CLAIRE'S COLLEGE VISIT ADVENTURES!!

Hello dear readers (if there are even any these days),

My college admissions journey has come to an end! Albeit a stressful process that seemed to have no end in sight, I believe I have emerged from the depths of despair as a stronger and more mature student. 

Out of the 17 schools I applied to, I was accepted to 12 schools- Yale, Columbia, Stanford, UPenn, Johns Hopkins, Wellesley, Washington University in St. Louis, UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC San Diego, UC Davis, and UC Irvine! I have narrowed down my choices to Yale, Columbia, and Stanford.

This week, I will be spending time at all three schools as part of their admitted students programs to gain a better feel for each respective school and ultimately decide where to spend the next four years of my life :) 

I am currently in the San Diego Airport waiting to board my red-eye JetBlue flight to JFK airport in New York City for the first leg of my journey- Columbia University!

I will also be posting pictures and reflections every day, so make sure to stay updated! However, this series is mainly a way for me to remember all the minute aspects and details of each school as I eventually weigh the pros and cons. 

BYE CALIFORNIA!! 

EDIT: I may not be able to update everyday because I'll be extremely busy with the programming offered at each school- my schedule is going to be jam-packed with events. But I'll definitely try to blog everyday! 

My Experience at the 2014 Annual World Affairs Council Dinner

Hello readers,

Sorry for not updating this blog in a while- I'm currently inundated with schoolwork and college applications! :(

A while ago, I was one of the eight student scholars chosen by the World Affairs Council to receive a scholarship to attend the Annual World Affairs Council Dinner- one of the hugest events the Council hosts, besides the annual conference in March. I was delighted to be selected- each year the World Affairs Council and its Global Philanthropy Forum honor Bay Area leaders with a deep knowledge of and profound impact on the world.

This year, the main honoree was CEO John Donahoe and the companies he leads (eBay and PayPal), for its commitment to creating economic opportunity and fostering an inclusive global economy, including its pioneering role in creating the peer-to-peer economy. Besides Donahoe, the entrepreneurs and innovators such as Brian Chesky, CEO & Co-Founder of Airbnb would also be honored.  Needless to say, I was excited at the prospect of meeting these global movers and shakers.

At 4 PM, my father drove me to the CalTrain station in Mountain View. I eventually got off at Milbrae and hopped on the BART that would take me to Montgomery Street in San Francisco. From Montgomery Street, I walked to the World Affairs Council, a journey I was very familiar with because of my involvement as a student ambassador there. After the seven other student scholars arrived, Netta, the head of the Education program at the World Affairs Council, led a discussion about the readings she sent to us beforehand. We debated the merits and detriments of the disruption of traditional industries by services the Lyft and Airbnb provide, such as the conventional taxi and hotel industries.

Together, we all walked to the Four Seasons (the location of the annual dinner itself), which was not too far from the Council. Ksenia (another student scholar) and I found out that we were seated at the same table as the executive board at Chegg! The CEO sat directly across from us and we had an invigorating conversation about the state of public school education in America (I spoke about my experiences observing the Finnish education system!!!) and our future college plans.

At the Four Seasons

Hearing Donahoe speak!

The highlight of the evening was hearing Ted Donahoe, the CEO of Ebay, speaking about the transformation of the peer to peer economy, something Ebay is founded upon. He spoke about two main ideas that I found particularly compelling.

1) Commerce is the foundation for peace.
2) Technology is re-humanizing us.

When all we hear about today is the destruction of personal relationships due to the prevalence of technology, Donahoe mentioned that technology helps us forge relationships with people that we've never even interacted with before. For example, Ebay connects us to buyers and sellers all around the world. Airbnb allows us to establish connections with potential renters and rentees from all around the nation.

Me and the CEO of Ebay! This was extremely intimidating.

Just some food for thought!

Successful but hectic week!

About a month ago, I was invited by the Oracle Women Leadership Council to deliver a speech for their UN Day of the Girl ceremony because of my heavy involvement with the Silicon Valley UNA and UN International Youth Council. Although Day of the Girl is officially on 10/11, Oracle moved their ceremony up to 10/9, on a weekday.

This Thursday (10/9), my father picked me up from school at around 11 AM, and we drove to the Oracle headquarters in Santa Clara. After dropping me off at a building, I was escorted to a huge conference room where the event was to take place. For their catered lunch, I ate a beef and swiss cheese sandwich and started rehearsing the speech again in my head. The ceremony started off with an excerpt from the movie "Girl Rising"- which gave me chills. The first scene showcased a Thai woman, dressed in ethnic clothing, performing an ancient Thai dance, with a melodious Thai song resonating in the background. With elegance and grace, she executed a series of very sophisticated movements, her glittering clothing moving along with her. Suddenly, the scene cut to a little girl, digging through the wastelands and dumps of Thailand, sifting through the unwanted belongings of others, searching for anything salvageable. It was revealed that the young girl was the current girl, performing on the stage, except 20 years younger.Through education, an orphaned child in Thailand who used to spend her days digging through landfills transformed into an intelligent and beautiful woman, which attested to the power of knowledge and learning. My speech was on empowering women in Ningxia, China through my financial literacy initiative that I started with my friend Valene.

This Saturday, I delivered another speech to the Chinese American Semiconductor Professionals Association. Hosted at the Santa Clara Convention Center, there were SO MANY people in attendance- no less than 500. There were also a lot of important people who arrived at this event (which I did not anticipate), including the mayors of Milpitas and Sunnyvale, several state senators and congressmen, and the CEO of ARM, one of Britain's most prominent technology companies. I was proud of my speech- according to my mother, when the CEO was delivering his keynote address, no one was listening and everyone was one their phone, but everyone fixated their attention on me when I began to speak. It's strange and also humbling to think that I commanded more attention than the CEO of a multibillion international corporation...

I spoke about my speech impediment as a young girl and how my fear of speaking as transformed into wanting to use my voice to give a voice to the marginalized and unnoticed.

Although the days leading up to a huge speech are stressful and nervewracking, it's all worth it when you know that you've moved people with your words.

National Merit Semi-Finalist and National AP Scholar!

Yesterday I received two snippets of great news--I'm a National Merit Semi-finalist and a National AP Scholar! Whether or not you advance to the National Merit Semi-finalist stage depends solely on your PSAT score, which for me, was 225, out of a possible 240. AP Scholar awards depend on the number of APs you take and the scores you receive. For National AP Scholar, you must take at least 8 AP tests and receive scores of at least 4s and 5s on all of them. 

California has one of the highest PSAT cutoffs in the nation- last year it was 223, which meant that if you scored a 223 or higher, you were eligible for the NMSF award. Although I got my PSAT results in December, I can now breathe a sigh of relief. I don't know what this year's cutoff score is, but I'm pretty sure it jumped no higher than one point (it may even have decreased a point or two, no one knows right now).

On Writing Essays + Potential Gap Year!

Oftentimes the best essay ideas come out of nowhere- while you're in the shower, or strolling through the park, or reading someone's blog post, or even just before you're about to go to bed and turn the lamp switch off. I'm thankful for these random bursts of inspiration, as these essays are the ones that are usually most naturally written and least mechanical. Staring at a blank word document desperately racking your brain for creative ideas = super unproductive.

In other exciting news, I'm looking at a lot of gap year opportunities next year! Of course I'm still finishing my college applications, but once I receive my acceptances (fingers-crossed!), I plan to defer admission by one year, if my gap year opportunities work out. I'm hoping to perhaps study abroad in Germany, Russia, Turkey, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Morocco, South Africa, Thailand, Indonesia, or Malaysia! Traveling is one of my greatest passions; I feel so strongly about it that I even crafted one of my supplements around the idea of cultural exchange.

Making progress!!

Claire Lu's college app essay spreadsheet. It's even color-coordinated! I avoided screen-shotting each college's name for privacy's sake, but I'm sure you can still discern several schools just by reading the prompts. 

Oops

My goal is to have the entire first column in green by the end of this week! I have two school that I'm completely finished with (the two schools I'm deciding on early-ing to) but I'm still wavering.

Amherst DIVOH 2014!

Ahhh I just got accepted to Amherst College's Diversity Open House!! I applied in July and apparently they only accept 90 students out of ~1,000 so I'm extremely honored! Basically, Amherst will fly me out (for free) from San Francisco to Massachusetts and I'll stay on the Amherst campus for the duration of the program (October 18-20), not only learning about the academic opportunities Amherst offers but also the extracurricular activities. There will be a ton of sessions sprinkled throughout; I'm especially looking forward to some of the panels that'll feature the Dean of Admissions and other members of the Admissions Committee. On the last day, I'll get to sit in on several classes and experience being a true Amherst student!