How to get into Harvard as an international student in the Early Round | Full Common App Walkthrough

um so yeah let's just start one by one from your school from your um courses and then to your honors etc etc before you start I want to let you know that we're going to divide this discussion

into two parts so in the first discussion we're going to really focus on your application and on the things you wrote and you positioned yourself as and really discuss why do you think you got in and why do you think you got the

acceptance you got and in the second part I really want to focus on your advice to other International applicants watching us and how to approach the supplemental essays um how to structure

activities how to tailor them which themes are trending in the common application etc etc etc that's clear I think we could begin oh yeah sure I'm just going to jump in quickly with a

little plug first I run my Tik Tok which gives advice for international students kind of similar to what you do so people want to check that out it's e l i s a sore Y and that has all my stuff as well

if you're interested yeah like in the blog of Elisa on Tik Tok definitely follow her I leave the link in the description cool so I'll just start so I did the IB in my school um and then I

did four HL so normal is three so like my recommendation is try and take like the hardest course load you can so if you can do four take four hls I did history politics chemistry math AA hls

and for my SLS I did English and language so I did Malay um I would recommend as well because in the Harvard website if you're aiming for Harvard it says they watch four years continuous language study so I did the same language for all four years of high

school so that's something I would recommend um just as a person who's not that familiar with IB system and um just to clarify for some people who might not be familiar um as far as I understand do

you choose subjects that you're interested in to take or how does IB system work in general oh yeah for sure so you have different categories if you're doing the IB diploma um so some people do courses where you can just

take like however many courses you want but for most schools you do a diploma so you get to take take six subjects and you do normally three highers and three standards so highers are the harder ones

spend more time on um but if your school lets you some people can take four which is what I did um and for each thing you have a category so you have the humanities so you can take like either history politics economics like anything

Humanities and then you have to take one of them then you just take a math and there's two different options for math um and then you can take a you have to take a science as well so either chemistry DT Sports Science Biology

whatever and then you have to do um a first language so for me that is English and then you have to do a foreign language so for me was Mal um then you get one free choice so my free choice was politics I wanted to be

Humanities oh that's very very unique system so did you apply as a St major you were engineering oh no I applied um as a government major actually oh really

oh that's very very interesting let's with that hook maybe was it intrig dive into your honors so most of my stuff was from either like first or second year of high school or third year and I think

that's really important as well because I applied early so if you want to apply early make sure start doing stuff sort of like early on as well yes um and my honors were economics essay competition this is the John Lock competition I got

top five and I think what made it more impressive to them was I didn't do econs in high school at all but I was like oh I'm interested in it so I framed it as well when I talk to like them about it saying that I've never learned econs

formally but I wanted to try it out so I think that showed sort of initiative um academic math yeah yeah and then there was a math competition that um we had

it's the Olympiad kind of but it's like for UK schooles so I got um the top 8% three years in a row for that um and then that's more a stem side because in my application I talked about how yes I

was interested in the humanities but also more like the quantitative side so the STEM related side so that's why I have stem and also Humanities which I think made me a bit more different from

the typical like gov eons kid and then this was a more government one I did a policy presentation um where I came first in my state um and I got to go to a national competition after it um and then that's a national comp oh yeah

national competition and then there was a debate competition as well hosted by oxf that I won so yeah my future plan I put with government and policymaking very impressive honors as

far as I can say like as a person who seen um applications of people who go into Princeton and Harvard and um Duke I

think the um owners are far more impressive like even as a person like from a person who got into other Harvard like for example when we viewed Ryan's

honors like Ryan's a great guy don't get me wrong like his application is very impressive but it was more of national level and here I can really see the international exposure which um how do

you think International honors helped you to get into Harvard and were they even that important yeah for sure so I think as an international student um well part of the reason I did mostly International stuff was there were no

like organized competitions on the Malaysian scale which is what I talked about as well in my K essay about how Malaysia doesn't have anything so I had to like go internationally which is more difficult so I tried to found stuff within

Malaysia um to help students as well so I think the honors themselves weren't as important as the narrative I had about how I took that experience and then I did something with it um because I have heard of people internationally who got

in without having like crazy honors as well because they recognize like us students have a lot more opportunities I would say um I think tying into that that's a really good way to start the activ section because the first one is

like I mentioned I started an mu conference because there's no like opportunities for international students so I basically made a free online mu conference and this was the main theme of my com out essing as well which we'll

see in a bit free online mu oh that sounds very unique interesting yeah it was very cool and then we got a grant from the United Nations themselves for $3,000 the MU conference we got funding

from the United Nations which I think made it seem more legitimate because a lot of people make passion projects right but it doesn't have like proof of actually doing stuff until you get like quantitive facts of like validation kind

of so I think that was really important um and my com app was mainly based around it as well because I know a lot of people make a passion project but I think unless you really have a narrative behind it and sell it in your essays like it's not as important because it's

just going to look like something you did like for no purpose right um and then yeah I'll just keep going like stop me that's yeah so then I did some research but I know a lot of people in

the US for like research as program and stuff um from my experience and from those around me like that's not a thing so I like went on LinkedIn and I basically emailed a bunch of people or like messaged people I found cool you're like hi I want to help out whatever

research and then you just have to spam email basically everyone and pray you get something and I was very lucky I did um and I got a like research internship for a bit when I helped analyze the transparency of Malaysian teres and then

we basically used the findings to try and Lobby for more legislation like making them more transparent because they has no disclosure requirements or very few making the legislation of

Malaysia more transparent oh it wasn't so much actually policy it was more we did the research and then we made recommendations but there was not that much policy related stuff sure sure sure

you said it was oh yeah for sure analyze the transparency of Malian Charities all right what did you found are they TR oh yeah so basically there was so when you go on your website right like if you go on an international Charities website

there's a lot of there like impact reports there's like very clear what they did and what the money went to but for a lot of Malaysian Charities the same level of disclosure wasn't there because the law didn't require it so we tried to highlight the fact that there

was no disclosure like most of them didn't even have a website there was no way to contact them so we just highlighted that and we like there should be reform basically in the laws next is journalism

publication yeah so um one of my angles in my essay was actually social media activism so they I think that complements it as well because I did some journalism stuff and I made video documentaries for social impact so I was

selected for this camp where it was BAS a fully sponsored trip for like a weekend they paid for hotels they paid for com um food and whatever and I think if you get into a free program like uni is looking at well when you apply

because it shows like it's not a Pay to Win sort program like a lot of the Su accounts people go to like they aren't valued because you pay to go so it's not as impactful I guess so this one was and

then um basically I got to make a documentary of a refugee alterative Learning Center which is like a school because they can't go to government schools here they have special schools for them and then we just made a video

about um basically the lack of Education they actually received and the opportunities they didn't have and then the Canadian High commission reposted the documentary I made which I think also helped my application a bit okay

and then the next thing I did was also social media related so it was at um a basically an NGO again and then I was managing the social media for them um and we basically made a public education

campaign because the Malaysian general election was then and this was the first year that um 18yar olds could vote in Malaysia so we were making some educational content so they understood your rights understood who they were

voting for and just like general public education um and then I was the one who led the Tik Tok initiative which I think helped um and then this tied into the other work I did which I mentioned in my com out essay so I think it's really

important to have cohesive stuff so it's like you did it multiple times it's not just thing it one time so I did it in this one and then in my essay they see it again in a different circumstance with the same skill and then the bottom

so I structured it so the top ones were my more important ones and then the bottom ones are more just stuff about me which I thought they would like to see to see like I'm a real person and I'm not just like a bunch of activities

right so here I have um I was Captain of my first team in school which is like The A Team or whatever I don't know how it is in the US um but the first team for field hockey um and then as well I

showed that is some charity as well so in the team we basically have an annual match where we try and raise funds for the local school and we buy them equipment as well so I mentioned the work I did there um and then I used to

figure skate which I thought was quite interesting because I actually met the Harvard Figure Skating club before and I talked to one of the skaters on the team I don't think it was that important but I think showing that I could fit in and Harvard was important because the rest

of my sports like field hockey is like not as significant in Harvard net ball and whatever what played in the US the figure skating is something Harvard admissions officers could read and be like okay we can see her contributing to

the figure skating team as well and not just being like another Harvard student um and as well I try to highlight my Malaysian routes I think as an international you should be showing that you can bring in diverse

perspective so I talked about the cultural stuff I did as well so for Malaysia day which is our national day I helped choreograph their performance and I talked about that a bit um and then here's just um some school-based charity

stuff I did which was quite cool um once again more culture stuff um which is like Nations day I'm not sure if you know what nations day is Nations uh Nations

day uh all right you could tell me more about this oh yeah no sure so it's basically just this cuz I'm from the international school so there's different cultures right and then we have a little fair

when we just have different foods sure sure sure sure sure we have the same thing but just the name is different yeah sure oh yeah but yeah it was very cute and I just talked about how I

helped that in school as well um and then I think as well I've mentioned music so in my common up activities I talked about being a competitive pianist um and then in one of my supplemental

essays I talked about playing the violin as well so I showed like there was a lot going on like I'm not just in one thing which I think is interesting one thing I've heard which I think is really good advice if people want to apply to the US

is you need to have a very clear Spike so for me that's my social media and politics stuff but also to be like decent in most other the things so music I was all right Sports I did stuff like

it wasn't like amazing but it wasn't bad as well I heard an opinion about the t-shaped person that the US universities look for t-shaped person and the this

stick of tea represents your Spike so like more activities more on ERS for your um concentration for your major and then this side of the te is more

representative of more diverse stuff that you were involved in so for example um for example let's take your application as an example you did lots

of politics and social media and like first and honors and extracurriculars first I think five are really more about politics but then I can also see social

justice and cultural activities and Charities and I think um at least that's what I heard that us universities really look for Spike but at the same time they

want to see diverse experiences that you were involved in what do you think about that no yeah I think that's the same I've never heard of the team model but I quite like it like that's basically what I think it's important as well that's

what I talk about um and then yeah so the final thing was at the refugee Center um and that's something I talk about my supplements as well so I think it's important as well when you mention in your activity section to try and Link it to your other essays so like you

flesh it out cuz not like if someone just reads this like it doesn't tell them very much cuz they want to know as much as what you did they want to know what you learn and what you will continue doing so you have to have a clear story um but here basically I

taught at a refugee school during my summer break I'm helping them with chemistry for the first two years of high school um and I guess for my essays how are we going to go about it should I just leave it on the screen so people

can read it or uh no I will leave the file in the description so guys you can go to the description down the file or lead the the personal essay themselves um in the in our discussion we're just

going to sum up the point and the main points of the personal essay and we're going to do the same thing for supplemental essays as well so all right perfect um so I guess I'll just summarize what I wrote and then

talk about why I did it sure sure okay cool so when choosing the prompt um honestly I'd say don't worry too much about the prompt at first just write like what you think is important and then find the best prompt to fit so the

way I approached it was first um I wanted to start with something a bit round so here like Mondays always suck February like that's just a bit odd like they'll be like what the hell is this kid doing um and then I talked about a Netflix show getting cancelled once

again a bit of a what is this on about and then I linked it to social media activism so for me um as I said My Story was social media activism and when the Harvard's emissions officer like emailed me of saying like congrats when you got

in this is why we chose you they send you like one reason and for me they said we appreciate your social media activism so to me that was really good it's like okay they realized what I was trying to

show them this is really so um one thing could talk about your email we could talk about what admissions officer wrote later but um yeah I really like your hook this is certainly something that

draws R in to understand what's going on yeah um but yes I just think when you have your essay just think that they want to remember you by one thing so try and think what you want them to Remember

You by so here social media activism and not elaborate a bit more but basically then I talked about how as a kid I made a social media petition to renew show that got cancelled and then it didn't

happen so I got fed up and I was like social media activism is useless and then I talked about but later I changed my belief because the question was reflect in the time you challenge the belief so you had to really answer the

problem as well um so I basically talk about the work I did at W8 which is I told you about the general election and running Tik Tok campaigns to basically make sure you understood your right and

went to vote um and then I try to include statistics as well of like what I did so my impact was clear so 100,000 views is something like they can see okay that's legit it's not like I made a

post got like 10 likes or something yes um and then I linked it here so if the emissions officer knew about the show I don't know if they did but I just linked that in to show like I actually watched the show and I wasn't making this up so

try and find ways to prove that you're not making stuff up as much as you can so this was a reference to the show and then um then I talked about an experience when I actually went outside and someone recognize me from the Tik

toks I made and then um how that impacted me and then I basically this was the experience and then what I learned was social media activism was useful I was using it the wrong way at first and then here I talk about in M

which was the model United Nations conference I founded um and once again like I put some stats in of what how much we got to the UN Grant how many students we reached um and then basically I was highlighting the work I

did so Harvard can imagine like I've learned this and I've started this and then I will continue doing it so like it shows that there's real story it's not just oh I did it once now let me in because I did it yeah um and then I

quite like my ending because I linked it to the start as well so Monday still sucks and it's like it's a nice sort of tale like you start and finish for the same thing so um as as far as I can see you

from your personal statement you Tred to link you Tred to make your personal statement link all of your activities and to show the meaning behind to you

right and how you grew through those activities um yeah nice um you started off with social media saying how you first didn't like it but then changed

your view on it and then it went talk about how you were recognized and then I think it was about um more about politicians right how you helped to youth to understand who

they're voting for actually and the last one is about un um yeah I really like the structure like each paragraph is devoted to a different side of view a

different uh grows aspect maybe so that's one thing and also I think an important thing that I mentioned several times in our last discussion but guys

just because it worked for Alisa it doesn't mean it will work for you so um you might be thinking oh alasta wrote about social media and political activism I'll write about the same thing and I'll get into Harvard um

unfortunately if that how the way it worked har would be full of everyone and that wouldn't be as prestigious as it is um so but through this narrative I just

want you guys to understand this how important it is to really show your narrative and make missions officers really um think of you in one word so for example in terms of Alisa is social

media activism so what would be your thing it could be um engineering it could be research it could be music for example Ryan was a musician so um so try

to think of ways you can be identified in several words as Alisa mentioned so um yeah interesting all connecting personal statement uh now

let's get into those the most interesting part I think the most creative part supplemental essays oh sorry before before we continue um what were the majors that you chose and um

contribution that you indicated in the like general questions oh yeah for sure uh yeah I think I see okay so oh yeah my SAT was A6 as well which I think really helped

um if you're International I think having a good standardized score is important because they don't understand like outg grading system as much I would say uh what was your again okay sorry could you repeat um

1,600 oh perfect score right yeah oh yeah yeah okay no comments just impressed uh yeah thank

you government philosophy and economics yeah I'm really interested to hear what you have to say about philosophy because um I certainly can see why it is government I can certainly see why it is

economics but um could you please elaborate on the Phil report and how you developed it yeah for sure so actually this was mainly because in the UK I applied for

PPE which is philosophy politics and economics so I basically already had that interest and one of the essays I wrote actually I stole a bit from my UK essay so if I scroll down quickly I think yeah the intellectual one I talk

about philosophy there so we can go a bit more into that there but just for me it made sense like logistically to apply to similar things in different countries to save myself to work yeah pretty

interesting and your Contrition contribution is that the the section about like what I wanted to do on campus yeah so I put mu because that's obviously the main thing I did so it made sense debate and then I put a

sports thing as well to show I would be doing stuff on campus that wasn't just like sitting and doing like academic stuff group cult group yep um life

experiences so before let's not uh go one by one but let's just humorize your essay because I think people can read it on their own if they're interested uh let's um I want to talk about how you

approach your um and maybe strategize your supplemental essay so was it uh in this essay I will show my academic side and this essay I'll show my cultural side and in this essay for example

community service how did you strategize and how did you approach writing supplement Lis in general okay yeah for sure so um once again low plug on my Tik Tok I have a

full thing on why you should put your Jess but for me personally what I did was I wrote a list of things that I wanted to tell hav about so I didn't look at the prompts I was just like okay

I want them to know a BC about me so for me was that my work with refugees I wanted them to know about I wanted them to know a bit more about me academically because I feel my common up essay was more about extracurricular there wasn't

anything too academic in it so I wanted to talk about that um and I also wanted to show a bit more my music side because that wasn't really shown in my rest of my application so with that in mind I

then looked at the different problems and I was like okay where can I start this in the best I can and then um I think what's important as well is for my intellectual bit I wanted to show I

really researched H so I know a lot of people will be like oh this school is really good I want to go please let me in your school's really good but instead I looked at things in Harvard that I could actually see myself joining and that were a bit more random or bit more

specific and I was like okay I want to do this and I told them your school is cool because you have this and I can do this because I've done XYZ in the past and that let me S like the stuff I did as well so it wasn't just like a love

letter to Hob um I think the best way to show how I integrated it is just to go through so I won't like actually talk about each essay but I'll just briefly highlight what they all did sure sure I really

want to focus on each essay so um yeah let's start okay yeah sure um so for the life experiences one this is the one when it's basically the yob essay but they don't actually say that but here's I

talk about my Refugee thing and then I link so I talked about the work I did previously and then I also made a personal link um but then the way I tried to make this white hared was then I talked about the Philip Brooks

Association which is like the charity organization in Harvey and I was like um so I did this in the past and I will continue doing it at your organization at your school so it's specific to them

um and then a tip if you're applying to many schools in the US what I did after other schools was basically I repurposed the same stuff then I just changed it to in Yale I'll do whatever in Yale so

that's like a tip that can help you as well um and then this one is the bit I explain more My Philosophy stuff um so once again I tried this start with a bit of a

random hook and then IAL this was more academic so if you're writing a UK personal statement I literally stole paragraphs from my UK personal statement and then I talk about the philosophy stuff I did and then I talked about economics and then I talked about

government and I talked about specific courses as well so that showed them like how it makes sense how I will fit in um for E's this is when I talked about

violin as well um but what I did to make it a bit interesting was because normally people talk about violent and they talk about performance anxiety right but that's quite basic but that was my story so instead I tried to link it to debate which made it a bit more

interesting so it was violin but linking to debate in politics which was my main application which I think drew them in a bit um and then this one I try to show bit more I'm being Malaysian so I talk

about the similarities with the Malaysian justice system and the US justice system which must have been interesting to them because obviously they won't hear that all the time um I linked it to previous research work I

did and previous internships once again I just mentioned a course so try and be very specific when you try and show why you belong that school every essay should have something about I want to join this club or I want to take this

course um and then the roommate one I think this is a one you have to be a bit more spontaneous about so the all ones I've seen I've gotten and everyone said something a bit crazy so someone talk about Roblox I talk about Harry Styles

and dulu is the culu um so just try and be a bit out there so they remember you um okay I think the roommate intro is

fun I can read the Lulu is solo I can read those labels are not typos they're written in Malay all right and my room

looks messy okay this is interesting yep I think I'll certainly take a second look at this essays separately after our discussions they look interesting to

miss out um yeah I really want to ask you this question um did you write anything in your additional information section and um let's after answering

this question let's slowly move into recommendation letters and um yeah how many you submitted and what were the people but first let's address additional

information yeah I didn't send any supplements or any additional stuff because I didn't think I needed it uh there's an opinion actually that

um I heard from one of my friend who I'm sorry I'm just forgetting the English language for some reason so I heard from my friend who got into Harvard that oh in additional information section you

have to try to validate all of your activities just to show as much as media files and like links and certificates for internship etc etc um you didn't

include anything no I didn't s anything um because I was watching some Tik toks online from other people and they said like unless you have something really important to say don't use it about the

admissions officer is like going to be annoying that you gave them more stuff to read over basically yeah oh yeah that makes sense like additional information section is just um extra work for admissions officers and the more you

write the more their annoyance level increases almost like I think like if you have something really strong like I don't know if you're like a professional musician you want to send them a file do that or like if you have really good

research do that but if not I don't think it's worth like the risk yes um did you leave the links for your social

media no didn't oh really do you think they found it online themselves or something uh I don't know cuz I had my um so about Le is a w basically instead

of me proving it myself I made sure my teachers knew about it when they wrote my Le's a w and I didn't see the recommendations but I'm assuming they did what I asked and they talked about it so it already confirmed it was real

yes and I know as well to check they called my school and ask like is she real did she actually do this so I think they will check it without you having to

like prove it to them oh yeah um about this I also heard the opinion of like um they if they are really interested they

could Google and if your um like achievements are as impressive as you describe them in the com app then they will likely to pop up and if they don't pop up that's a bit of like red flag if

you say oh I want this major major International award but there's nothing on Google which is weird uh yeah one thing I think as well is good is having a LinkedIn just so you

have the proof of it if you put that on your LinkedIn so on my LinkedIn I had the certificates on there so if they wanted to check they could see it there but I'm not giving them extra work if they don't want it oh wait let's connect

on LinkedIn yeah for sure I'll send it to you later on Instagram actually yeah if anyone else wants to add me on LinkedIn as well it's just Elisa you yeah don't

worry I will leave all the links for all the social media that you ever had in my link and at the end of our disc yes I need all the plags yes exactly and um

guys just the fact that um a person like Elisa was willing to share her commona file openly like because this is pretty rare um people who get into top schools

tend to be more secretive or like oh this is too personal or no I don't really want to share about it um so that's really Brave of you genuinely like not because I invited you and you

came into as a guest but genuinely this is Brave and um yeah I hope applicants International applicants and US citizens will find your file

useful um yeah now let's get into recommendation letters how many you submitted and uh who were they yeah so I only sent three in and

they were all School teachers um so I got my history teacher to send one my chemistry teacher and then my math teacher chemistry math and history right

yeah okay oh yeah and then there's the counselor recommendation so um I go to a boarding school so my like boarding school like the H mistress for my boarding school basically sent it in oh not his mistress sorry like the person

in charge of the door I oh sure sure counselor sent it essentially yeah sure um what as far as I'm assuming you gave

the teachers a break sheeet or like a bullet point of what you would like they talk about right um would you want to talk about that and in more

detail yeah for sure so um I actually didn't do a brag sheet instead I like went and had like a chat of them one onone and then we discussed I think it's more important that you talk about it so you both agree on what should be in it

because like if I say like right about this and you're like what the hell is this that's not going to be that useful since I spend like 10 minutes in a line of them so I don't have like a Rec like a record of what we wrote because they

took notes themselves I'll try and share what I remember saying so for the chemistry teacher um he supervised some of the work I did with the refugee school and the local school so I got him to talk about that to validate that

proof cuz most of it was out of school but he knew about it sure and then also um he taught me for like four or five years so he talked more my academic side as well and how um sort of in my school

reports he know talks about being the best in the school the best student he's ever taught which Harvard seems to really value so I assume he wrote something to that extent in the the letter but obviously I don't know um

yeah so it's mainly chemistry so it's mainly academic vital as well as Refugee work and then for my history teacher when I appli for the UN Grant he's the one who wrote a recommendation for that

as well so he talked about the work I did for mu um what else yeah mainly my mu stuff as well as debate and also I'm assuming history politics and that sort

of thing and how I do a lot out of school um and then what it oh for my math teacher he talked more about my stem side as well so the math Awards I

did um and he was also the head of um like secondary school so he talked us like more just in general about how like in the cohort as one of the strong students like doing charity doing

everything like well-rounded um and then for my counselor letter which um we didn't have we had a uni counselor but she didn't write my letter it was like someone else but basically they wrote

more about my like personal qualities so um in like our boarding house I helped call the events and like I was responsible like mature like more The Human Side of me which I think is really important as well

what was your personal context like you mentioned the fact that um in Malaysia the knowledge about for example Charities is obscure and like it's not

really tracked and it's not that transparent and what were more of such personal Conta because I think this is very um interesting especially to a admissions officer who's looking for

this personal context um what would you say were more of personal contact that included like family responsibilities or

something that was unique to your circumstances yeah for sure so I know a lot of people worry because like I had this worry as well like I've heard of some essays like the letter s right when they saw trauma dump and then they

obviously experienced stuff and they wrote about it but I was fortunate to like not have to go through stuff like that so I was like okay I don't know what to write about so instead I focus more on like my personal experiences so

my culture growing up in Malaysia or my work with refugees which is something that makes me a bit more unique so finding a way to show awareness that even if you are privileged you recognize it and then what you did with it instead

of like trying to trauma dump when you don't have trauma that exists because that makes you look a bit sort pathetic to be honest yeah and it also looks fake like um when you have something of more

I don't know fascination of something more interesting like working with RPGs and you're just saying oh no let me put that aside and let me just I don't know exaggerate the story and write a sober

essay so they could feel sorry about me or something like this yeah I think way many people write sport injuries essays and like unless it's something really really serious

they don't even know you sprain your ankle yeah um okay so this has been very insightful for me at least um guys let me know in the comments what you think

and um of course for the I think fifth time for our discussion all the links for social media Felisa is in the description especially Tik Tok she

really is very working for Tik Tok um yeah my question is let's put it this way what are the top three things you think like yeah this is the thing oh by

the way I'm sorry um we have the real proof from admissions officer saying we like this part and that part right could you talk more about that

like what was that and what did adiss officers emphasize yeah offici sure so in the email I got it literally only mentioned um look forward to seeing you and then we really appreciate learning about

social media activism so I don't actually know too much I can get my file um when we get to harid so I'll know more about why I got in which is really interesting to me as well oh sure sure

sure this is very interesting a um yeah and I'm pretty sure that Alisa will share it on her social media right so um you really I'm loving

the plugs yes you really don't want to miss it out um but okay aside from from the official comments of the admissions officer what do you think in your opinion you're like oh yes this thing

I'm pretty sure they liked it about your application yeah for sure so um if people have seen the Harvard lawsuits before um they basically revealed what they look for in students they look for extracurricular they look for academics

whatever um and I think for me academically like I was qualified but also I didn't do like any groundbreaking research like I haven't done anything that's not published whatever so I know that wasn't my main thing so I think my

main two things were within my school context because no one in my school has got to an IV League before like to one of those types of Union so I think that sort of set us apart as well so for me they recognize that my context I guess

was there less experience with uni missions um and then with that as well I think um they value so I've seen I kind was with someone said basically if your

teachers say you're the best student they've ever taught or like the best um like in their career or whatever they value that quite highly so I think that's one of the reasons oh if you want International um generally if you get an

interview you have you're like qualified to be considered if not i' have not heard yet of an international who's got in without interview but I might be wrong oh yes this is true this is very very

true so yeah because I know in the US it's not the same yep um it's very very different International and us and also in terms of the essay levels that International students need to face and

the US students need to face and that just logically makes sense because the ratio of like is 90 to 10% I think it hars a bit more but yeah it's gener like

85 to 15% and yeah though that certainly makes sense um now I really want to um talk about the new har essays that they

released which are by the way four of them is identical like um but one of them did change so uh could you please um Google it or could you please search

it up and we could really yeah give me second sure I didn't know they changed the essay that's interesting they only

changed one yeah which one if you remember let it be an intrig for you to find out right so the we could focus on

the ones that are the same so they didn't change uh the contribution is the same oh the strongly disagreed one right oh yeah yeah yeah that's the new

one oh okay interesting which one so roommates are the same education so which one did they remove education F did they remove

intellectual experience or yeah I think they removed intellectual experience or something I asked let's try to brainstorm of some ideas or some of the ways we could strategize this so for

example um in Life or sorry for Unique contribution essay which is the first essay um as far as I understand you wrote about uh your

extracurriculars and how that connects to Harvard resources so essentially your past experience connecting it to Harvard's resources and how that matches perfectly

essentially uh yeah so that's um I I really want you to talk about it so um I did this I recommend doing this for example for this essay and Etc okay yeah

for sure okay so yeah for the first one as you said diverse like you can interpret diverse however you want to so it doesn't just like a ethnic background or whatever it could literally mean anything you've done that makes you

different to my work with the refugees um and then yes so find a specific thing at the uni so har that you think that you can contribute to um so the disagreed one um obviously that's not

one I did but just reading it now um honestly I think you could do something intellectual as well so you can talk about like either a debate you've had with someone or just

anything yeah 100% um I mean you could talk about something teamwork related because it says how do you communicate or engage with them but I just think you are applying to like one of the top like

academic institutions in the world I know so um obviously this one doesn't talk about academic stuff as explicitly but I just think if you're applying to the top research Union not top research

but top like academic institution in the world it would be a bit strange if you don't talk about anything academic in your application whatsoever maybe if your comment out was about research however you could get away with using

this for something more extra cular because it does talk about experience so it's a bit more vague but I just think there should be at least one essay in your whole thing contributed um solely to showing your academic side if not

like it doesn't make sense in my opinion and then contributing it and then contributing it to the Harvard resources so um oh yeah for sure so um starting

with your experience and then at the end of the essay just show unique way you would contribute to hardvard so for example if it's a intellectual discussion I think um how you would

contribute to clubs academic clubs in your major for example like just unique very research Niche clubs for example it's just something that yeah I could think of from the back of my mind and oh

by the way I forgot to ask in the intellectual experience ESS say uh in the last paragraph was it your courses that you wrote about oh yeah oh yeah for

sure so I think I'd recommend actually you mentioned clubs but I'd say it's better to show that you've actually researched the courses so if you Google like Harvard courses for whatever you

they will have a list of courses so here like gov 94 BD is a course and then I specified I want to do this course I think that shows you firstly gone through the effort to research them but

that you're joining there for the courses because that's what a uni is right it's first and foremost the classes and then the clubs and everything else yeah um but just a more General Point as well like you mentioned

um with all the essays you want to be showing so not just the one when they ask why harbard but for all of them you want to be linking it back to resources they have so here I talk about courses and then for E's I talked about oh actually I didn't talk about that

education I talked about courses so everything should be linked to harid as much as possible um and going back now to the essays the third one is what extra curric is um once again you can

interpret this as vaguely as you like to best show your story so as I said before you even start writing essays or thinking what you're going to write make a list of the key like three four things you want them to know about you and then

find how you can plug it into the PRS so here like you could basically plug in anything honestly because anything can be an extra you can talk about doing giving people tution you can talk about family

responsibilities um once again talk about what you did and then link it to a club or link it to anything you've learned specifically um Harvard Education in the

future this one I think it's really important firstly to talk about a class that you want to learn from because it mentions education so specifically and they want to know your academic side as

well they can also talk about future career plans if you'd like my only caution with that would be don't just say oh I want to solve like climate change or oh I want to cure cancer like that's so big like talk about something

a bit more Niche or a bit more attainable so you're not like some like wishful thinking sort of kid you like actually have a clear plan or Direction in mind so I've heard of someone and I think it was really effective they talked about carbon credits that we're

going to impect carbon credits to solve climate change so that's something you can actually do right that's an actionable step it's not oh I'm just going to cure World hun

whatever okay and then the final one is the roommates one and um so if you look at the Harvard ruling before one of the scores is the personality thing and I think um especially if you're an American and maybe you won't get

interview but you're still in the running to get in you really need to show your personality in this essay because it's one of the things they rank as well so here like for mine it was just a bit out there and I think it's

really worth taking the risk cuz remember your chance of getting in is so low already like don't worry about like doing something that's that crazy to the point they'll reject you like okay yeah don't say something racist don't say

something stupid also like don't be afraid the show look a bit more be a bit more unhinged or be a bit more real so like I talked about Harry Styles and like Tik Tok and like a bit more crazy

stuff and I think that makes them remember you a bit more as well take more risks essentially the advice yeah well I mean like you know like you're applying to school and like it's

a lxury whether you get in anyway or not so anyway make yourself a bit more stand out there you know that's always good yeah like you're going to get rejected anyway relax and write your best essay I think it's one of the ways you

could approach it and if you do get in like this is a very nice surprise and if you don't like you don't really have the expectations that just ruined yeah oh yeah for sure and also

like obviously proof read your essays but in one of my essays I can't remember but there was like a typo and like when I read it after I was like oh my God I'm not going to get in because I wrote like something grammatically wrong I still

got in so it's fine so don't stress too too much like yes take it seriously yes take the time but like they don't expect you to be 100% perfect you'll be okay in how many um days did you write your

entire essays all of your essays okay so my comment app I wrote from like August until yeah I took the whole of August for that and then um

until November so after I finished my com app I was writing my supplements so I took like a lot of time with them and like I don't recommend writing them minute because you need to strategize so much it just doesn't make sense to do

last minute yep so from the beginning of the August until the deadline of November one right um so I actually submitt it like a bit before November one so like maybe a

week before but yeah basically up to the deadline oh yeah sure sure sure very organized something to take note for a lot of international students unfortunately um especially if you're

applying to other countries as well like make sure you have everything sorted oute you applied to Harvard early right retive early action yeah and um were you

planning to apply to other schools in the US and um or were you like oh if that's not Harvard that's the UK um what were your college plans if it's not

Harvard or um did you apply to other or did you were you writing essays for other US schools yeah I applied to the other IB leagues as well and then also the

uc's uh did you get your results or did you revoke your um application after Harvard's acceptance um I still waited for the results I was just looking at the

financial aid offerings um so for the uc's I got into UCLA UCSD and then UC Davis um got weight listed by Bley weight listed by Princeton weight listed

by dmouth weight listed by one oh upen then I got rejected by the rest oh really so only Harvard

right yeah only the best one essentially not my dream school I can't complain yeah um yeah especially for government you know political science

like Harvard is literally number one yeah yeah let's ignore real for a second and um yeah so I think this is a

very interesting story that because a lot of people think oh um if I get got rejected from darkmouth it's like that's it I'm not going to get into Harvard because I'm think darkmouth is low in

level or like lower in Prestige or something um which might be true in terms of ranting rankings but um as you can see you can get rejected from all of the schools and still get into Harvard

so um yeah don't be too upset if you got rejected from other schools um so we discussed I think we really covered everything we covered

your activities and essays and even recommendation letters um let's talk for now about your future

plans and at Harvard so it's obviously government and economics but also um what are you actually I'm doing government and computer science sorry yeah I'm not doing economics anymore

I've changed my mind so I think something I just want to share people as well is you can just choose to apply with a major like I don't think anyone should apply undecided like choose a major that just makes sense because you can always change your mind so I changed

the government computer science I'm like they don't care yeah and um as far as I know computer science you can apply to internships I think from your freshman year

right I'm not too sure actually I know as an international there's a lot I have to like figure out with like visas and whatever so I'm just going to wait until I'm there see what happens how's the Visa process in Malaysia because um I

could share about usbekistan and is this is just the state of things is horrible it's literally like 20% literally and there was even a joke that um getting a

Visa is hard than getting into horor or something in his b literally oh that's crazy yes so you have to have kind of like double luck to get and visa and

Harvard because there was a situation where a guy got into Princeton and he didn't get Visa so he had to choose the other yeah this is just painful this is

just ridiculous oh that's Madness yes how is that um from what I've heard oh yeah so from my experience um it was like a long queue and I've heard of other people getting rejected but mainly the IB leue students had no issue

so my interview was literally just oh you're gonna har it okay well done and I got my Visa and in the group chat as well from I actually heard from someone from usbekistan in our group chat as well who had the same thing just because

it was Harvey he got his Visa find so I think maybe just the brand name pushes you along a bit as well oh yeah yeah sure how long was your visa interview like literally two seconds

they were like okay well done you got in the H okay here's your come on really meanwhile all the soce meanwhile all the consulting firms preparing for days for

those interviews you know oh God yeah yeah this is ridiculous you said some there was someone Froman in the chat oh yeah in the Harvard group chat

as well who got his Visa he said like the same thing like there was a long Quee to have the interview but interview itself is very short oh yeah yeah I heard the same thing about Princeton and other top

schools like it's it's long as you have the name like in most cases it's not problem um yeah okay I think I could finish the recording right now