As a FGLI student, Princess tells about her admissions process as a QuestBridge applicant, and how that led to her acceptance into Stanford.

Part 2 is here

Transcription

Kamila
Hey, college kids, welcome back to my podcast. Who cares about college and today’s episode, I’ll be interviewing Princess so Princess, could you please introduce yourself?

Princess
Yeah, sure. Hi, everyone. My name is Princess Wong Chan. I am a sophomore at Stanford University. Currently studying computer science, although I’m interested in a couple of other majors, I go by they them pronouns. I’m a Southeast Asian gender queer activist who’s from Stockton, California, and I wrecked my city superhard.

Kamila
Okay, so we have to start at the very, very beginning, which is how education was kind of viewed in your family in your community. So what did you grow up what expectations were kind of put on you in terms of high school and then going into college?

Princess
Mm hmm. So like I mentioned, I’m Southeast Asian, and my family specifically are refugees who came to the US, like in the in the 70s, and 80s. And so neither of my parents have received even like a high school education, I think, I think the highest that my mom went to was her freshman year before, like going to refugee camp. But coming, like growing up, education has always really emphasized in my family. I’m the youngest of four siblings, and I’m not the first in my family to go to college. But my my youngest sister, who was the third is and so there are two of us. And I think like her just being like a huge role model for, for, for my family for like really pushing the boundaries of like, what we know and what we are comfortable with. Was was a really big deal. And so I, what was that? What was the other question to that?

Kamila
It was kind of like how to, I guess we can go into like, how did that impact you going into high school? Like, how did you approach it? Were you always striving for really good grades? And then also another thing? Were you necessarily looking for prestigious in the college or university you went to? Or were you just glad to, like, attend and have an education then maybe pursue higher, like, you know, postgraduate or PhD later.

Princess
So to be honest, I was kind of just like, following in my sister’s footsteps. It that’s pretty much like what we all did, I think that to some extent, like we were really going with the flow, and I didn’t even really like understand the importance of higher education. I didn’t understand like, what college was, and all of this until, until a few years after she had graduated herself. So when I when I really, really started thinking about it was my sophomore slash junior year. But that being said, like I I didn’t strive for, like, I didn’t my my end goal wasn’t like higher education. You know, like I didn’t, I didn’t go through middle school and go through high school thinking like, oh, I want to do really well so that I can get into a good college, I just like tried to perform well. And that led me to other programs like in the International Baccalaureate program, which I did in high school. And then, we I’ve been involved in I’ve been involved in community service and local government since a pretty young age. And there is this local nonprofits like scholarship organization and space and Stockton called Stockton scholars, and they were a huge support throughout the entire college application process. And I have in some of the people who work there are like my closest mentor is people who have like, really, really, like helped me develop and understand my identity. And and now that I am in college and have gone through the entire process, there are still like strong figures in my life who, who helped me like really reevaluate my relationships and have always just been there along the way. And so I think that, although things weren’t entirely intentional, they did fall into place. And yeah, like I said, I wasn’t looking for any sort of prestige. I actually didn’t know anything about Stanford until I applied. I decided to do questbridge College Prep scholars, which is a program that you apply to you and your junior year, and I was fortunate to get in. And, you know, there it goes. I did quest bridge CPS. And then I matriculated into the National Merit Scholars Program, which is the one for seniors and then I matched to the Stanford in quest bridge early action.

Kamila
Okay, so let’s go back to let’s go to first year like high school that you did go to so you did say that yourself She was definitely a role model. So you were following in her footsteps? So like, obviously, you know, you look up to her like, what am I supposed to do? You know, terms of grades? How am I supposed to organize everything? But in terms of your actual High School? Can you describe how competitive they were? Were they? You know, did they offer a lot of APs? And you did say you were an IB program? So did they offer you that? And then, you know, some high schools who are really competitive, they’ll, they’ll allow their students to have like essay writers. So they’ll make their students write like Common App essays, and they have teachers review. They’ll have like guidance counselors, and they’ll have sessions with them. So was your high school kind of like that? I guess you could say like holding your hand? Did they kind of hold your hand and help you through and understand the process as well? Or was it you’re kind of left to your own and then had your sister help you?

Princess
Yeah, to be honest, none of that it was not like that at all. In my in Stockton, I believe that almost 90% of our community qualifies for free or reduced lunch. So we are a majority working class, low income community. A lot of us are like I said, like we come from refugee families, or from the war diaspora or people who are who have like, migrated from different countries. And in my school in particular. So I did the IB program. And I would say that our district, my my own, the school that I went to, was the only one in the district that offered IB and there were four high schools. And so typically, you have to pay for like IV tuition depending on where you’re from, right. But in Stockton, it was completely free. And so it was a program that was like offered as a resource. And I graduated as like a full deployment recipient. So we didn’t have, we didn’t have like college prep courses, we did have a dual enrollment program with our local community college, which I know a lot of people were enrolled in, and were able to get a bit of like a step ahead, you know, go into college with a couple of credits already under their belt, but I didn’t do dual enrollment. And, and to be honest, like my, I didn’t, the biggest support for me in the college application process wasn’t necessarily my sister. I think that growing up, I, I was always a high achiever, but I struggled a lot to ask for help. And so a lot of times, I would just like sit at a computer, and I would Google something, and I would Google like a program or something that I was interested in. And I remember like being 15, and like starting to, like really go down these like Wikipedia, rabbit holes, you know, you know how it goes? Yeah. And I was like a total bookworm. So it was, yeah, it was, it was a lot of that it was a lot of it was a lot of just reflecting on, on who I was, and reflecting on the environment that I was in and how that made me powerful, and in some ways in my community powerful and other in some ways. And I was also a part of this, like scholarship, this scholarship association that is located in the Bay Area. And so being a part of that was was super awesome, too. There are a lot of different moving parts to it. Yeah, so

Kamila
I want to talk about that scholarship program. Like, as kind of like the exciting stuff, I want to get rid of like the GPA, you know, like the boring grades and stats that we need. So can you just say you went through IB and you did do the diploma? So for people who are listening and don’t necessarily know what the IB program is, can you do like a quick like run through of it? And then tell us what your result was in the end? Yeah, sure.

Princess
So the IB program stands for International Baccalaureate program. And it is the it is essentially like the global curriculum that is created for people to carry out in a lot of different countries. I know that in places like France, for example, which is like one of the origin countries of the IB program, you have to have an IB Diploma in order to go to college. And so in the US like oftentimes people will be involved in like gate programs, you know, which like close to you until like, like stem magnet programs, or you do the College Board’s AP programs, or even IB and the way that IB is different from AP is that it is more skills base. So we don’t do a lot of multiple choice exams, we know in fact, our IB exams that we take at the end of our senior year are literally like we sit down every day assays for six hours. And I know that it’s I think it’s changed but in my year it was like that. And there are a lot of different components to it like you have your external examinations and then you have your internal examinations. So they do sort of like a holistic review on how you perform in class in group settings in essay writing, but it is all focused on on critical thinking and honestly like getting the best out of what you are presented with rather than for example, like studying and like knowing certain information really well.

Kamila
And in the end, can you describe also like the fact that you get a diploma at the end which is like universal for all IB programs.

Princess
So yes, if you graduate if you receive above a certain score mark on your IB exams, and you can receive your ib diploma. And that means that you were, it’s, you know, it’s like eligible eligible for other higher education institutes of higher education and other countries. And so I graduated with my ib diploma. I didn’t do extremely well, to be honest. But I passed and I was just happy about that, like, it’s all good to pass. At the high school that I went to specifically, it was only like 25% IB, I believe, and the other 75% were a general education. And so we had, we had same teachers in some classes from general education as in different teachers and other classes. And that was pretty much it. So I have my high school diploma and my ib diploma.

Kamila
That’s interesting. So for IB diploma, if you obviously call it your see, like, you know, they see how many APS you took and such, they also see the IB Diploma? Does it give you any sort of boost that you have the IB Diploma? Like does it do anything in your favor? Or is it the same as like taking a bunch of AP classes and doing well on the test?

Princess
You know, I actually don’t know, in terms of the college admissions process, I would definitely say that like being involved in a in an academic program like IB or AP does make the difference between doesn’t make a difference in comparison to just doing like a general education. But in terms of college admissions, I think the entire thing is holistic. So it really is dependent on where you’re from on the rest of your grades, like the activities that you’re involved in. And things like that. Yeah.

Kamila
And also, GPA wise, can you tell us what your unweighted and weighted GPA was? And also give the scale because every school, you know, some schools do like 5.0 5.5 Some, some schools just do like out of 100% and such. So can you give the scale for those as well?

Princess
Mm hmm. So I don’t want to share my exact my exact GPA, like the numbers because I honestly think that statistics aren’t as big of a deal in the college admission process as people will make it out to be. But I will say that I was valedictorian in a class of 500 seniors. So I Yeah, that’s what it was.

Kamila
I was really good to put you. I mean, actually valedictorian is the top, okay. And the last like statistic, grades kind of thing is as a T and att. So which one did you take?

Princess
I did both. And I submitted my AC T scores, I believe.

Kamila
So what preparations did you have for taking, you know, what the LSAT and AC T and then why did you choose to take both.

Princess
So I didn’t prepare at all, for any of my standardized tests. Um, I had a very hard time finding any prep courses in Stockton. Any that we had were too expensive that that my myself and my family couldn’t afford and with the scholarship association that I was involved in it specifically called the buck scholars Association. And like I said, it’s located in the Bay Area, they provide you with a high school scholarship that you can spend as a high schooler up until like the end of your sophomore year in college. And I honestly, like I I found like better ways, or I thought that I found better ways to spend that money. Um, and so I didn’t do any standardized test prep. But I did decide to take the AC t because I thought it aligned more with the content that we learned in IB. It is more skills base. And it is more fast paced, rather than the LSAT and admittedly, I did both but I didn’t know anything about like American history, the multiple choice exam style was like not it for me, and I ended up doing better on the AC T and that’s why I submitted those scores.

Kamila
Okay, can you tell us if you don’t mind sharing what you’re at least superscore AC t that you submitted to the schools?

Princess
Um, I won’t show that either. Yeah, I just think that okay, so so when you come to Stanford, something that I was like, really excited to do is to look at my admissions file, because you can you can go and request from the school your admissions file to see all the notes or admissions officer had written on them. See, like, specific information how the school like views you necessarily, it’s sometimes it’s a good thing. Other times, it’s a bad thing. I know, people who have had like positive and negative experiences with it. But considering that we had no test prep in Stockton, and that I imagined that very few people in my city actually prepare for standardized tests. Like I remember looking at my admissions file, and my admissions officer wrote that My score was good given context. So So yeah, they there it is.

Kamila
Yeah, that is true. Like I you know, for different people in Okay, I’m not gonna include it in the podcast. But can I ask Are you do you identify with like, first generation low income? Yeah,

Princess
I am both first gen and low income? And I think that is I think that’s a really important thing.

Kamila
Yeah, I know. Because I know first gen low income students is really not fair for them at all. Because standardized test is not about knowledge. It’s about like, knowing how to take the test. So like, when I figured out that, you know, schools do it based on what you had available to you, I thought that was much, much better, just the comment there, you know, because I will admit, I’m not rich, but I do come from the suburbs, I go to a nice high school. So I have the materials. And I was always thinking, like, Okay, I have it, I know, I can succeed, but how do people who are just as smart or smarter than me? How are they supposed to compete at these schools, if they’re not given anything to, like, help them through. So I thought that was really good of colleges to know, your background and such. So

Princess
exactly. Instead of is testing is inherently like racist and classes, you know, just in the structure of it, and exactly like you’re saying, like the way that it all works. And I’ve been proud recently of institutions of higher education, who have decided to like waive your standardized test scores, so that you don’t have to submit them when you apply. I think that that is pretty exciting and promising for like the future of education for everybody, hopefully,

Kamila
concerned, I says, I mean, it provides a benchmark for something, but it’s really just so it doesn’t test anything.

Princess
Exactly contiguous. And they’re like, and there are people who will just spend spend, like their entire lives, you know, like memorizing kind of taking the exam, and they are amazing exam takers, and then they, they go to college, and then they have to figure out how the world is. And we see that like, you know, like your your ability to solve problems on a piece of paper are not the same ones is your ability to solve problems in the real world or to discuss like issues, go go beyond American and colonial education.

Kamila
That’s just you. And I want to kind of talk about that when we get to the college portion, like how college differs from high school and such. And let’s get through high school and college application. So what I really want to talk about is this scholarship program that you were mentioning, so can you again, provide a brief summary as to what it is?

Princess
Yes, um, I listed three up until this point, is there a specific one you want to talk about first? Well,

Kamila
they were all different ones. Yeah, they’re all. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah, no, all three of them. Sure.

Princess
Okay. So the first one is called Stockton scholars. And Stockton scholars was launched by the reinvent Stockton foundation in 2018. We are a local scholarship organization, which basically is the idea behind it is that anybody who graduates from our Stockton Unified School District, and enrolls in a two year, four year, or vocational school automatically qualifies for up to $8,000 in scholarship money. So every single year, you receive a 1000 or $2,000 Check depending on what school you go to. And it is basically to just like boost the number of people in Stockton who aim are who strive for higher education and to not only go to it, but get to get through it. And in Stockton Sollers when I was a senior Junior slash Junior, it was like its first couple of years, and they wanted to like very highly engaged students and student leaders. And so I became a part of a I became like a software as ambassador. Now I’m considered like a college ambassador. So we have both high school and college students who are ambassadors for the program. And we are just a community of people who support each other, support our peers share resources, they’ve given us the agency to like to create and facilitate our own workshops and like share tips among each other. And I think that having an environment of people who, who have had like a sort of similar mission in mind, you know, or, and who are honestly just trying to, like, get through the mud together and really figure it out and, and have found like, their own unique ways to find out information, I think is really cool. And then

Kamila
pause for a sec, is this scholarship money they give to you each year that you’re in a higher, higher institution, like of a university or a college?

Princess
Yeah. So every year you have to renew your FAFSA and then just send your renewal papers to them and they send you a check.

Kamila
That’s incredible. I mean, that’s a really good technique. I mean, who doesn’t want you know, someone paying for their education for them? Yeah,

Princess
exactly. Exactly. Especially since a lot of people are worried about like the price of higher education you know, and I think too often too often when people are considering considering going to college or going to some sort of like school like that, it’s like it’s always the the dollar signs that really throw you off. It takes like more digging to like really understand like how your tuition is impacted by federal grants by the school’s like financial aid. And, and a lot of times, like people don’t have the time or don’t have the resources to like really look beyond that first initial like dollar sign. You know what I’m saying?

Kamila
Yeah, the price they just kind of see. And they’re like, No way. And then they just leave it behind.

Unknown Speaker
Yep.

Kamila
So the second scholarship program that you did,

Princess
yes, the second one was called the best flowers Association. It’s based in there, I think it tackles like six specific counties in Northern California. And we, every year, there’s a cohort of five or six people who get selected for the program. And so I come from a cohort of five people 2017. But fellows, it’s something that you apply for in your sophomore year. And you essentially, you get connected to this network of people who are from the Bay Area, who have gone to education and who are actively like trying to change the world. I have this mentor who I feel very, very close to, and she is one of my most like trusted confidence. Honestly, even more than some people that I’ve like grown up with just because I think that like we really understand each other. And so, so thanks to the DSA I’ve been able to meet incredible people and in really have, it’s just opened up a lot of doors for me. And I think getting into the program, my sophomore year also boosted my confidence and in like, reaffirm that I could do things like go to college that I that I could like, do things like apply for more scholarship programs, you know, and really make it through is because I have this group of people who are here to support me no matter how far away they are, or, or no, no matter like how long it is between the amount of times that we communicate, you know,

Kamila
and for this book Scholars Program, so do they connect you with people who, who have been to higher education? And do they kind of mentor you through the process and help you understand it? Because it is incredibly complex? And, you know, very complicated code for us. So did they, like, help you and like, answer your questions for you? Yep.

Princess
So when you become when you become a photo book fellow, you are automatically paired with a mentor, sometimes, too. But anyway, you have like a mentor. And this mentor can just become your person for like anything. It’s it is kind of like stalking scholars where we can create and facilitate, facilitate workshops with each other. So I’ve led a couple of workshops at our like bestsellers, retreats, where I’m talking to younger students. And even now, like I’m not old enough to be a mentor, but I do like frequently communicate with people who are younger than me and who are currently like in high school and going through the college application process. So overall, it’s just a very supportive community.

Kamila
That’s incredible. The strides your community makes for higher education are amazing.

Princess
Yeah, education is everything. educational work is like justice work. All

Kamila
in all. Yeah, I saw in your thing when we were past exchanging email. Yeah. Education Work is justice work. Okay, and how about the third scholarship program? Third one is questbridge. Ah, yes, yes, yes, yes. questbridge is a big one. Again, I don’t I interviewed someone, she goes to Northwestern now. And she was also a quest bridge applicant. And she explained a lot of it to me. And I understand the process is pretty complex. So can you again, kind of give the gist of it or the summary of it? What is questbridge? You know, who qualifies? And how does the process exactly work? Because it’s not just, you know, your first generation low income, you automatically count into the program, you do have to go through like a series of steps.

Princess
Yes, exactly. So if there is an application for questbridge questbridge, like you said is it mainly targets people who are first generation and or low income, which means that if you qualify under like a certain finance bracket, or I don’t, I think like to categorize like the flight nav is pretty complex, just because like it’s different, and like everywhere, literally. But basically, if you’re a fly, then you can apply for quest bridge. There are two quest bridge programs. There’s one that you do in your junior year called the college prep scholars, and they provide you with information resources, network, reminders, here and there about like when you should get things done. And you also have the opportunity to go to different college admissions fairs. I know, at the end of my junior year, after getting accepted into CPS, they had three different admissions fairs across the entire country. So there was one that was at Stanford, there was one that was somewhere in Texas, and then there was one that was at somewhere in the Northeast. Um, I don’t remember the exact schools but like Westbridge will will give you money to fly you out to go to this college admissions program to look at this campus. You can through whispers You can also qualify for other scholarships like a quest for excellence award. And basically what that is, is that you have financial aid to attend any sort of summer program. If you need to buy a laptop, they will give you a scholarship to buy a laptop, if you want to, if you want to look for exactly what we were talking about earlier, standardized test prep, everything like that. And so when you if you get into questbridge in your junior year at meaning like if you if you do well on the application, and then you go through this entire process, then you also have a high chance of matriculating into quest bridge for your senior year, which is the second program, and that one’s called the National College match. And with the National College match, there’s also an application process, you don’t have to have gotten into the first one in order to get to the second one, you just have a higher chance of getting to the second one if you do the first one.

Kamila
Yeah. And as I understand it, you like select the schools in order that you’d like, right? And then they just send it out to each school at a time and then you get an acceptance or rejection, they just go down the list.

Princess
Exactly, exactly. So you can do like Arranque sort of match thing. And with questbridge, it’s sort of it’s not quite, but isn’t like the scholarship organization itself. So they give you like money here and there to do things like we were talking about just now, but they don’t pay for like your college tuition. If you get matched to a school through quest bridge, it’s basically like an agreement between that school in questbridge and you that says that you have a full ride. So for four years, they’re going to cover every single, like set on your tuition on your award letter. I mean, sir, on your on your, what’s it called your financial aid letter?

Kamila
Oh, and then they cover everything. Yes. Everything. Oh, my God, that’s, that’s an incredible opportunity. And I again, I said, bridge to everybody. Everybody just do cross bridge if you qualify. So again, I was saying I did interview this one girl, she goes to Northwestern now, and she was also a quest bridge applicant. And she’s also from California. And she was saying how, when you have colleges know whether your quest bridge applicant, obviously. So when they see it, it’s like on your application? She said, it’s not like, obviously, oh, no, this student is a quest bridge student, we have to let them in. But she said it does kind of give you an advantage. Because you were she’s I think this is exactly her words, like you were good enough for questbridge. So that gives you kind of like a leg up, it kind of shows the college. Okay, if they were able to make us through the rounds of questbridge, then we know they’re a competitive applicant. So did you know that coming in? Or maybe Is that not true?

Princess
Um, I did. Yeah. And I would agree with that it does give you a leg up. I think it sort of just says that, like you are somebody who is very invested in pursuing higher education because the application process happens earlier. And it says that you are somebody who actively seeks out resources, someone who is trying to have like a very hands on experience with their educational experience, either their academic career. I think that I think that that’s really important for a lot of colleges to know that you’re someone who takes initiative, you know. Yeah.

Kamila
And with this quest bridge, you did mention a couple things. So there’s a junior year application, if you qualify junior year, you are you do have access to like certain stuff. And you did say there was some sort of like Excellence Award. And then they do give you money to fly out to you. So Stanford, Texas, and some northeastern state. So did you take advantage of those opportunities? Like is that the first interaction you actually had with Stanford when they did that? Sort of flying out and admissions kind of tour? Mm

Princess
hmm. So, yeah, it is actually, um, I got in, I got into CPS. And then I qualified for a quest for excellence award in STEM, which means that they offered they offered me a stipend to attend a summer program, like pay for the summer program. But that didn’t come until like later on in the process. So I attended a summer program in my at the end of my junior year, summer before my senior year. And rather than have questbridge pay for the program, because it was free. They, they they supported me in travel costs, which means I could take a flight there. And the college, the conference that I went to was actually at Stanford, um, and that wasn’t my first time on Stanford campus. But that was my first time like, being on Stanford campus, like for a reason, you know? And I only lived like, 90 minutes away. So it was no big deal. I remember at the time, this is like getting into the details, but but at the time, they used to, like separate what college you would go to, for the, for the, for the outreach events, depending on like what you were interested in, and obviously at Stanford, like it’s a stem thing, and I was I had an interest in STEM at a young age and so they sent me to Stanford to go look at STEM colleges.

Kamila
That’s interesting. And did you like fall in love with Stanford? Or was it more of like you did more research into it and then realize, oh, you know, I’ll give the school a shot.

Princess
Yeah, it was honestly I think like going into it I was like, I was gonna apply to anywhere like I’m gonna apply to so many places and see where I get in. Um, you know how when you’re making like your list for college applications, it’s good to have like a reach range and then safety school kind of down. I like I had considered Stanford or reach school. And so I was like quest, which is cool because there are some schools that are binding which means that if you get into questions through the mash, you have to go to them. But there are also schools that are non binding. And I knew that Stanford was a non binding school. So I could apply through questbridge Get in and not have to come here, like I could choose wherever I wanted to go. And that was a really compelling idea. So Sanford wasn’t number one on my list request food, but it was my number two, and I ended up getting in. And I think, like, doing that, in early action made me feel a lot better about the college application process. Like I had a, I had a good understanding of where I really fell, you know, like in the national like applicant list. And it helped me, it helped me reduce the number of schools that I applied to, and, and like narrowed down my interests.

Kamila
I mean, this quest bridge thing is amazing. Like, again, I know that a lot of people don’t know about it, but like for the people who do and qualify, I definitely recommend questions. I mean, from what you’ve told me, and what I’ve learned from my other interview, it sounds like an amazing, amazing program.

Princess
There are a couple of other options too. Sometimes quest bridge isn’t like the best for somebody, depending on what school you want to go to what you want to study. But it isn’t available resource.

Kamila
Okay, so let’s move on to the exciting stuff. So extracurriculars, you did mention in the very beginning, that you were really involved with community service, and then you are involved in government now. And you said you’d you did have an interest before coming to Stanford in government? So can you explain the kind of extracurriculars you did, and if they were kind of centered around any sort of specific subject or area,

Princess
for sure. Um, so I, I think like my, my very first time getting really involved, or at least like personally involved in, in community service was when I was 12 years old. And, and ever since then, like it, you know, it is just kicked off. And so ever since I was not young, like we, we’ve Oh, it’s always been the same group of people. We used to have this thing called the reinvent South Stockton coalition. And this is something that still exists and soften but it, but there are like very many branches to it. There’s actually this person named Michael Tubbs. He’s the former mayor of Stockton, and he attended Stanford. And before he even graduated, he was like, I’m gonna change my city, and so on. And so as a senior at Stanford, he came back to Stockton and started a bunch of initiatives. And that’s when I first got to meet him. Like growing up, it wasn’t any particular significance to me that he went to Stanford. You know, like I said, because I just, I just didn’t understand like what college was, but when I got here, it kind of feels like everything fell in place. I feel like I meant to be at Stanford, I will admit that I like I don’t exactly. Before coming in, I didn’t know what I wanted to study. I had a lot of troubles around thinking of like, what my how my extracurriculars related to things that I was academically interested in, and things that I am, like, professionally interested in, you know, because those are two different things. Like, like, I can study, I can study one thing and be really, really excited about it. But I don’t know if I want to pursue a career in it. And when

Kamila
I get you, I understand, you know, you see so many things and you’re like, I like that one. That one, that one I like all of them.

Princess
Exactly. And that’s what’s so exciting about college though, because you can really choose what you want to do. Like, seriously. That’s what I like most about it. I love learning. It’s like super, super exciting for me. Um, basically like what I what I was saying is like, it was all local government stuff, community organization or community development things we would clean up parks every month, we had like youth leadership, youth engagement programs. We worked very closely with things like the Stockton Trauma Recovery Center, just to really support families and what they were going through. And so I had a lot of like experience in government and a lot of experience in like, in like social justice advocacy, but I’m, you know, I’m a computer science major now. And I thought that like those two things completely clashed, but it turns out, they don’t. And, yeah,

Kamila
was this all under the Stockholm coalition? Like, community service?

Princess
Essentially, um, and it’s it was the Stockton coalition. Yeah, socked in. Essentially, it’s like the same group of people.

Kamila
Okay, and did you hold any, like freedom for college application purposes? Did you hold any specific positions? Or were you just or was it just like a bunch of people and there, nobody was really like, I don’t know what different positions are like secretary treasurer. Or did was it just kind of like a group of people or did you actually have like, positions and responsibilities? Like each person has some someone would deal with like the finances and fundraising aspect of it. and other person would plan out the different events people would event people would attend and like, you know, go to. So was it kind of structured like that?

Princess
I would say the youth engagement portion specifically was pretty unstructured. So we had like a youth coalition where there were maybe four of us, okay. But we were the same group of four people who, like planned leadership camp at the YMCA were the same for people who like went to go buy knitting supplies for us to knit, like beanies for the homeless things like that. And when I say that, it was essentially the same group of people is like, I I’ve heard people talking before refer to them to refer to refer to a lot of people was like young changemakers. And so I would say that like Stockton, as a city and as a community is special, because there are people in the city who are highly, highly dedicated to changing it for the better. And I would say that the majority of the city is like that. I think that everybody who comes from Stockton isn’t is an advocate or an activist at heart simply because of you know, the way that we grew up and our family structures. But this, this specific group of people were very, I would say, like very monumental in making Stockton what it is today, and that includes Michael Tubbs, who was the former mayor, and includes people who have like moved on to statewide organization and advocacy work and have still come to Stockton to really reflect that work in their own community.

Kamila
And you said you had like your first interaction or experience when you were 12? Did you do this all the way up until, like, senior year, specifically with your city?

Princess
I did. And I’m still doing it today.

Kamila
Oh, wow. That’s that’s a lot of dedication. And you did mention a little bit of, I guess you could say government work. So can you go into the specifics of that, like, what did you mean by that?

Princess
Yeah, sure. Um, I, I interned for Michael Tubbs when he was running for when he was running for local government. So at the time, I was 15. And we were just like canvassing and stuff like that. And like talking to people about politics. I think at the root, like everything is connected to local government. I think local government is like how we really get things changing, you know, and like getting the gears grinding and making change actually happen. And so, yeah, that was it.

Kamila
So you kind of just, I guess, people have, you know, members on their campaign team, so you were kind of just one of those members going around and like spreading the word. Mm hmm. Okay, and any other extracurriculars perhaps related to stem that you did and put on your college application?

Princess
I did Science Olympiad Science Olympiad was my life. Oh my god, I love science.

Kamila
I dreaded Olympiads. Okay, tell me tell me about Olympiads that you did, I mean, how did you start, you know, what did you do? How did your school structure and then I’m pretty sure Science Olympiad goes to the national level. So can you tell us how far you took it?

Princess
Yeah, so Science Olympiad. I think my high school is the only high school in our district who had science olympiad to in addition to like the IB program, and I but I do remember that there was another high school in our district who actually made it to Nationals, like in the 80s. Um, which is super cool. I wonder what happened to their team, I was always really curious about it. Um, but basically, like, we, we were assigned something a team and we, you know, how it goes, like, we all have our own specific events, we would attend invitationals. And then also, we went to state every single year, we we met all at state sometime, but we’ve never like gone past state, and NorCal and SoCal are considered like the most competitive Science Olympiad states. So we’re broken up into two and our science olympiad national winners are actually from Sacramento, which is an hour north of us, and we always compete with them.

Kamila
Oh, so you guys did take it pretty far. Because you said it was quite competitive. So like getting to states in California is quite an accomplishment.

Princess
Yeah, I would say so. I’m proud of our team.

Kamila
Science Olympiad. Oh, God, every time I think of math and science, I’m like, who was hard like the stuff? I mean, Olympiad just always interest me because I’m not gonna like touch. I’m not a STEMI person. But like, was this concepts really hard? And just like,

Princess
Dude, I was like, in love with it. Like when I say that, I love science little bit. I was super in love with it. That was a that wasn’t the only stem thing, I think, in Stockton. That was like the only exposure that that many of us like really had to things like that. And because of Science Olympiad, like I, I got really interested in specific topics. And here I am at Stanford, I’ve taken classes and things that I first studied in Science Olympiad to really develop my knowledge on them. So I don’t know it was pretty exciting. Your

Kamila
Genius Science Olympiad Math Olympiad, all of that Olympiad stuff, just amazing.

Princess
Okay, you got a pack, you got a podcast going your frickin genius.

Kamila
I guess I guess we both have our own accomplishments there. So, I mean, amazing Science Olympiad. Do you have any other like major extracurriculars that you also put on your application? Or was like science olympiad Government and Community Service? Like the main ones?

Princess
I didn’t sports. I wasn’t highly dedicated to my sports at all, though. So those don’t I put those.

Kamila
Was there like high school level sports? Yeah. In which sports just out of curiosity did you do?

Princess
I did swim in water polo?

Kamila
What’s water polo?

Princess
That’s so funny. Because I know they don’t have water polo on the east coast. It’s like soccer in the water. Basically,

Kamila
that’s interesting. The wireless on so difficult, like, Okay, interesting there. And you said you weren’t really highly dedicated to them. Right. Okay, let’s move on to like, the actual college application. So number one is recommendation letters. Again, how did you approach it? Who did you get them from? And again, I will mention like, growing up since I do come, I do go to a competitive school. They like they hold my hand, basically, throughout the whole process. They tell me this and that. And they also tell like recommendation letters, you should get them from teachers who have like a really deep connection with like, that’s, it’s kind of like a procedure, they tell us you should make a connection with the teacher get recommendation letters from them. So did you have like the kind of the same advice or was it more like luck on your part? Or like, oh, maybe I should get it from someone who really knows me?

Princess
Yeah, we we do get all the same advice. Like, who you trust people who even like people walk around who know you? Well? Um, I honestly, don’t remember. I got a one letter rack, I think that I used because I use quest bridge. And because I had gotten in early action to schools, my the number of schools that I applied to was actually pretty small, in comparison to like what I originally planned. And most of them didn’t ask for letters of rec, I know that Stanford didn’t ask for any letters or brag. They didn’t even let us submit any. So that wasn’t something that I was concerned about. But yes, I shared the same information with like everybody else, like people that you can trust people who know you well, as more than just a student, you know, like as a person, things that you care about.

Kamila
And another part of the application is, well, I know you applied through quest bridge, but this quest bridge make you write in the common app, it’s called a personal statements that really, I guess, 650 words long. So did quest bridge make you write the same kind of personal statement? Yes, we do. Okay, and then can you give us the general topic of what you wrote that personal statement about?

Princess
Sure. Um, I so I wrote my personal statement about the color of blue, and about rockets. Because I was very interested in aerospace when I was younger. Or like, two years ago, I was very interested in aerospace. And so I sort of just like broke it down into a rocket diagram. And I was like, here’s piece by piece. And who’s here, who’s here I am piece by piece.

Kamila
That’s an interesting concept. And how does the color blue tie into that? I just, just like the color blue,

Princess
I love the color blue. Yeah, I wrote about how it conveys, like, certain messages to me and certain symbols to me. And including, like everything about how everything around us is blue. And I have always, like, just just just strive to like, do things like go into outer space? And so

Kamila
I think that’s, that’s really creative. And in terms of the, you know, like reviewing your essay, making sure it’s like, structured nicely. You know, you convey the message did you have anybody to look over it? And you know, read over it, critique it? Did you share it with anybody to see if you could add anything or just lose anything or fix anything?

Princess
Dude, this makes me think I’m like, not the best person to be on this. Like I said, when I was in high school, I had a very hard time asking for help. And I, I think I had a lot of trouble really figuring out who I was. And, and taking advantage of, I mean, not not taking advantage of the resources that we had, but more like trusting people. And so at the end of the day, the only person who read my essay was with my sister, and I specifically asked her to not change anything except for the grammar. Because I was I was solid and like, what I had written and I was solid and like where I wanted to go. So one person that I trusted, that’s good.

Kamila
Good. Your essay sounds so cool color blue and rocket science. It’s amazing. Okay. And again, questbridge is different than common app. So can you tell us again, how did you choose the schools that you did choose and again, a little bit about how you hear back from questbridge. and such.

Princess
Yes, it is different quest bridge happens. So close, which happens a little earlier in the college admissions process, which means I think you have to apply like September, and then you get your results. early December, my year, it was like five days before the Common App or the other like regular or the actual results came out. And the process is essentially the same. You fill out some short answers, you have a couple of questions that are like 5050 words, each. My advice is to always like spread yourself out across as much as possible for an application because you want the admissions officer to understand who you are as a person. And understand, like all the different facets of your personality. So I, what I was saying earlier about how like quest bridge isn’t always the best option, but it is like a good option for people who are considering it. I really believe in that. And I strongly recommend quest bridge, because it just gives you more questions to really put on your application. I was dissatisfied with how much the comment I’ve actually asked like, I was like, I don’t feel like colleges are going to understand who I am from one 650 word essay and a couple of scores. You know, like, I want them to know what my favorite book is. I want to know what I do in my free time, everything else. And so I was like, let me write about myself as much as possible across as many assets as possible, and ended up working out.

Kamila
And can you I have no idea if you’re under some confidential agreement with questbridge. But can you tell us the different schools that you had in mind? And I mean, you did put Stanford as your second. So you didn’t even have a chance to apply to the rest of them. But can you tell us what order that you what order you put your colleges and universities in?

Princess
Yeah. So in my year, there were four non binding colleges. And I decided to break three of them. The fourth one I honestly just wasn’t interested in. So my rankings were at MIT, Stanford, Yale, and I did not get into MIT. I got into Stanford early action, and then I got into Yale, like the letter

Kamila
O. So you can know what would happen to like other schools as well. Later on? Oh, wow. That’s, that’s amazing. And I Okay, so you’re going to Stanford, let’s get on to college experience. But one thing before that, you did say that you were able to see your admissions file, which is I guess, you know, they give you a score and such and I, I kind of understand how it works. You know, they give you a score on extracurriculars, like how strong they were. So on your admissions file, can you share what the admissions officer said about the different components? Like what was your strongest? What really stood out? Like kind of why do you think you got accepted?

Princess
Yeah, I’m on my admissions file, the entire thing was redacted. Like, there’s this joke that that Stanford admissions and admissions will like redact certain pieces of information so it’ll be like this student is this this this and they display blank redacted, and it’s just like a black box, like it’s covered across the word. And my entire admissions file was two pages of like straight black. I didn’t see any comments written by my by my admissions officer. But I know that I know that you typically go through a couple of rounds like you will go through at most three or four rounds of admissions and I only went through one round so I had one reviewer and then I was admitted.

Kamila
Why did they block out certain stuff?

Princess
I don’t know. I I still question that I really want to know what they put.

Kamila
US blackout the whole thing was really weird.

Princess
I wasn’t there. And I was like, This is so anti format. It’s like I came here with a notebook and I don’t have anything to write down

Kamila
and they’re just like, why they block out the stuff. I mean, if you got in for the first admissions around, you must have been so amazing. They didn’t even need to show you the different comments and such. That wraps up part one of my interview with Princess make sure to subscribe so you know when part two is released, also check out my blog, a college kid.com For more college related content, but other than that, I hope to see you in Princess Part Two