did take a piece and such, how do you make a GPA out of that? That’s out of 100?

Ami
Yeah, I think it’s just a wait. So like, like you said, like, I think, for example, APS sometimes just way more as a class in general over a normal, like, high school class. So if I took like regular bio versus AP Bio, and I got 90, fives in both, my, my GPA would go up probably like 1.4% versus like, 1%.

Kamila
So they just add more percents.

Ami
Right. It’s like, like weighted, so it’s like, yeah, it’s like, if I have if I do worse in the AP, that means my GPA goes down more. If I do better in AP, I mean, GPA goes up. More significantly worse if I do the same in like a college class. It’s just weighted more heavily.

Kamila
Okay, that makes sense now, okay, so let’s move on to another part of the transcript I guess we could say which is a CT a CT, which one did you take and what preparation did you have was your school like, you know, pressured you to start early offered like PSAT and a CT LSAT practices. So how was it there?

Ami
Yeah, um, this is super interesting. Yeah. So I took both cuz I was like, Screw it. Why not? Let’s let’s just see how I do in both and pick whatever one is best for me. So I did take the PSAT I have no idea what score I got. I’m a decent test taker, but I’m not like the best. So yeah, that that was like I don’t remember the PSAT score. I took the LSAT, I think twice or three times. You’re going to be like, Why is this good even in college, but I didn’t really study much to be honest. For the essay. LSAT, I, I never studied for the AC T. I took like probably two practice exams for the AC T and then went to the real exam. Because I didn’t care about it as much. It was just a way to see if Hey, like if I got it. If I ever gotten a really good score, that’s really good for me if I didn’t then Oh, well. And so I took the LSAT. Yeah, and then my cumulative score was 1400. So that’s kind of my score as I Yeah. So basically, yeah, I took like, three, I think I took the FFT three times, I got a cumulative score of like 1400, I got like 13 at 1390 13. So like, here’s all the same range that I got a cumulative score of, like 1400 regions, what I submitted to schools, because a lot of most, I think a lot of schools take kind of the best math score and the best English score. I did really well in math, and didn’t do so well on the literature, English. But yeah, so that was my score. In terms of preparation, I was enrolled in actually a program called Double Discovery Center at Columbia, Columbia too. And so I got into that program, through my school kind of, in so that that program is really for, like, low income, usually underrepresented students from like, diverse backgrounds. So yeah, I I was enrolled in that program, that program gave me actually a lot of support for college. But one of the main things it helped me do was like a couple, I think, like, nine weeks of LSAT prep. So every like, Saturday morning or something, I would go to just a CT prep into me, I also played college, like I told you, so I in soccer, like I told you to

Unknown Speaker
play college,

Ami
in that, but I managed to go almost every week. And so that helped a lot. And then I basically just studied on my own with kind of a typical Kaplan and study books, I just think accumulated them got a lot from my friends and colleagues and etc. And just like practice, in practice, and online, too. So I would say those are like the main two methods, and then my school did pretty well, in terms of like, also helping me just understand the basics of the these tests. So like, I had a pretty good math basis already. So like, I like knew about math. And so I didn’t really have to study exactly for that at all. But it is also a test where you have to study that the test itself. So yeah,

Kamila
and we’ll get to this a little bit later. Like the colleges that you did have in colleges, universities that you chose and apply to but with with the schools that you did apply to was 1400 is not low at all. So it was a 1400 Like, did it put you below average, average or above average? Like in comparison to the schools you apply to?

Ami
Yeah, um, it depends on the school. So like, Oh, so

Kamila
you apply to like a really wide range? Yeah.

Ami
So like, I think like typically you have safeties and targets and reaches so really dependent on the range I would say honestly, maybe low from some of the schools I applied to for the heights pretty average or hot, like a little bit higher than average maybe. But yeah, it depends on the school.

Kamila
And you said what the Columbia program they helped with like low income more diverse backgrounds. Would you identify with first generation low income? Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yes. Did you use any sort of programs? Honestly, I’m only familiar with quest bridge so Did you use any programs like quest bridge in application process?

Ami
I personally not quest bridge is really good. I know the Gates Foundation has a really good one. Posse I don’t know if you’ve heard of posse posm II I think it’s it is but yeah, Posse is a really good one. So a lot of my friends are also like the same kind of diverse background low income first gen. I know a lot of people who actually like got into the quest bridge or got into posse Yeah, it’s posse foundation.org po SSC foundation so that’s a really great program as well they pay for your whole tuition should also use in so yeah, I I personally didn’t go through a lot of these programs but definitely recommend trying to and it doesn’t hurt I probably shouldn’t but yeah, is is definitely not interested. I mean, so. Yeah, I I think I definitely took advantage of some some resources, like the that program. And then the other huge thing is you get like you get your application fee waivers for all these schools, usually so if you ask your college counselor They’re usually give you kind of this like waiver thing. So I didn’t have to pay for any of my applications, which is nice because kind of 60 bucks or each school kind of adds up. So yeah, the other thing is you can get your, your applications waived for applying when applying to schools.

Kamila
Interesting there, and that’s fine. I was just asking because the I’ve interviewed three questbridge applicants so far. So I was just wondering if you were the same, because let’s move on to more fun stuff, which is extracurriculars. So tell me which extracurriculars did you do throughout high school?

Ami
Yeah, um, I should actually, one thing on sh T’s s 30. Subject Tests.

Kamila
Yes, I keep forgetting those. If Yeah, if you have anything to say about those, please do like, which ones did you take and stuff.

Ami
I took some sciences and math, I did pretty well on the math, it didn’t help me at all, to take that as you will. But I did horribly on the side too. So obviously, that doesn’t help. But you can kind of choose which ones you submit to the colleges. So like I said before, it doesn’t hurt to kind of try. And I didn’t study for others there, which is probably on myself too. But I think subject tests don’t matter as much. They’re just like, really nice to showcase, especially, I was applying to engineering. So I was like, Okay, I should probably showcase that I’m good at science and math. If you’re applying to some other polystyrene English, I think it’s probably good to take a English subject tester, etc. I also took, I’m fluent in Japanese. Both my parents are from Japan, I went to school there for a bit, actually, while and so I kind of aced that Subject Test, obviously, without saying because it’s because I’m to it. But that helped me a lot actually in college, because I got eight credits, which is like, probably a good $6,000 worth of credits,

Kamila
just for weed subject tests in general, just for your Japanese Subject Test,

Ami
just for my Japanese Subject Test, because I aced it. So they basically gave me credit for introduction to Japanese and introduction. Alright, like, medium, Japanese or something. Wow. So yeah, so if you if you’re doing in any language, I would say, maybe take it just the college you go to might give you credit for it. So the high gives credits for subject tests as well. Some of them, specifically language is one of them. So but yeah, so I would recommend maybe, like looking into I like a lot of this stuff. I just say like why not? is kind of my mentality. But I think she said like test her to not be included, depending on the school. So I would look at it.

Kamila
I wasn’t sure I never knew that because I thought LSAT Subject Test for the same as LSAT. You just show them to the school, but you can earn credit. That’s incredible.

Ami
Wow. But yeah, I didn’t talk about extracurriculars.

Kamila
So I mean, you mentioned one already, which is soccer. So can you take us through soccer? When did you start? When did you start? And you just say you traveled for it. So can you tell us a little bit about that as well.

Ami
So yeah, this is actually really interesting because I got recruited for soccer. So which is a totally different process as like, Oh,

Kamila
so you weren’t like playing on the soccer team in your school. You were actually playing for a team team, a state team,

Ami
right? Like a like an academy team is very, like competitive. I traveled to, to during senior year, I traveled to Italy for like three weeks to compete there. Like traveled like, impressive nation. I won’t put your like number two in the nation, which is really, really exciting. So yeah, I played pretty competitively.

Kamila
When did you start? When did you start? We have to go number two in the nation and you went to Italy? When did you start?

Ami
It’s not like it’s just like, numbers at that point. But we started I started with five so pretty young. I was six. And so I’ve been playing it most of my life probably my whole life. Now, to be honest, since I’ve been able to walk. And yeah, I grew up in New York City. We played soccer for teen in high school and middle school. Got really, really competitive in it. So I traveled a lot.

Kamila
And can you tell us a little bit about the are you were you recruited as this athlete?

Ami
So not from Lehigh, which is really interesting. So I was recruited to other schools. was actually like several other schools. And actually, really, this is really interesting. So I like committed to one. And then at the very last second, I actually got off the waitlist at the high. And they just gave me a lot more money. Like a lot more money. And yeah, they’re like, it’s a good school, and it was a good fit for me academically. So

it kind of like culturally as well. So I ended up choosing Lehigh. But that’s a whole nother story.

Kamila
That’s interesting. And I know you didn’t choose, you know, you weren’t going to Lehigh as an athlete. But can you tell us a little bit about the recruiting process? Even I mean, you didn’t go to Lehigh as an athlete. But can you tell us a little bit about it? I’ve interviewed a girl and she was recruited to Swarthmore, as a basketball athlete, recruited basketball athlete, and she said, there’s like a whole process to being recruited. So can you tell us a little bit about how that went for you?

Ami
Is this huge? Like, especially? So if you’re getting recruited for sports, obviously, the three divisions, there’s also another one that’s not NCAA. But an NCAA? There’s two division division 123. There are, yeah, so like, usually, if you really want to pay and play competitively, you either go to really, really good d3 schools. Really good D one schools. And then so like, yeah, I guess like starting to process off. It’s hard to break. It really depends on the sport. So I can’t speak for every sport at all. I can speak for soccer.

Kamila
Oh, yeah, for sure. Cuz that’s just the sport you did. So you can tell us about soccer.

Ami
But for soccer, it like starts pretty much in like freshman year of high school. A huge part of it is just going to like tournaments getting shouted, playing for the good team. So I played for a pretty good team. So there are a lot of just college scouts, usually watching our games. So it’s pretty like nice to have that. Also see you like if you want to go to certain school usually go to reach out to them whenever you go to tournament to work, whenever you play games and close those colleges.

Kamila
In did you do that? Did you have like colleges already in mind? And like, you know, talk with the coaches that were at your games and try to like form a connection?

Ami
Yeah, so I had a lot of colleges in mind. I was aiming for a kind of. So I’m not like incredibly great at soccer. And like he shouldn’t I would say so I was in I was aiming for a good academic institution, which also in which also had a, like a decent and good soccer program, which basically for me meant, like middle tier D one or really high tier D three. For soccer, D two is really weird. But

Kamila
what’s the difference between D one d two d three? Is that like, is it just the scores that are part of division one, Division Two, Division Three, it’s not like division one is like the almighty tier and the division threes less like you could have division three, that’s better than Division one.

Ami
Right? Um, it’s really school exactly how we measure it. But all of these things like, I mean, obviously, a lot of the D one schools are better than the d3 schools. More so than last, I would say like, I would say, probably the top 60% of D one schools are better than the bottom 90% Of Duty schools. So it’s really just like the top 10 15% of d3 schools that are really, really good that could probably compete in the D one category. And so what I was really aiming for was like those top 20 Maybe d3 schools that also had really great academic it’s kind of culture and also what I was looking for, which at the time was engineering. So yeah, I was looking at like really good d3 schools that had a lot of like a rigorous engineering program. And so yeah, looked at like Carnegie Mellon looked at. So the one I actually committed to is called RPI, Rensselaer, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in a well known for engineering, and also really great at soccer, so they’re like number 10. At one point, they were like number four in the nation. It was like super, super great soccer program. I also applied to Johns Hopkins. Up to A lot of I got offers from like WPI. And trying to

Kamila
get to like the school is a little bit later. I just want to finish with extracurriculars. So obviously soccer was a huge part of your life, huge time commitment you have to tell us about when you went to Italy. I mean, what would I mean you went to Italy you competed but like what else did you do there? How was How was the trip?

Ami
Yeah, it was super fun. Like, we went to compete. But honestly, I treated it kind of like a vacation is like senior year. Yeah. So I mean, like, I was also really, really serious about soccer. So like, obviously we eat well rested. Well.

Kamila
Like we’re in Italy. Did you go to?

Ami
Yeah, so we competed in this thing called the Vir Reggio Cup, which is basically one of probably the most famous youth tournament in Italy. One of the biggest tournaments in the world. And so there’s this place called via Reggio, which is kind of like the west coast of Italy really near. I want to say, Florence. Yeah. So it’s really like close to Florence. Really close to like, the MVC more like the Leaning Tower Pizza, pizza. So yeah, we went we went there. So like, You got to kind of explore that parts as well. So yeah, so it’s really close to like pizza and soaring success. Yeah, but yeah, had a really good time. competed pretty hard. Competition was pretty, pretty good.

Kamila
Where did you guys place in a competition?

Ami
Yeah, we didn’t get too far. Honestly. Um,

Kamila
so So is it like, you know, in the three weeks, you play multiple games, and eventually it’s the like, one? Okay. Okay.

Ami
Like, currently, the World Cup.

Kamila
Okay, okay. So okay, yeah, I get it now.

Ami
Every few days, and then it goes into like knockout rounds. Except we didn’t get we didn’t get too far. I will say that the people I play with are like, all amazing. They’re probably I think all of them are D one schools or have gone pro. So

Kamila
but making it to that youth tournament in Italy, itself looks impressive, right? Like it’s, it

Ami
definitely is impressive. So yeah, we the, like, players I played with, you’re all super amazing. But when you go to Europe, it’s also just like another like, all of these players are just like, in Italian youth academies. And probably, I don’t know, 50% of them are going to go professional. So

Kamila
yeah, I mean, America in America, soccer is not that like, well known, I guess. But everywhere else in the world. It’s like, it’s like the world sport. Everybody plays there. Yeah. Okay, so any other extracurriculars that you have?

Ami
Um, honestly, I don’t know. Okay, so the second biggest one, by far has been music. So I went to music school though, growing up, actually apart from regular school. I played the cello. And then so I basically until the end of junior year, I think. Yeah. went to music school every week. So I had, like, private lessons. And then so I would go to music school there, which is kind of like near Lincoln centers, you know where that is. And then I would have like, chamber music or just learn about music theory have through blesses, etc. So it’s like a pretty solid, like, music school curriculum thing. Yeah, I’ve been in that school since I was like four or five.

Kamila
Did you have competitions as well for that?

Ami
Um, I didn’t. So there was opportunity to compete, I really compete because I wasn’t like, very technically good. We had concerts every, like conference semester, basically. So we have to prepare for those semesters. I would say like, we were supposed to practice at least an hour a day, which kind of adds up. So and then on Fridays, usually when I was younger as Saturdays, but when I was older is Friday. From 3pm to like, 1010 30 11pm. That would be like the time that I like would basically have back to back like classes and school and everything. music score then one other day usually I think it was Tuesdays for me. I would also have like a lesson for an hour. So pretty, it was pretty rigorous but yeah, so like literally all I did in high school was played music or make music. I also produce now and then also play soccer and that was pretty much it. I didn’t do anything. ciders school really like

Kamila
I went with music school did you ever have the intention of I’m not very musically adept at all at all. But did you ever have like the intention of applying to a couple music schools? I know that big ones like Curtis Juilliard. That’s pretty much all I know. But did you ever have the intention of applying to a music school? Were you ever considering going to a one?

Ami
Yeah, um, I had no intention of like I firstly, like I wouldn’t get in.

Kamila
Those are crazy competitive heard. There’s like, two spots for some instruments.

Ami
Pretty bad. Especially because like I’m playing I play the cello, which is like, I guess less competitive than the violin, and probably the third most competitive after those two, so. Yeah, it’s definitely, definitely. Top of mind for me. I do know a lot of people like, I have a lot of friends who went to like Juilliard pre college, who still didn’t go to kind of like Juilliard or Curtis Peabody, or all these other musical institutions. So yeah, but they’re still playing music right now. Like their respective schools. I’m still minoring in music. I’m just not doing classical music anymore. I’m taking my knowledge of music and music theory to different like, genre. School, but that’s yeah, I will say like most people I know who played music or didn’t music, still continuing it in some way, shape or form, but not like the rate of like criticism?

Kamila
Yeah, okay. I mean, that’s the still sounds incredible. So are those like the two main extracurriculars that you had?

Ami
Yeah, I would say those are like the two main things. And then like, I would play the cello or like, whatever instrument at school if, like needed, then so like, I played it for like the school, like the theater program and like, like events and stuff sometimes. And then I also played some school soccer. So I can I played both school and Academy, which fall was kind of like my body was wrecked. But yeah, so like, it was mainly basically soccer in school for I was captain of the school team, which really helped with like, media showing leadership, I guess. I basically just played soccer, and then made music or played music. And that was it. So I’ve been I took classes in college classes in high school class, and that was led my life. So those three things I’d say.

Kamila
So you didn’t join like any clubs honor societies at school?

Ami
No. Absolutely. Not. I would say like, yeah, like, I think a huge part of it for me, like academically, it was good because I was able to take like, classes at Columbia and Berg. I then I interned for like a really good investment bank junior year to the Columbia program.

Kamila
Oh, you have to tell us about that. The total accounts is an extra curricular. Yeah. Can you tell us a little bit about your internship?

Ami
Yeah, I interned at investment banking place called Macquarie group, which is I think the number one or two or something Australian bank. And so they have like, billions of dollars in assets under management. super huge company, if you go into finance, like basically everyone knows about McQuarrie because they’re like a tear. I don’t like if everyone knows about like Morgan Stanley and like city and like those banks, but it’s like a tier below those. Still want got the opportunity through the program. I was talking about the low income program. So they basically require and that program and other programs have like a program that allows you to basically like interview like any other like college applicant. And in turn, they’re in high school, so it’s part of a cohort of like two And I would say like 15 students, high school students. It’s all from like, pretty diverse backgrounds. And so, yeah, we interned there. And yeah, I mean, I had a pretty good time they paid us well. Yeah. So it was good.

Kamila
You said this is in Australia, you didn’t go to Australia, right? It was like a unit in New York.

Ami
Right. We were in the office. So they have a really nice, really nice, usually office. So I commuted from home to there in the summer of junior high school, which I think helps in terms of like, experience. But yeah, other than that, like I said, it’s like, literally just been soccer and music and, like, academics, I didn’t do too well in high school either. So it’s like, like taking classes at like other institutions in high school. I’ve been that internship was probably my main, like, technically focused extracurricular. That’s interesting.

Kamila
You said you were interested in engineering and I guess more stem in general. Yeah, I guess engineering? Why did you choose to do an investment bank internship? Were you also interested in that at some point?

Ami
Yeah. So I think I was just generally interested in finance and business. Right now. I’m really I’m too close to like, kind of the investment banking side of it. Right now. Um, I think I told you, I’m really interested in immersed in kind of startup space, the venture capital space in kind of the Creator space. Back then I really thought I really wanted to do like finance and investment banking, or kind of like engineering. And so yeah, I did. And we basically, I school was for math, science and engineering. So we took engineering classes every single kind of semester. So in classes, so I thought, that’s what I want to do. It’s also like a technical skill set. I’ve Asian parents like to joke. So it’s like, my mom’s Asian, and she really wanted me to engineering rather than, you know, business. So yeah, that’s why that’s the primary reason why I did a major going into engineering, and then the investment banking thing was also just like, I was kind of interested in finance business. And it was a good opportunity. So

Kamila
yeah, and that’s a great segue into picking colleges, you know, looking at colleges and actually applying to them. So when you were looking for colleges, you did say you were a recruit, recruited athlete, and athletics was a big part. But were you also looking for schools with engineering programs? Because I know, Lehigh rings, one of the top for at least industrial engineering, which you said you do. So were you looking into engineering schools as well?

Ami
Yeah. Um, so that was kind of the requirement, actually. So I knew I had to, like come to certain schools in certain ways. So I literally just looked for schools that had engineering programs. So I didn’t apply to any schools that didn’t have any engineering programs. I was looking back, because I didn’t do engineering. Like, like, I’m not in I am technically Industrial Systems Engineering, but I’m probably looking to go into Business Information Systems. I don’t know yet. But yeah, it’s like looking back on it. Like, I wish I’d had kind of applied to more diversity of schools in terms of like, curriculum. But yeah, I applied to a bunch of like, schools. I think my filter was one they had engineering to. They were like, I really like kind of like, having one on one. Conversations and having more like curated attention.

Kamila
So smaller population.

Ami
So for me, I wanted not like tiny school, but like small to medium sized school. I didn’t want any like to go to a state school. I wanted to go to like a school basically, that had under like, maximum 15,000 school students. Probably more like 12 or 10,000, but really wanted to go to like a smaller school that had engineering that had a good soccer program. Ideally, so. And then. Yeah, so those were the filters, which is pretty, like if you put those filters on, it becomes a pretty narrow list. And then all of those schools are very competitive. So

Kamila
which schools were they what were the colleges universities that you eventually picked apply to?

Ami
The schools were pretty small. I think it was like Johns Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon. Oh, I think I have to also note that I got recruited in early fall of senior year. So usually people like EDC, usually, like later fall like November. Just Ember then regularly decisions usually I think, April. So yeah, I got recruited in like, September or something. So by that time, I basically already had a guarantee to go to the school that are speaking about rent rent, so called technic Institute, which is RPI. So for me, it was a really solid option because they had a really, really great engineering program. They’re a smaller school and their soccer program was really, really great. The facilities are amazing, the coaches good team is really great. So that was like a really great school for me.

Kamila
Why did you choose Lehigh? That was such a good school.

Ami
So I can I can give you the story about this as well. So usually, people choose like safeties and targets and reaches, and they like, have different kind of division. So like, sometimes she bought eight targets and like for reaches and like two safeties or something. I had a totally different strategy, because so like, Don’t do this. Definitely like, like, balance it out if you’re, if you’re playing academically, especially. But because I had kind of like that safety net as like, hey, now I have an offer. And basically, I can commit to RPI. Any time. Let me shoot for every single school that I think is above RPI. Kind of. So like shoot for every school that that I would want to attend, like I would think of attending over like RPI, which basically guarantee me a really good engineering degree. Really good. Yeah. I think the two cons about RPI for me was culture. So it’s like 70% guys or something like that?

Kamila
Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah.

Ami
And then it was also just like, they didn’t give me great aid, or scholarship money. So they didn’t give me much money in general. It was like a good amount, but it wasn’t like, amazing. So with that, yeah. So kind of like went through that whole process. And so I literally applied to like every single school that I thought, like, I’m, like I might want to attend. So after that, that IPI was like, the filter was schools that basically would give me good money, through scholarship or through aid. And then schools that were kind of academically, maybe more rigorous, then kind of RPI in schools are more culturally a fit for me as a person than RPI. So that list is probably like 15 different schools that I applied to

Kamila
well, after you got accepted to RPI, which you said was like early fall you applied to 15 other schools

Ami
Yeah, it’s like and yeah, so that list includes like don’t miss Cornell Northeastern Lehigh obviously book now. I applied to my state school for some reason, just because like, I saw my friends were I was like, Okay, why not? So I applied to SUNY Binghamton, which is like the local like New York State School. It’s like one of the best ones I think for New York was it I apply I applied to like Brock, now, if you’ve heard that, also in Pennsylvania, I applied to Tufts Swarthmore. I don’t think I applied to Penn, I might have

Kamila
UPenn or Penn State,

Ami
or UPenn. I applied to Harvey Mudd.

Kamila
That is significantly hard to get into if you’re a male target.

Ami
And like a couple other schools of the sort to like, just like really great academic schools that had good engineering programs. And fun fact, I didn’t get into any I got into Lehigh. So I actually got into one but other than that, I got I even got waitlisted from my local state school. There’s just so I got wait listed from the state school. I got wait listed for Like five other schools, I will say. So I think in total I got wait listed on like six schools. And then I got declined from literally the rest of them.

Kamila
Because everybody hi.

Ami
Yeah. So yeah, no, well, I was waitlisted for the high as well. So basically until July, so I think it was July 4, actually. So until July, I thought I was going to RPI. And I was like, I was like happy with it. Because, you know, it was good engineering program, smaller school. Really great soccer program. So it was like, really good fit and and then I got an email from Lehigh saying that I got off the waitlist. And then I was like, what? And so I was in Japan at that time, actually. And so I decided to fly back early to the US. Because it was already July in school would start in like, mid August. Um, so I have

Kamila
always so you mean, a month and a half before you actually start college? We’re choosing Lehigh. We’re How does that work? I thought students like you receive your acceptances by a certain day. And then by another certain date, you have to say, Okay, I’m going to this school, how does it work that in the summer, you can suddenly get off the waitlist and then change it.

Ami
It was just a really, really late waitlist. response. And so yeah, like I already had put my deposit down for RPI. Like literally everything was in line like I was supposed to. So I was actually supposed to go to preseason end of July, like, literally a week, a week after I got that email. So I was like, two, maybe two weeks. So like very like, like mid July. And so within that two weeks, I basically had to decide, like, whether or not I was going to go to the school or not. And I was supposed to fly back from Japan, like within two days of like preseason get get to New York and then drive up to RPI for preseason games for soccer. And, yeah, like, I was just like, okay, like, let me visit Lehigh first because I had visited one time before, but like, I wasn’t really considering it that much. So I was like, Okay, let me like visit this place first. See what it’s like, obviously, me like July, mid July, there’s no one there. But I like walked around. I had to go back by myself to because my mom had to stay in Japan. So like, I went back by myself. I came back to New York City job left my stuff to different bus to Pennsylvania. hopped off the bus. I took an Uber to the Lehigh campus and like literally walked around for like a long time. And called my college counselor called some my friends call my mom called some other people and yeah, basically decided like there to go there.

Kamila
So like two weeks before your preseason at RPI, you decide to go to Lehigh?

Ami
Yeah, it’s it’s a funny story. But yeah, like, the reason why I chose at the end of the day was also because like, they gave me the high meets 100% need based aid. But also they’re pretty they have a lot of scholarships, they have a lot of great funding, but is a private institution. So because I’m lower income. Actually, this is a kind of a good trick, if you are lower income apply to more private institutions, which sounds counterintuitive, but it’s because they have more money. So usually, they can give more aid. And they can give more scholarship money. So yeah, Lehigh, by far, has given me an amazing financial package. And so yeah, I was like, okay, like, I can probably graduate college debt free, which I definitely couldn’t have at RPI. If I want to maybe I can probably play soccer. So like, I can probably walk on if I really wanted to. I can probably like compete if I if I found if I really wanted to play soccer as well. And then yeah, like the culture is just like, it’s like, much more balanced in terms of gender. It’s it’s a really Greek Life oriented school, but it’s also really fun. Really, motto is like, work hard, play hard, which is like kind of meeting the personality as well. And also, the big thing was they had a really great engineering school. And they have really good business school. So if I wanting to do both or either or transfer. I knew engineering or business were the two things that I wanted to do. And so, whatever that be, I knew that I had options and so that that’s been really paying off right now. But yeah, so I decided to go to Lehigh. Two weeks before preseason, I called up my coach, RPI and basically told him like, yeah, like, I can’t like I, I’m deciding to go to Lehigh. And he was, he was total. God, he was super chill about it. He asked about, like, my financial package, etc. And he’s like, Yeah, okay, that makes sense. Like, if my son, like, I probably want you to go to Lehigh as well. Yeah, he’s super chill about it, which is really great.

Kamila
And one thing I want to discuss, before we get into Lehigh college experience, completely went over my head is the actual college application essays. And the little supplemental. So did you apply common app to most of your schools?

Ami
Yeah, I think coming up to all of my schools, actually.

Kamila
Okay, and what did you write your personal statement about? Like, what was the year I need to give everyone? I’m just saying, like, the main idea, how did you come upon it? And then, did you do a bunch of revision on it? Have a lot of people look over it? How was the process for writing your big personal statement?

Ami
Yeah. Um, so my essay was about. So I went to, I grew up going to school, both in Japan and America until basically the end of middle school. And so, like, it’s a long day, but basically went to school from like, September to, like April ish, or something. And then I would go to school in Japan, like a regular public school in Japan, in Tokyo, from a Polish measure whatever my American school would I would did for my American score, then I would go there until September, so basically, at school year round. And so I wrote about my experiences growing up in very different environments, obviously, like school in Japan is much, much, much more different than school in America and vice versa. So yeah, that was my main and like, understanding how to balance my kind of Japanese, cultural, and academic kind of viewpoints and experiences with my American ones and how that defines, basically,

Kamila
I have a question, you don’t have to answer this, if you’re not comfortable with it. But did you go to Japan to be closer to family?

Ami
And I’m totally, I think, like, my whole family’s in Tokyo, so I lived with my grandma while I was attending these, like schools. Really appreciate my mom for it. So yeah, I also don’t think I mentioned this, but I grew up mostly with my mom. Most of my life, so yeah, super, like, it was really great to like, have family. My mom loves staying in Japan, obviously, there’s just great like immersion culturally, into like, now I really understand Japanese culture, but also it’s just like, Japanese education is much better, especially at an early age than American. So is it much more rigorous, it’s just much more rigorous is much more accelerated. So it just like helped me a lot more. Growing up so like, that’s also why I was able to probably get into like the high school that I did, or like, I guess, it’s also a middle school, too. So I was I was been there since middle school, but it contributed to a lot of my academic success as well.

Kamila
Okay. And we’re from I told you, I interviewed a recruited athlete from Swathmore. And she said that her college application process, even as a recruited athlete, you still go through the same thing, Common App supplementals. It’s just you they see that you’re a recruited athlete as well. I think so was that how it went for you you applied regular common app like everyone, but you had the sort of check mark that like, you know, they’re recruited athlete, if they come in, they’ll be a recruited athlete?

Ami
Yeah. So it really depends on a couple of things. Like the first is the division. So basically, for d3. You can’t so like for d3, you can’t first of all get scholarships for being an athlete, or like merit like like those kinds of scholarships, you can’t get for athlete. Same for Ivy League, you can’t get scholarships as an athlete, but you can get them at like 31 schools, etc. And then, the second thing is a D one schools usually if the coaches want you, you’re automatically in like this No matter like, the admission, people say like, if they want you, you’re in d3, it’s less of that. But coaches have a lot of leverage, especially at certain schools. So basically, like, if you’re not, like very, very off the grading, like the like, act like the

Kamila
GPA transcript stuff.

Ami
Yeah. Then they basically it’s like automatic acceptance. So really depends on how hard the coaches push for you, and how much coach how much leverage the coach has. So for example, a coach who’s been out of school for 20 years probably has a lot more leverage, and also a lot more of a relationship with the admissions office. To really depends, I will say, for d3, it’s a little bit different than Deewan. In that they usually can’t guarantee anything, but yeah, like if you go to like, like, Yeah, usually like if your grades aren’t like to off. And if if your city isn’t like way off, and the coaches really want you, but you still have to go through like the process. But basically, it doesn’t really matter what you write at that

Kamila
point. So this is for like, the top of the top athletes, you know, all the schools want them is that the kind of athletes that they’ll make an exception for.

Ami
Um, I will so like, for D one, the top of the top athletes, they’ll make an exception for like anyone. Basically, this is for soccer, too. So I don’t know about other schools. I imagine it’s similar. For Ivy League, it’s kind of the same. But they also like it’s academics do weigh a little more heavily. But the main thing with Ivy League’s is you can’t get scholarship from being an athlete from other schools. For example, if I went to like Ohio State or something, I could probably get, I don’t know, 30,000 off my tuition or something. If I were an athlete, and like coaches use that as an incentive to come to that school. And so and then for like, a lot of good players also go to like really great d3 schools like tufts, Amhurst, etc. And so they also can’t give merit scholarships. But what coaches can do is say like, Hey, like, we really want you even if your grades are like a little low coaches can usually like push for you. Say like, Hey, he’s a really good player. I really want him. So yeah, usually it’s like, maximum eight players or something in their class. So they push for a couple of out of that eight, but yeah,

Kamila
that’s incredible. And I never knew like, that was that much of an advantage. That’s it for my interview with AMI and make sure to subscribe so you know when Part Two comes out, also check out my blog, college reality check.com And my Instagram underscore, a college kid underscore. Well, other than that, I hope to see you in the next one.