I interview Mayu on her college admissions process; she gives a detailed run through of how she was able to initiate some of her extracurricular activities. 

Part 2 is here

Transcription

Kamila
Hey college kids. Welcome back to my podcast who cares about college? Today’s episode is part one with my you from Princeton University. Before we get started, make sure to subscribe and check out my blog college reality check.com And follow me on Instagram at underscore a college kid underscore hope you enjoy

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

Mayu
Yeah, thank you so much, Kamala. As Camille said, I am my you. I’m a current third year at Princeton University. And I’m based in Athens, Georgia. So right now I’m a 20 year old woman, I was born in Japan. And that’s where I lived until I was around five years old. Since then, I’ve kind of traveled and lived in various places. But I grew up mostly on Long Island, New York. Yeah, my family moved one younger brother and two parents. Were in mood, say we’re around upper middle class. But yeah, we’ve grown up as immigrants. And now based in Athens, Georgia, I’m at Princeton, I’m studying Public and International Affairs with a focus on climate and environmental policy. But outside of that, I’m also doing minors in data analysis and machine learning, as well as some philosophy and also environmental science. So I’m excited to be here.

Kamila
That is quite a handful of stuff to be studying. Okay, so I’ll start from the very beginning, you did give a little bit of background on your family? What about the let’s start with the expectations for you growing up with higher education, either from your parents, your school yourself? What were you expecting to achieve when you went to high school? And eventually with college? Were you aiming for the top university in the world?

Mayu
No, actually, I would say that I really thankful that I’ve grown up with, I mean, in terms of pressure from my parents, it was mostly that they wanted me to find a place where I can study and be happy, studying whatever I was passionate about. And personally, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do when I grew up, as I was young, and also growing older. And so I think going into high school, I was really just trying to explore different passions and avenues and activities, which I’m sure we’ll get into later. And I think going into the application process, I I guess I applied to not that many schools, but they were mostly places where I felt like I could Yeah, have that breathing room to explore, because I’m still looking for what I want to do and pursue as my passion life.

Kamila
And can you tell me about the high school that you went to? What was it? Was it a public high school, private? And then what kind of courses do they offer? Do they offer all those? You know, APS IB honors that colleges like? Hmm,

Mayu
yeah. And here, I think it’ll be helpful to take a step back and talk about where I was in New York, because the transition over was, it happened right before I started high school. And so where I grew up on Long Island, I was in a very small school, it was a public school with about 290 people in each grade, and it was all K through 12. And so I would grew up in a very tight knit community there. And I would say that school was especially strong in the music program. And so I did that. It was a regular public school was not like a conservatory. But I did. I play violin growing up. And I also was taking classes. Because it was a small school school, they offered opportunities to kind of take advanced courses. And when I was in elementary school I was taking, I was enrolled in a small class that you had to test to get into. And it allowed us to have like creative courses where we could like, we spent some classes, building bridges or doing independent research type projects. We made kites during one unit of science and a lot of fun, but I think that sort of set me up for going into high school. And for that I was in public high school in Georgia. It was much bigger. We had Around 300 people in each grade. And the school, yes, offered a variety of AP classes. No IB classes. And so I did take a variety of AP courses going in. So I took classes like AP Language Literature, also took Latin and AP calculus and biology and a couple others, but I would say throughout it all. The school itself is not a very competitive high school though. I think in the past, the year before me had one other Students go to Princeton but and from my class, there were two people who went to Yale. But I would say other than that, most people are going to the University of Georgia, the University of North Georgia, and yeah, so we’ve got a lot of stuff going on.

Kamila
So I just have a quick question when you moved from New York, Long Island to Georgia. Can you like, I don’t know if it affected your academic performance. But was it a rough transition? Like, because not even you’re moving to the state next year, you’re moving to the other, like, from the north to the south? So was it a hard adjustment for you? Because you probably didn’t know anyone there?

Mayu
Yeah, I would say it was definitely a tough transition. And mostly because I was definitely on the shy side growing up, especially coming from a very small school. And so I mean, even before thinking about all the academics in school, yeah, it was definitely a big transition to have to go from having 90 people in a grade where I knew everybody to a school of 1200 people total were with I am in a fairly, like, predominantly white suburban area now in Georgia. And so I mean, that even that was a very big transition. And, and so yeah, going into freshman year of high school, I had to go through that process of getting to know everybody, and kind of figuring out where my place is in the school. And also what I want to do. I would say, though, that this whole transition really, I mean, threw me into a completely different environment. And that kick started me into just having the space to explore a lot of different interests. And that was where I got a lot more active with, like the math team that I was a part of, at, in Georgia. And I also explored some interests in like the medical field in healthcare, and also taking on a variety of leadership roles. So happy to get more into that as well.

Kamila
Yeah. And when you went into it, we’ll definitely get into extracurriculars. I just want to get through, like high school stuff, and maybe a little bit great, and then extracurriculars. So going into high school. Yeah, like when you start a high school, was it automatically like college prep, I need to start thinking about this. Did you set up like, Oh, I’m gonna try out a bunch of these extracurriculars, and then find a few to commit to did you have like a clear cut plan when you came into high school? Or was it more like last minute, junior year? You’re like, Oh, God, I have actually started thinking about this stuff now.

Mayu
Yeah, I would say the mindset I had was that I wasn’t specifically planning anything for my college application. I think I was really fortunate in that I was, I had the space to really pursue passions through extracurriculars that I was interested in. And yeah, so going into high school, I wasn’t planning that out, I was mostly just trying out the tennis team, for example, to meet people being in this new school. And similarly with a lot of other clubs, and even going into junior year and senior year, it just, I think, looking back, it ended up happening that a lot of the initiatives that I had poured myself into ended up being things that I could tell stories about on my college application, and I was able to connect the dots looking back.

Kamila
That’s great. So let’s quickly go through the stats, like grades, and stuff like that. So you did mention that you didn’t want to share exact numbers. So do you want to just share, like where you fell in relation to the class? Were you in the top 10% and stuff like that? And what about standardized test scores? Like LSAT? A CT?

Mayu
Yeah, sure. So within the grade of around 300 people I was, I ended up being the top of the class.

Kamila
Who your valedictorian?

Mayu
Yes, I was. And, I mean, each school has a lot of different ways of weighting different classes and stuff like that. But I would say like, that’s, yeah, I never like was aiming to be at the top of the class. It was mostly Yeah, what happened, I enjoyed the classes I was taking and was able to, yeah, enjoy my experiences with them. So that’s what ended up happening. And in terms of standardized test scores, I, I only took the LSAT and I scored in like the high 1500s. And in addition to that, I also took some LSAT Subject Tests, because they were recommended for me, Princeton and a couple other colleges. So you took those in math and a couple sciences,

Kamila
that’s positive positive. So LSAT, Subject Tests. If you know what is the point of them, like, first of all, how do you even find out about them? How do you know which ones to take? Because it’s not clear cut like the A CT or a CT. So yeah, why do we need to take them and then how do you choose which ones to take?

Mayu
Yeah, that’s a great question because I would not have known about this if it weren’t for some family friends. They had who pointed me towards this, and also, some of the college specific websites list them as recommended criteria. But yeah, to back up the Subject Tests are, yeah, as the name suggests, they’re more subject focused as at like standardized exams. And so whereas the regular ICT exam covers English and kind of reading, writing, and in math and stuff like that, the Subject Tests cover other topics like chemistry, or biology or physics. There’s also like, subjects tests specific to math and a variety of others. And just for context, I’m talking about my application experience, which was in 29 2018 2019. But yeah, I think some colleges have used them in the past to get a better sense of people’s, I guess, expertise or knowledge in a specific content area, in addition to what LSAT covers. And in terms of figuring out if and which ones to take. A lot of colleges will include this in their website that has their standardized testing requirements. And I think they’ll usually just suggest that you take subjects either in areas related to a potential major, or just areas where you’ve taken extra courses or had additional experience.

Kamila
Okay, okay. But they’re not like, absolutely necessary, like, do most high school students take it? Do you know that?

Mayu
I, there were a decent number of people who took them, but based on my high school, where most people are going to the University of Georgia, for example, I would say the UGA specifically does not require them, I believe. And even for Princeton, if I remember correctly, they were just strongly recommended. And I’m not sure what the status now is. But I think in general, they’re not absolutely mandatory, and they’re not as necessary as the regular CTS and AC T’s.

Kamila
Okay, so we’ve kind of gone through the GPA, PSAT, stuff like that. So let’s move on to extracurriculars. You threw a lot at me, and I like remember only a few of them. So can you go through each one that you did? And, you know, as much detail as possible, like what was your role responsibility and extracurriculars? How long you did those four, because colleges like to see you doing for like long time? Stuff like so like, what did you contribute to? How long did you do it for? Did you hold any leadership positions as well?

Mayu
Sure, yeah. So I would say over time, I was involved in a variety of extracurriculars, mostly just exploring things, but I, I’ll go into detail for a couple of them and give some info about the others. So to start off, I would say, looking back, my biggest commitment was with the math team. We called it several different things, but I’ll just refer to as the math team. And this amount was definitely a strong interest area for me, like growing up, and also going to high school and throughout. And so it’s something that I had dabbled in a little bit through my time in middle school in New York, where we did some like individual and team competitions in the local area. But I think as I moved to high school, I noticed that there weren’t as many opportunities to participate in math team at my high school in Georgia. And but even then, I was still really interested in continuing to be involved. And I felt like, kind of, I felt like creating that opportunity would be something that’s beneficial not only for me, but also for some other people in my school had to had similar interests. And so essentially, I was, I guess, starting at like square two, because there was a program in the middle school in the same district where there was a math teacher who was coaching some middle school, math, contests, competitions, it’s called math counts in the area. And so what I did after moving to Georgia was get in touch with that coach, the teacher who was coaching the math team in middle school, and I contacted him and spoke to him a little bit about my interest in math competition and considering opportunities to set something similar up at the high school, and that we got the conversation started and for my freshman year,

Mayu
we what we did was, I was working with that coach to kind of put out messages into the high school student body to gather interest. And we had around a dozen people I would say, who were interested in traveling to competitions over weekends and participating in competitions. locally, but also around the state. And so what we would do is, we would get registrations for each competition. And that coach, the middle school coach would accompany us on trips, and go compete. And so that was a lot of the first year. And also the second year, I think, of course, we went through a recruitment cycle and had a more solid group of people who would compete with us. And then going into I think, junior year and senior year, I took on like a more formal leadership role there. In terms of like coordinating regular meetings, specifically, specifically with the high school, we finally got a high school teacher to start advising us as the team. And, and so we would hold like practices and also start becoming more active in these competitions across the state. But I guess, looking back, the one big thing that we like organized and hosted was this thing we called the local elementary school math competition. So this was less focused on our own competition at the high school level, but rather, it was an event that we so set up coordinated for students in our elementary schools across the district. Because, yeah, elementary schools typically have fewer opportunities for students to enjoy math in a fun way. experiences outside the classroom. And I and a fellow high schooler at another school in our district was really interested in Unity for these little students. And so for the entire summer, before senior year, we were getting together meeting. And we got a group of around two dozen high school students to volunteer. And what we did was we got in touch with some high school teachers, but also elementary school teachers. And we we set up this event that involved Yes, some like math competition elements, but also some like, fun booths, where we were like, bringing together puzzles or like logic games, or Yeah, like Rubik’s cubes and other like ciphers and puzzles, and like decoding mysteries and stuff like that, that can like little tools that can be used to pique little kids interest in math in ways that aren’t typically explored in the classroom. And yeah, so organizing this, I would say, is a big example of what I did as a leader within this math team community at high school. And yeah, that happened in the spring of my senior year. And it was a lot of fun.

Kamila
And one quick question, so a lot of and I would know, as myself and like my friends, as well, as a high schooler. I mean, you don’t, at that point, you’ve never really done anything like you haven’t started organizations, you haven’t started a business of your own? Most people haven’t. Right? So when it comes to reaching out to people, gathering interest, finding a sponsor, or like, you know, reaching out to your community, how did you do that? Was it simple as just sending an email out sending a bunch of emails out seeing who was interested? Or was it more like connections? Or like, how were you able to have people come to you and make it an actual thing happen?

Mayu
Yeah, that’s a great question. And I was definitely lucky. So I think earlier, I mentioned that at a school in New York, the school was very supportive in terms of taking more advanced courses. And so I came into high school, I think, taking math courses that were a little bit above my grade level. And the way that relates to this is that I was able to take the AP Calculus course, fairly early on. This was my sophomore year of high school when people typically take it in junior or senior years, if at all. And so through taking the AP Calculus course, I developed a pretty close relationship with AP calculus teacher at my high school. And he was mean for soul. He’s a great teacher, and, but even more than that, he’s really enthusiastic about math and helping other people learn. And that like passion radiated on me, but also, he was willing to put in a lot of time towards being the advisor for the math team. And so he was definitely someone who helped a lot in terms of creating these connections. And I mean, in terms of building up the initial team and getting interest from the high school side, he, as an AP calculus teacher, he knew a lot of students who were really interested in taking part in math at a high level beyond the classroom. And so that was really helpful. And in terms of coordinating this elementary math tournament, he was also really helpful in terms of reaching out to these teachers and administrators at the elementary schools. And, and he was the one who created the space for us to meet and prepare and set up this tournament.

Kamila
Okay, okay. And for college app purposes, when you were writing down this specific extracurricular, what I mean, what did you write down because they say you can’t like have an entire paragraph, it’s only a few bullets dedicated to each extracurricular. So what did you write down for the colleges to see?

Mayu
Yeah. So tracing back my memory here, I think that I emphasized two big things. One was the fact. One was like the magnitude of reach, I think, in terms of how many people were, like, reached and involved and participated in this event specifically. And so I think having specific numbers here is really helpful for like colleges to see. Was it just like a close really like, a small type of event? Or was it something that reached dozens or hundreds of people? Because that’s shows how I guess strong the you put your potential is in terms of, like reaching people. So that was one thing that I mentioned. Let’s say the other is the fact like this specific role that I was taking on and and what that involved so I mentioned that I was one of the two students really coordinating a spearheading effort. But in addition to that, I guess I added more details about what that involved and what that leadership actually looks like. And so for me, it involved a lot of, like, coordinating meetings and, and delegating responsibilities, I think, is a big thing. That was part of my role, but also that I emphasized, because I think beyond just being the leader, I think it was really important that the leader kind of inspires other people to also be leaders, if that makes sense. Kind of sharing that passion and inspiration, and, and having that continue is really important. And yeah, so I think those are two big things that emphasized.

Kamila
So let’s move on to other extracurriculars. What else did you do? Because this sounds really, really reached out to a lot of people. So what other extracurriculars did you do as well?

Mayu
Yeah, so I would say the other. Yeah, big one is hostess. And this is kind of short for future health professionals. And so this is a student group that already existed at my school for people interested in pursuing careers in medicine.

Kamila
It was hosted stands for

Mayu
long story short, it’s not technically an acronym. I think it used to be sorry, this is going to be a tangent, but it used to be the Health Occupation students of America. But for various reasons that I don’t know, the state decided to or the organization decided to rename it rebrand as future health professionals. And we’re just Tosa, that is not an acronym.

Kamila
Okay. Okay. Interest. Okay. Back on back on track.

Mayu
Yeah, so HOSA is? Yeah, I think so at my school, I’d say there’s also a lot of resources that go into what are called. I don’t remember what the technical term is. But it’s Octa. It’s like career technical and agricultural education. And so it’s more of like pre career pathways for people to take courses and kind of explore different options for careers moving forward. And one of the tracks there is healthcare. And so there’s a pathway of three courses that people interested in medicine take. And a lot of these students also end up in HOSA, the student group that goes with that. And

Kamila
so were you in this program to take specific courses?

Mayu
Yes, I was. I was on a slightly delayed timeline compared to other people. I think just because sometimes I wasn’t able to get the schedule, the classes I wanted on my schedule. But yes, I did finish out that pathway.

Kamila
And was it like a specific program that you put separately on your college app? Or was it just more in junior year? I took these couple classes senior year I took these classes that were related.

Mayu
The latter so yes, I took the intro to health care course. And then the the intermediate course and then the final one. Yep. And so, yes, as I started taking that those three classes I, I joined HOSA, which is the student group, and this is all like an existing program led by the healthcare instructors. And the I guess big marquee of bent that hosted does is participate in a statewide competition that involves, yeah, it’s a big event that’s statewide and has similar organizations and other states as well. But like the whole year, we’re preparing for this competition. And in March, we got to go into Atlanta, Georgia to compete. So that’s the big thing. But aside from that, well, what

Kamila
tell us what the competition is about, like, what do you guys do?

Mayu
Yeah. So there are so many events, probably several dozen. And I, across the years I participate. Yeah, I’ll step back. I participated in hosoe, all four years throughout high school, the first couple years as just a regular member? No, that’s not right. First year, I was a regular member, the second year, I was secretary of the group. And then for the last two years, I was serving as president. And across those four years, I participated in this state conference for HOSA. I think the first two years, I participated in an event called medical math, it was a lot about calculating dosages, and knowing, like medical inputs and outputs in terms of what patients could drink, and eat. And it was also about, like, figuring out times, and yeah, just calculation based things. I tried this event out, because I did have an interest in math and also medicine. And I felt like it was the good intersection between the two. And then the next year, I tried, it was like medical terminology. That was, I had taken Latin in hopes that it would sort of help with learning this medical terminology, not specifically for this HOSA competition. But beyond that, and yeah, so I did that it was a lot about memorizing medical terms, and knowing suffixes and prefixes and all that fun, really fun stuff. And I’d say yeah, doing and then senior year I participated in, it was more of a like, prepared research speech type event, where I believe I was researching like, like, artificial organs. But I can’t tell you much about that. Mostly because I don’t remember the details. It was just a quick speech that I put together. And yeah, I, I didn’t end up like placing super well, with any of these events. It was more just the experience. And and as the President I was helping, like coordinate and help other people with prepare preparation as well.

Kamila
And just a quick question about the competitions. Were they more you said, the senior year you gave a speech, but for the other years? Was it more like, I don’t know, people from different schools would do kind of a not trivia, but like, they would ask you questions and see who could get the most right. Is that what the competition was? Like?

Mayu
For a medical mathematical terminology, no, they were more written exams. And so

Mayu
it was like a whole exam. Yes, it was.

Mayu
Yeah. So I was participating in events where they would put a lot of, they would put everyone from across the state taking part in this event into one big room. And we were all Yeah, using pencil and paper to, like, fill out sort of answer multiple choice questions. But there are other events that are more the type that you described, where it’s like trivia, or Yeah, it’s like a team of three or four, and they go up and compete to see who can get more answers right about like the history of HOSA or stuff like that.

Kamila
Okay. Okay. And do you want to give any more information about HOSA?

Mayu
Yeah, sure.

Kamila
So what you did what you do with horses throughout high school? Yeah, yes, happy

Mayu
to. So besides this event, we’d also do some activities that are more local and more service oriented as HOSA. And so I think sometimes we would organize trips to the local, like retirement homes. And this is mostly events where we could invite some high school hosted students and have them like play games with people who are like, retired in the community and just have a fun time. And then we’ve also coordinated like, it was a dance slash medical awareness event up the middle school. And so this also involved a lot of planning in terms of reaching out and coordinating with like middle school administration. Here. What really helped with planning was that the middle school administrator who was in charge of this had actually formerly been a healthcare teacher at the high school and so we had that connection there. But besides that it was involved a lot of like, creating materials and kind of setting up the decorations in the middle school and also preparing little booths where we helped teach middle school students about CPR or different like careers in medicine, or even just like safety on the road, like putting on the seatbelt. And just a variety of things there. And, of course, in order to fund all these opportunities, HOSA took on some fundraising activities throughout the year. But most of this was related to, you know, yeah, just to like, around the seasons, or the holidays, we would do sales of like, CAD, like baked goods. And at one point, I think we sold like poinsettia flowers for the Christmas season. Yeah, so there was a mix of stuff there. This one more thing that we did as HOSA was when Hurricane when there was a hurricane in the fall of 2019. Yeah, we as HOSA came together to really mobilize the entire community locally to to help raise funds and get that to people in South East Georgia. And so, here, we connected with our principal of the high school who, who helped us connect with other principals of all the other schools in the school district, and that we kind of spearheaded a campaign through social media and also through football games, because it was can be the ball season. And we just got the message out there and, and raised some funds to send towards the hurricane victims.

Kamila
Who did so much in high school? Oh, my God. Okay. And then again, for college, what did you write on your College of the Law? What did you write on your college application? Because there’s no way there’s enough room for all of that?

Mayu
Yeah, I think, um, I guess, overall, in terms of, I guess you can call it a strategy for building up the college application, it, it’s a lot about creating one coherent story. And from everything I’ve said, so far, you can probably gather that I did not have a very coherent story, or it didn’t feel coherent to me at the time, because I had done stuff in math, like over here, and, and then stuff with healthcare and medicine. And I also have, like, played on the tennis teams and played violin throughout. So it felt like there was a lot of stuff here and there. But I think a lot of it involves knowing which prompts you want to use, or sorry, it’s the other way around, because you you’re going to have to write these essays and short answer questions and that already have prompts. And then on the other hand, you have a lot of experiences in your toolbox that you want to share with the admissions office. And it’s a matter of matching them up. So matching the prompt to the moments and experiences that you’ve had in a way that makes sense. So I know a lot of colleges, and I think on the common app, there’s a space to just list just extracurriculars and describe them there. But that’s definitely not enough space to get into all the

Kamila
like, how were you going to write everything you did on a college app?

Mayu
Right. And it’s not just me. And I mean, I’m sharing highlights here. So it’s, I mean, there’s a lot of people that I mean, and one other thing I’ll say right now is that things that we share on our college applications don’t need to be all all of these, like flashy events, or these huge initiatives that you’ve taken on. But it’s really more about like moments that have made you who you are. And so yeah, I would say on that, I would just say that things might seem like insignificant if you’re looking if you’re trying to think about it from the readers perspective. But all throughout this application, what the admissions committee, I think wants to see is like who you are as a person, and kind of like how you learn how you grow. And that will help show like the potential you have in terms of where you might go through college and beyond. And so getting that story across is more important. It’s not just about throwing all of your accomplishments onto the page. But yeah, in terms of how I fit all of this stuff into my application, I guess I can talk a little bit about how I went through the process of doing this if

Kamila
let’s go to the actual college application thing, like in a little bit, I just want to finish up with extracurriculars. And after that, we’re gonna go into the actual application part. So can you do a run through of your other extracurriculars You did say tennis and music you’ve been interested for a long time you or even when you were like on Long Island?

Mayu
Yeah. So you’re starting with tennis. It’s something that I had played tennis for mostly fun while in middle school, with friends and on the on the team. Since we had such a small school, there was only a varsity team. And so everyone ended up on the varsity team. And that’s where I was. And then coming into high school, I, yeah, I continued playing for the school team. I started out on the junior varsity team. And I think by the time I was in junior year, I was playing on the varsity team. But yeah, I would say, it’s not like our school was super strong. It was more of a fun thing where I met some friends and yeah, had a lot of fun. And as for violin, yep, you’re right. I started violin when I was in first grade. And I was playing all throughout elementary school and middle school. And when I was in New York, I would say I had definitely a couple close friends who were really, really advanced in music. And, and like I said, Our school had a really strong music program. And so we would have orchestra classes. And we essentially every day and we had some small ensembles. Think while I was there, I helped coordinate bringing together an octet. So this was eight string players. And we hosted a performance at, yeah, at some of our school concerts separate from what was taught through the regular orchestra. I continued that because it was, again, a lot of fun, and I enjoyed just making music with my friends. And then coming into Georgia, I’d say this was a fairly big transition, because there was not an orchestra at my high school. And so that felt like, yeah, it was a little bit jarring. I think we even considered different schools in the area that had orchestra programs, just for the sake of being able to play in an orchestra at school, but we ended up deciding that it would be fine not to do that. Because, yeah, because it was fine. And we ended up finding alternatives in the local area. So I played in the community orchestra, the local youth orchestra. And I did that for all four years. Yeah.

Kamila
Wow. Wow. Is that are those all extracurriculars that you want to share with us?

Mayu
Yeah, I would add that I’ve also been, like, been to one meeting of the debate team, and also seen a little bit of the Science Olympiad. But those are more just things I was slightly interested in explored for a little bit, but decided I wasn’t super interested in so.

Kamila
Okay, so before we, I keep saying we’re gonna get to it, we will get to a bit. First first, first, let’s go to the colleges that you decided upon, and then your college application, because you were probably centering it around them a little bit. So tell me when did you start focusing on like, what colleges you specifically wanted to go to? And what did you do? Did you just do a Google search one day and say like, oh, best colleges for medicine, best colleges for math? Like, how did you come upon your list? And did you visit any of those schools as well?

Mayu
Yeah, so I guess in terms of timeline, our family did move from New York to Georgia in the summer before my freshman year of college, and or sorry, my freshman year of high school. And we did a road trip down south from New York to Georgia, and so on that way, we stopped by some schools in the Northeast. I know for sure we stopped by Princeton. And when I say stopped by I mean, we drove to the parking lot got out for like five minutes to see the gym and got back into the car because it was, I think, really hot. And we also, I think drove through. I think we swung by some schools and I think we stopped by like Harvard and a couple others, but I don’t remember for sure. But that was when I guess I started just vaguely thinking about these different schools and that mostly that they exist, to keep them in the back of my mind. And in terms of figuring out what actual colleges I wanted to apply to, I started this process, I would say, very late in my Yeah, like halfway are very late into my junior year and was thinking more actively about it through the summer before senior year, because all throughout, I really clearly remember not being sure where I wanted to apply for the entire process. I honestly felt like I didn’t really know where to look or what I was looking for. And so I mean, I had known about Princeton and being living 15 minutes away from the University of Georgia. That was definitely be on my radar and, and I had people at school encouraging me to look into Georgia Tech, the Georgia Institute of Technology because it’s strong in STEM areas. And I liked math. So there we go. And I, yeah, looking back, I did not apply to that many schools and and so I would say UGA, Georgia Tech and Princeton were like the main ones I had considered. So during one summer, in my high school time, I had also gone to, like math, summer camp in Williams College. And so that helped me kind of learn about that program. But yeah, when I was looking for college, I started out with that very, very short list and branched out from there as they came up, but in the end, I did not apply to more than five schools.

Kamila
Oh, wow. Were you confident that you were did you apply to any like safety safeties that were like, 70 80%? Acceptance?

Mayu
Yeah, um, I guess I think in my mind, UGA was a safety school, because there’s a program at my high school where you can dual enroll, which means that you can take classes at the University of Georgia as a high school student. The it’s a perk of just living so close. And I personally hadn’t done that program, but I knew a lot of others. I had a lot of friends who had and, and based on like, their admissions decisions to that program. Yeah, I felt like I would be able to get into UGA. So yeah,

Kamila
okay. Okay. So I guess you’ve kind of like selected your schools. Now. Let’s go on to college application. Here we are. So let’s see where to start. Let’s start with the small stuff. recommendation letters. So here’s a very simple, you know, who did you get them from? Did you ask them like, Oh, can you specifically write about this? Can you specifically write about that? And you know, I’ve learned about this new thing called a brag sheet, where you like write down stuff for your teacher and you know, specific memories, anecdotes, and such. So did you do that? Or was it more like a please write my recommendation letter for me?

Mayu
Yeah, so I yeah, this is the first time I’m hearing about that term brag sheet. But I did do something similar. So I guess first thinking out the process of just figuring out who to ask recommendations letters for are from. In my mind, it was clear that I would be asking my math teacher, the one who I had built a really strong relationship with through the math team and the calculus one. Yes, the calculus teacher. I’m still close with him. And so it’s yeah, it’s been great. Yeah, so he was a clear choice. I’d say beyond that. I did also have strong relationships with with other teachers. So one teacher that I asked was my intern. Remember, I think looking back, this is just context for you all, because I do not remember exactly who I asked for which college applications? Because I remember that there were like, specific requirements in terms of getting recommendation letters from your subject area, or even like getting it from a teacher versus someone who’s seen you outside the classroom in like extracurriculars and stuff like that. So yeah, full context. I do not remember who I asked her which ones. But through HOSA, I also built a close relationship with my health care advisor and teacher. And so she is someone that he asked for a couple recommendation letters. I also was close relatively close with my like language, AP Language teacher, because she had also taught a research based class that I took. And yeah, I would say those were the big teacher recommendation letters that are used across my applications. I also remember asking the tennis coach who also had been my literature teacher earlier in high school. And and then there was also a point where I asked my high school principal for a recommendation letter through

Kamila
no idea you had to ask this many people for recommendation letters. Oh, I thought it was like you pick a STEM teacher and then the humanities teacher. And that’s it.

Mayu
Yeah, I was. It’s definitely not the norm and I the trying to think, I mean, the average is definitely two. Okay. Yeah, definitely. Don’t freak out about it. It’s later on, I think beyond college since some applications required. Yeah, close to a dozen applications or recommendation. Should letters but for college? It’s usually two, I think plus an extra curricular if you want that. Yeah, so across all of these people that I mentioned, I sort of like mixed and matched based on either content that I was trying to get out in my application essays or if I was interested in, in like specific programs. But that’s definitely not the accurate way of putting it. It’s mostly that like, since I was I applied to Princeton as a math major, even though I’m not studying that anymore. And so I like definitely knew I wanted to ask my math teacher for a recommendation letter for Princeton. Stuff like little things like that.

Kamila
And with recommendation letters, when you ask your teacher to write them, you don’t see what they write, do they just like, send it off to the school immediately? Is there some sort of Portal that they can send it through?

Mayu
Yes. So you’re right, that I didn’t see any of the rec letters that my teachers had written. And for the common app, for example, which is the common application portal for that a lot of colleges use, there’s a space to just enter the email address for your teacher and their name and kind of your relationship with them. So you’d like type in that this person was my AP calculus teacher, for example. And they get a link to submit their letter directly through that.

Kamila
Okay. Okay. Okay, so let’s move on to the essays of college applications. I’ll start with the big one, the huge 600 650 word one. So what did you write about? What was what was the question that you selected? And what did you end up writing about? Like, what extra curricular? What experience? What story?

Mayu
Yeah, I’m gonna have to apologize up here upfront, because I do not remember, like, specifically what and I tried to look for my application, but it seems like I’ve gotten rid of it. So, um, what I do remember, though, is in the process of preparing all of these essays, the short ones, and long ones, I, I really didn’t treat them separately. Like I didn’t place really special weight on the long essay, just because it was longer and the process I went about. And the reason why I’m having difficulty remembering is because I started off by just really brainstorming moments and experiences from my experience, like from my life that I wanted to get across in my application. So this included, for example, the, like the host event I was telling you about earlier, where we hosted, like awareness event at the middle school, it also included. I remember, like the last night before I moved from New York to Georgia, because it was a time where we were just like celebrating super emotional, and it kind of embodied that transition for me, moving out of this small town into the big place, the big unknown of Georgia. And it was also other stuff like moments I had had with my AP calculus teacher in the classroom that kind of embodied my passion for math, but also for like learning and kind of curiosity and, and how this teacher helped build that within me. So, yeah, I’ve been like thinking about how I brainstormed these different moments and thought about how they could deliver certain aspects of my personality. And from there, I was picking and choosing like which prompts they would go with, because the prompts are really all set up to be really broad and vague. You can really twist them into specific directions to to help get your stories across. This, the warning here is that you do want to answer the prompt that you’re answering. You don’t want to just cut talk about something that’s completely unrelated. But sometimes prompts are asking you to describe a moment when you feel like you learned something. Of course, I’m paraphrasing here, but yeah, you’re telling, talking about a moment that’s shaped who you are. And that can really be anything. Or if they’re asking you to talk about a person that’s inspired you. They’re really wanting you to talk about how that person inspired you and in what ways you’ve grown because of that interaction. And so yeah, all of these prompts come back to who you are. And they’re very vague. So yeah, sorry, I don’t have like,

Kamila
oh, that’s all right. That’s right. And what about the supplemental essays? Do you remember like maybe vaguely what you wrote for those or what? Maybe like the why us essay? Do you remember what you wrote for those as those kinds of essays? Mm hmm.

Mayu
I guess I do remember the one I wrote for Princeton in terms of why Princeton?

Kamila
Oh yeah, shut the share that What did you write about as you got into Princeton?

Mayu
Yeah. And so, like I said, I applied to Princeton as a prospective math major, because I, I mean, growing up, I loved being just like engaging, even conversations about math with other people and kind of thinking through how there are like so many angles and solutions to like, approach, even one specific problem. And just having that collaborative atmosphere where we’re all just like, working hard on one problem together is really exciting for me. And so remember that that’s something that I elaborated on in my supplemental essay there. But I also kind of shared tidbits about how, yeah, Princeton does have a really good math department. And there are some, like, professors, especially doing the theoretical math research that I also was interested in. And so I kind of think, had a nod to that. But it was mostly focused on the academic program, I think. Okay. Okay.

Kamila
And one thing I’m curious about, I have wondering, and then forgetting throughout this entire interview, but during the college process, and you mentioned earlier how with your public school, you went to Princeton, there were like you said, a couple people went to Yale, but for the most part, a lot of people went to University of Georgia University of northern Georgia, something like that. So who was there to guide you throughout the process? Because you said your parents came here. So they weren’t, they didn’t go through the American process, and you have a brother, but He’s younger. So who was there to, like, help you through and say, This is what you should be including? You do not need to include this colleges like to see this? Who was there to tell you that?

Mayu
Yeah, I would say it was a lot of Google. But it was also the person in the grade above me who had gotten into Princeton. But it was, that was mostly in the sense of like her recommending that I get started on the essays as soon as possible. And it was more of like, a timeline. And, like, know what to do sort of thing. I admit, I’m a, like I said, I was I used to be very shy. And I’m a relatively private person, I guess, like, it’s strange having other people read these essays that are about such personal moments in your life. And mean, yes, but they are supposed to be personal. And they are really supposed to get at the deep parts of like, what has made you who you are. And all of that to say that I was fairly hesitant about having other people review my essays. But, but a group of people I did share it with included some family friends that I had from back in New York. They’re technically my mom’s family friends, but, but they’re relatively young. And so I consider them my friends. And they have gone. They’re also Japanese, but they’ve gone through the American college application process. And so they, like reviewed all of my essays. And we had a couple calls that where we talked through sort of the essays that I had written and the content and messages I wanted to get across. And with them, I went through a couple rounds of very serious revisions. For just an example, I had written an essay about my interaction with like, a science teacher I had in high school, and it was mostly about like me questioning sort of, like how they delivered their content. And and how they treated calculations, I think, I remember writing about being frustrated about how they put a lot of emphasis on getting calculations, right, because I thought it was more about the substance. And, like, the reasoning behind calculations, rather than getting the actual numbers, right, and talking

Kamila
about scientific notation are not tied to significant figures.

Mayu
I think that was part of it. But it was like, just a general like with physics

Kamila
of this. Okay, I was kind of my chemistry teacher really emphasizes significant figures. So

Mayu
yeah, actually significant figures do end up being fairly important later on. But anyway, yeah, but that initial draft I had written, expressed. I was trying to use it to talk about how I appreciate thinking like more deeply and theoretically, and getting up the substance of things, but the way I had written it, it came across as more of being like, frustrated towards this teacher or like expressing more criticism in a way that wasn’t really constructive. And so like talking through this with my family friend, we ended up scrapping this essay entirely and like trying a completely different moment to tell and so Yeah, I’d say these family friends were really helpful in terms of reviewing the stories, but also sharing what it felt like to read the content. Because it’s it is really important, like what the main takeaway is, and sometimes what you intend to get across isn’t what the audience receives. So making sure those match up is key.

Kamila
So I think we’ve gone through most of the college application, like, parts and components. So let’s go to the moment that you were accepted into Princeton. You know, when was it? Were you like, how did you react? Were you expecting an acceptance? Were you optimistic? Are you really nervous? Like, oh, my God, I don’t think I’m gonna get in. So what was your reaction to it?

Mayu
Yeah, this this might actually feel a little silly. But um, first of all, I, after I submitted the application, after I clicked that submit button, I, I really was trying not to think about it at all. Like, either way. Like, I wasn’t trying to think about what would happen. I was just trying to move on, because whatever happened would happen. And there was nothing I could do about it at that point. And so I submitted the application, and I had applied early action, and so

Mayu
Oh, you’re quite early. Okay. Yes.

Mayu
Yes. So when I got in, though, I, I was in my room

Kamila
profiles. Why did you can you just quickly give the reasoning behind why you applied early? Because there’s like, a good reason to, but did you just say like, sure, I might as well.

Mayu
Yeah, I don’t remember there being like, super deep reasoning. I mean, out of, I mean, like I said, I hadn’t been thinking about a long list of colleges and the other ones I was applying to. So this is mostly the University of Georgia. They didn’t have restrictions on like, like you can apply to UGA early and also apply to other colleges early. And in terms of other restrictions. Yeah, there weren’t any other schools that I like, would really have wanted to go to at that point. But Princeton was what I had been thinking about. So it was more of a why not? Then why.

Kamila
Okay. Okay. So back to your reaction, bacteria reaction. Yeah. So

Mayu
this was, I think, a Friday. In my room, I was just about to go to a violin lesson. And but yeah, I had just enough time before I left the house to go check the results. I’d actually told my mom before then that the results wouldn’t come out until that Sunday. Because that was one thing that I put thought into, because i i Just like wanted some time to process it for myself, regardless of what the results were. And so yeah, so I checked the results right before heading off to the violin lesson. And for Princeton, it’s like they give you an orange Tiger, I think at the top of your letter if, if you’ve gotten in and this is all digital, of course. Yeah, so I opened it. And I also remember just being like, okay, like, Yeah, I think it was in a bit of shock. But also just like it was a mixture of relief and I need to get to my violin lesson now. I did give myself time and the space to like, really, really be excited about it at that moment. So anyway, I went to the violin this lesson, and but on the way back, my mom could sense that I knew something that she didn’t and so I told her later that night once we got home and and and she burst into tears, I think mostly of relief but also happiness. And that was when it hit me too.

Kamila
That’s it for part one of my interview with my you make sure to subscribe so you know when Part Two comes out, check out my blog college reality check.com But other than that, I hope to see you in the next one.