Skip to main content

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. 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Accepted BU RISE Essays

BU RISE is a 6-week research program at Boston University. In 2019, the acceptance rate was around 16% so it is a selective program. There are two tracks- internship and practicum. The internship is the one I applied to because I wanted to work in a lab. Unfortunately, BU RISE in 2020 was cancelled due to COVID-19. If you are applying to BU RISE, these essays may be a source of inspiration.  1.Why you selected your field of interest and what you would like to research (300 words)  First choice: medical laboratory research (biochemistry) Second choice: chemistry  Ever since 2018, I participated in a Science Olympiad event called Protein Modeling that sparked my interest in proteins. When I learned about the anti-CRISPR protein, it alarmed me that the protein stopped CRISPR from working. Wondering how this could happen, I used Jmol to build and visualize the protein model. Over time, I no longer viewed proteins as messy globs. Instead, I appreciated that the protein’s disti...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Funny Thing About Memory

 The more I stay in the U.S., the more I remember my years in Taiwan in a positive light. I feel like my nostalgia for Taiwan caused my memories to become distorted. When I lived in Taiwan, I disliked the humid environment and the gray skies after rainy days. I complained that the buildings had gray walls from the mold that grew on them. In elementary school, I wished that the city planning reflected the U.S. system where all the residential buildings were together instead of having commercial and residential buildings next to each other. After returning to the U.S. five years later, however, I don't really think those aspects of Taiwan were really downsides. Nowadays, I somehow manage to neglect those "downsides" whenever I think of Taiwan.  What I currently think about Taiwan is not what I expected to reflect upon the most as I boarded the plane to San Francisco in 2016. When I saw the green land vanish before my eyes outside my airplane window, I thought about how much...
Post a Comment
Read more

Why I Blog

 For the past two years, I have been blogging every so often, but I never asked myself why I blogged. The main reason I blog is to store and organize my thoughts that I keep hearing in my brain. These thoughts range from past memories to feelings of disappointment or anger. By writing my thoughts, I gain some clarity. Also, blogging serves as a form of self-reflection that I need to do on a regular basis or else my brain still acts fuzzy.  Although I write a lot of posts that aren't positive, I have a pretty good life. The reason that I tend to write a lot of negative things about myself on the blog is that if I don't write about bad things, then they keep bothering me. Worse, I may not learn from my mistakes or lessons. Still, I will try to balance out the negative content with some positive content because I want this blog to be useful for others. I don't want a blog where I all I do is criticize myself for failing to live up to my expectations. Instead, I want this websi...
Post a Comment
Read more