Meet Sherdil, who took a directed approach after undergraduate rejections to make it into his dream graduate school!
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I applied to a total of 20 universities in the U.S for my undergraduate studies. I had competitive test scores, and Cambridge O levels and A levels internal results that were easily among the top 5 students in a highly competitive highschool in Lahore. Despite an array of stellar co curricular activities, I received 14 waitlists and 6 rejections. The number of waitlists indicated that my application was missing a key element. Most of my universities definitely considered me for admission, but I kept falling short of some final criteria. Upon deep reflection with counselors in my school and teachers, I realized that my common essay (sent to all universities), was lacking in a cohesive story. I had ended up submitting a very pretentious essay that was all over the place. I tried to fit in everything I had done, without any unique hook binding these elements together. I also falsely believed that colleges only need story-based essays that are well written with fancy verbiage.
My essay did not reflect my genuine interests and failed to encapsulate my journey in pursuing my extra-curricular activities. I ended up enrolling in a local university with my mind set on receiving a graduate school admission by the end of my degree. I took full control of the process and networked extensively with past alumni as well as my professors. I made sure to take the first 2 years to explore what I was actually interested in. I explored various subfields within my undergraduate major to assess what I wanted to specialize in. I did this through internships, personal projects, as well as course projects. I then used my last 2 years to pursue a specific niche within my discipline and gathered research experience within this domain. I took advanced courses in this field and tailored each project to ensure a cohesive story of my journey. I chose my professors for recommendations very early on, and spent 2 years building a very concrete relationship with them so they could speak to my ability, my passion, and my creativity. This allowed me to successfully portray significant investment of time and energy in my choice of graduate studies major, and the recommendations supported this journey very well.
I believe it is this dedicated and directed effort that led me to securing 6/8 admissions for my graduate studies in Mathematical Finance, including my top choice program. I encourage students to think deeply before applying to graduate school and then carefully deciding their universities and understanding their requirements well in advance to ensure they can demonstrate a good fit in their applications with well supported evidence through their CV, personal statement and recommendation letters.
