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Failures Resume

The purpose of publishing my failures online is so that people stop assuming that my life has been very smooth and quite successful. I suppose the reason is that I got adMITted early (see the pun?). In reality, however, I have experienced quite a few failures and setbacks, especially in science competitions and programs. By telling the whole world about my failures, I hope that people understand that failure is pretty normal and something we shouldn't hide. 
  1. Failed the SAT in sophomore year 
  2. Failed the PSAT in junior year (scored lower than junior year SAT) 
  3. Did not win anything in the 2020 Science Olympiad regionals 
  4. Got waitlisted by 2020 Summer Science Program Biochemistry 
  5. Got rejected by COSMOS in 2018 and 2019 
  6. Did not win 2020 3 Minutes Girl Science Video Competition 
  7. Did not win anything in BEAR SO or Mira Loma Science Olympiad invitationals 
  8. Got rejected by Caltech 
  9. Did not become Coca-Cola Scholarship Semifinalist 
  10. Did not get chosen as HOBY (Hugh O Brian Youth) Leadership delegate 
I would say that it was kind of hard for me to write 1 and 2 because of this stupid fear that I have. I did relatively well on the second SAT that was in the middle 50th percentile of competitive colleges so I don't need to have the assumption that others think I don't belong in college just because I bombed my first SAT and PSAT. 

For the summer program results, I am glad I still applied to them despite not being admitted because they helped me write better essays the next year and prepared me for college applications. I am not annoyed that I got rejected by COSMOS twice because I managed to get in junior year, which is kind of late but common.  

As for 8, I am not really upset, which sounds strange. To be frank, I mainly applied to Caltech because of my parents and also because the community that I live in thinks you should apply to Caltech along with MIT for early action. Personally, I didn't even see myself as a good fit for Caltech because I preferred chemistry and biology to math and physics, which Caltech emphasizes a lot on their website. When I got the rejection, I understood why I got rejected and was kind of glad I got rejected because I could not picture myself going there. 

I would say that overall I am not that sad about these failures I listed above because I really wasn't qualified to be a Coca-Cola semifinalist and I didn't spend much time on the 3-minute video. 


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