- Nora Sun
Tags: Stanford
Institution: Stanford University
Study: Major in mathematical and computational science (statistics)
High School Experience
I’m lucky in the sense that I felt like my school had a very cooperative environment. I was close friends to almost everyone else that had a similar course-load, it didn’t feel like we were trying to bring each other down. I will say that as a Muslim and person of color, I did sometimes feel discriminated against or people being just flat out racist.
Course choices
I’ve been interested in statistics since the beginning of junior year, but that didn’t really dictate much coursework wise.
AP/IBs
I took twelve AP classes, eight 5s, three 4s and one that I’m waiting for the result on.
GPA
4.7 weighted, 4.0 unweighted
Standardized Testing
ACT: 36
SAT: 1560
SAT Math 2: 800
SAT Physics: 800
Extracurriculars
Recommendations
I was very close to the people who wrote my recommendations, I am very close to my counselor, as for my teachers, one was a teacher I’ve had twice, once in 9th grade, and once in 12th grade and whose classroom I voluntarily ate lunch in every day for the last 3 and a half years, as for my other teacher, he was my APUSH teacher as well as forensics coach as well as sponsor for relay for life, all of which I worked with him a great deal on.
Essays
I wrote about what the most important things were to me, the themes of family, statistics/numbers, sports, and the city of buffalo all showed up several times. Being a Muslim/the Middle Eastern culture was a theme I brought up several times.
Strengths
I truly believe college admissions officers can tell who is being genuine, I think just being myself in my essays along with everything else that I’ve done extra-curricularly helped me stand out.
Advice
Find something you truly love doing, not something others want you to love doing, and do it, if you are doing what you truly care about, then I honestly believe success will find its way to you.
Circumstances
Immigrant family
Why?
I felt like it was the perfect fit, great academics, top of the line when it came to my prospective major, also good sports teams for me to root for is always a welcome bonus.