More college apps

In thesis today, I finalized my ApplyTexas application to UT Austin and UT Dallas. I had to change around the order of some of my activities and honors, and once I did that I went through the entire application (twice!) to make sure everything was filled in correctly. I did catch one mistake, so I fixed that.

I also got my internship badge made. (My picture actually looks good, yay! The guy almost spelled my last name wrong. Thank goodness I was standing next to him so I caught the error before he made the actual badge.)

I'm also working on the senior student survey. My goal was to have it done today in class but I didn't expect the ApplyTexas to take as long as it did, and I didn't know we were getting intern badges today, so that took up more of my time. Anyway, I'm almost done with it, so hopefully I'll have it completely filled out by Wednesday.

Presentations, Day 2

So yesterday, I did my thesis presentation. I think it went pretty well! I wasn't quite as nervous as I thought I would be, which was nice. I also covered pretty much everything I wanted to - I did want to mention how I went about raising money, but it wasn't something I was planning on doing because I didn't think I'd have time to do so. I didn't skip anything that I'd written down on the notecards, so I was pretty pleased with that.

We didn't have much time to work on stuff after everyone presented, so all I really got to do was check my email. I got an email from UT Austin about an event in Dallas related to their honors programs, so I registered for that. That's about it, though. Next week I hope to have the senior survey completely filled out - I've started on it, but I had so much work this week that I didn't have time to finish - as well as my ApplyTexas app submitted.

I also met with Stefani D'Angelo - the woman who works with Childrens Miracle Network and runs Dance Marathon - after school to talk about the possibility of starting Dance Marathon at Townview. She was an awesome person and she seemed excited about the idea! I brought along some of my friends and though at the beginning they had no idea what they were really there for, at the end, all of them seemed really interested! I think it would be great if we could do it in March sometime, but I honestly still don't know if I'm up for it. Either way, though, I feel better now that I know more about it. Besides, I'm sure that at least one of us would be willing to work with Stefani to figure something out.

Presentations, Day 1

Today was the first day of thesis presentations in our class. I watched several of my classmates present their thesis topics.

After the first eight people presented today, I finalized and submitted my National Merit Scholarship application. I also looked at the senior survey again for letters of recommendation. Hopefully I'll have that completed by the end of this week.

Thesis Things

Last Friday in thesis I actually got a lot of stuff done relating to my thesis project. I looked up the presentation handouts again on Edmodo and made my outline. I have a good idea of what I'm going to say now - I'm also thinking about using my webpage as my visual. Then I can show them what I've actually done over the summer with my project already.

I also got an email from a lady who works at Dallas Children's about an opportunity to start something at our school called a Dance Marathon to raise funds for patients. I emailed her back to find out more about it and she responded almost immediately. We emailed back and forth for a while and decided to meet this Thursday after school to talk about the possibility of starting a DM at Townview. I'm honestly not sure whether I'm willing to lead the effort, because I'm already so busy with 9 APs, choir, a cappella choir, and college apps. Plus, I'm already doing the Pratham Readathon as a community service/fundraising type deal. So I'm not completely sure if I'll be able to make the commitment without overburdening myself. *sighs* We'll see, I guess. I still don't know how the whole 'starting a Dance Marathon' process works, so once Thursday rolls around I'll have a better idea of what to do.

Still working...

In thesis yesterday I worked on my ApplyTexas Essay A, the prompt for which is as follows:

Describe a setting in which you have collaborated or interacted with people whose experiences and/or beliefs differ from yours. Address your initial feelings, and how those feelings were or were not changed by this experience.

For this essay, I'm talking about my experience with the Best Buddies program in middle school; each of us was assigned to a special education kid and were supposed to get to know them and interact with them on a daily basis for an hour after school from January-June. I personally thought was a pretty neat experience; I really enjoyed getting to know my "buddy" over the course of six months, and I also learned a lot from it. So hopefully this essay will work out!

For thesis, I looked over the documents that were posted on Edmodo relating to the presentations and thought about what I was going to say when I got up there. I also turned in my community service hours from this summer (which totaled almost 150 hours!) and my change of address form.

Well.

Today, I made some progress. I worked on my expanded resume for UT Austin, looked at more colleges and programs, and spent some time doing miscellaneous Readathon stuff. (Now that we actually have a concrete date for presentations, I'll be able to plan ahead accordingly with that!)

For my thesis project, I did some snooping around on the SeeYourImpact website and apparently, there's an option for you to start your own fundraiser for Pratham independent of the Readathon. I'm thinking that I could probably just do that for the rest of the year; at least that would resolve the issue of the Readathon ending next month and leaving me with nothing much to do. I still have to talk to Vineeta about it, but if she approves of this idea I'll set up that fundraiser after October 31st as well as figure out something else to do with Pratham. The online fundraiser will be on the side.

I also crossed the $2,000 mark on my fundraiser! I'm so excited! The $250 matching donation was added to my total this morning, so now I'm at $2,013. I also have several checks that have yet to be deposited as well as a few other donors lined up. I'm really glad that this fundraiser is going so well. I honestly didn't expect to make it this far when I started fundraising in July :D

In terms of college apps, I figured out exactly how to format the expanded resume for UT - by using a table! The formatting was seriously bothering me so much that I just quit and didn't come back to it until after I went to my other resume and looked again to see how they figured out a way to make everything so perfectly aligned. That was when I realized they did all of it in a table but just made the borders invisible. Now I've tried it with this UT resume and - yay! - it works. So I worked on that for a bit. (Wow, it's going to be a really long resume...)

I also looked into the McDermott Scholars program at UT Dallas and at the University of Pittsburgh as another school I might apply to.

Update

(Sorry that this blog post is late. My wireless keyboard died and I've been trying to fix it. I've replaced the batteries so it should work temporarily, but I'm not counting on it.)

Anywho, a few days ago in thesis I made a list of things I need to do. Mr. Correa read off how many documented community service hours we have, and apparently I have somewhere in the ballpark of 36 hours. The only thing is, I don't remember which activities I've already turned in hours for and which I haven't. Ah, well. I'll just add the hours I've gotten from this past summer (which will take me way past 100 hours) and that should be fine. I'm pretty sure I turned in my Volunteens hours from last summer, but I guess I can always go ask them to make sure.

I also (FINALLY!) got my report card from the end of junior year. I also got a change of address form so that they can actually send my stuff to the right address this time. (I guess I didn't realize the reason why I never got my report cards at the end of the year is because they had the wrong address on file. And we moved two years ago, too. Oops.)

As for the Pratham Readathon, Vineeta and I have been communicating and she gave me a list of ideas for what I could do after the Readathon ends in October. A lot of them were just basic fundraising ideas (e.g. bake sales, talent shows, selling other random things to make money) but it got me thinking. I really hope we'll be able to come up with something that'll actually work.

Also, I'm now the reader who has raised the most money in the United States! I'm at $1,753 right now. Not only that, but I've also gotten 18 new readers on my team. Hopefully (hopefully!) I'll be able to motivate some of them to raise money by the end of the fundraiser. The only challenge is that a) most of them have been inactive for the past few months and b) I can only contact them via email, so if some of them don't even check their emails I won't be able to do anything about it. Still, I'm just going to hope for the best. (Go Team Aishwarya! :D)

Today was a good day.

I did lots of different things in thesis today none of which involved writing college essays.

The first thing I did was look up Northeastern University to find out whether or not they took essays into consideration in the application process. According to the "What We Consider" section of their website, they don't, since nowhere on that page are the words 'essay' or 'writing' mentioned at all. I find that kind of odd, since they're on the Common App, and they'll receive my Common App essay anyway. So are they just not going to read it? Or are they going to read it and not factor it into their official admissions decision? Whatever it is, I'm happy. I can get into Northeastern, because they're not super duper selective (32% isn't that bad!) and they put a really strong emphasis on academic performance.

I also checked briefly to see if I could apply to Northeastern EA, but I can't because it's a private school and my heart is already set on Yale SCEA. Ah well, I'm okay with RD too.

After that, I called CollegeBoard and asked them about the AP free response booklet I requested a month ago. Four weeks ago, I sent a request to AP Services asking them for my AP English Language and Composition free response booklet (containing my written essays) along with the $7 check, but I never got any response from them as to whether the booklet was on its way or whether they'd even received my letter. Thankfully, when I got in touch with one of the agents she was able to pull up my file and find out for me. Apparently they'd received my request on August 29th, but I'll have to wait till the end of September for it to be processed. Then, it'll probably take another few weeks for it to actually arrive at my address. Ah, well. I'm okay with waiting; I just wanted to make sure they got my stuff so I wouldn't have to send another check and miss the September 15th deadline. (I don't know, but for some reason, I have a bad history with the things I send getting lost in the mail.)

Slowly making progress

I've been making progress - slowly, but surely. Today in thesis, I looked up the application requirements for UTD and the PACT program (the joint 7-year UT Dallas/UT Southwestern accelerated medical program). It seems that all I have to do is send one of the transcripts I requested to them and submit my (already completed) ApplyTexas application. (All I have to do is write that one optional essay, and I'm not sure if I really want to do that. I'd like to receive the AES Academic Honors merit scholarship, but I don't know if the essay would help me with that or not.) I'll have to wait till October to access the PACT application, though.  The nice thing is, I feel like I have a slightly better chance at this program than at other 7-yr med programs. Besides, it's a collaboration with my dream medical school, UT Southwestern! What could be better?

In other news, I read through some Yale student blogs, which only served to make me fall in love with the school even more. Seriously, I love Yale so much. I can't even describe it. (If I don't get in, I might cry. A little. And then sigh and move on.)

All sentiment aside, I think I've made my decision. I'm going to apply to Yale SCEA instead of Princeton, because I'm almost done with the Yale supplement already. (Besides, I have to rewrite my Princeton essay because apparently what I wrote didn't fit the prompt.)

I'm also making steady progress on the Readathon. Now I'm at $1,542. (So exciting, ahh!) Vineeta also got back to me about continuing with the Readathon, saying this:

"I love your enthusiasm. Yes, we will think of something for you to do after oct 31st. :)"

She's organized a Pratham get-together next Sunday, so hopefully then we'll get some time to sit down and discuss this in further detail.

College Things

At the beginning of class today, Ms. Marberry came and talked to us briefly about graduation requirements and college stuffs. She gave us a counselor's report (basically a transcript, except not) and a paper that had the list of credits we needed to graduate. Sadly, my rank didn't go up. (Honestly, though, I don't really care all that much. My GPA went up and that made me happy.)

She also handed out a paper to everyone which asked for the schools we were applying to and how (ED, EA, or RD) so that she could schedule appointments with each of us. (Thank GOODNESS, because I seriously need to talk to her about things. And thank god she's putting ED/EA people first.)

After that, I started working on the short answer questions for my Baylor Honors Program app. I'm applying to the honors program of every 'lower-tier' school (i.e. Northeastern, Baylor, BU, UT, etc.) because I want that extra challenge and I think it'd be fun. I desperately want to get into one of the three honors programs at UT - Plan II, Dean's Scholars or Health Science Honors.

Anywho. Thesis-wise, I'm still waiting to hear back from Vineeta on the possibility of me continuing to fundraise or work with Pratham in some way even after the Readathon ends. In other news, I'm still raising money! As of right now, I'm at $1,462. I know there's more on the way, though, since I won the matching challenge (for $250!) and several other miscellaneous donations. I really hope people will continue to support me as I work towards achieving (and even exceeding) my current goal of $1,750! :D