You are an absolutely incredible person and I aspire to be as helpful and generous a person as you are (I'm going to try). Thank you so much for doing this; you have no idea how much amazing it is to read your feedback for other people.

Statswise I'd say I'm highly competitive, but being on this sub makes me feel inadequate haha. My EC's are probably medium to weak, I'm a South Asian female (Canadian going to high school in US if that matters), I definitely won't qualify for any need-based aid but I am looking for merit scholarships in order to be independent. Some of these require essays and are highly competitive so that's what I'm aiming for instead of T30's, but I'm probably going to apply to: Harvard, Cornell, SUNY schools, and some competitive Canadian schools.

I'm going to be a STEM major probably and my idea is to tie this to baking. I love to bake and have been doing it for years. I'm thinking of starting with a funny story of how I messed up really badly on a cake and what I learned from it. It sort of ties with why I like baking in the first place: it's really creative but also really logical and precise, which I think is sort of a great metaphor for research in general. Like you can come up with great ideas and try them out, but there's also lots of basic math and science knowledge involved. Then I'll move onto how I love making people happy with my baking and making personalized desserts for my loved ones with lots of specific stories, also talking about how making different stuff for different people let me try new things and grow as a baker. I'll finish talking about how I inspired my sister to try baking too and how I want to keep doing it in university. Maybe if I decide to be premed I can tie it into helping others? My sister is a big part of this so I'm thinking I'll put her in the story at the beginning too.

Thank you once again to anyone who reads this, I really appreciate it!