It is official.

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March 28, 2008

Aaron Chee Seng Lo
16, Jalan Kenanga SD9/5G
Kuala Lumpur, 52200
MALAYSIA

Stanford ID#: 05556311

Dear Aaron,

The Office of Undergraduate Admission regrets to inform you that we are unable to offer you admission to Stanford University. The overall quality of our applicant pool and relatively small size of our freshman class means that we disappoint the vast majority of our applicants each year. We acknowledge your strong interest in Stanford, which makes the task of sending you this news especially difficult.

To find answers to the most commonly asked questions about the admission process at Stanford, click here. I hope it will help address some of the questions you may have about our decision. Please be aware that we are not able to consider appeals to this decision.

Aaron, you are a fine student with solid support from your teachers and advisors. I am confident that you will enjoy great success in your undergraduate education. I only wish we had room for everyone with talent and energy like yours.

We know this is disappointing news to receive; for that reason, and to be environmentally conscious, you will not be sent a paper copy of this letter by mail unless you instruct us otherwise. If you wish to request a copy of this letter by mail, you may do so here.

With best wishes for an outstanding undergraduate experience,

Richard H. Shaw
Dean of Admission and Financial Aid

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In other words, I WAS REJECTED BY STANFORD UNIVERSITY. This is such a big deal! Because Stanford is my dream school of all time. And that means, all the fantasies about meeting Professor Bob Sutton and Chip Heath and patronizing all the venture capital and tech firms in Sand Hill Road and Silicon Valley and going to San Francisco and L.A. every weekend and New York city, Chicago, Las Vegas, Washington D.C, Montreal and Toronto every summer break, and getting a tan under the Californian sunshine, have to come to a halt.

So, what’s next?

First and foremost, like every loser, I want to be the fox who claimed that the grapes are sour. Well, not really. I am in no position to deny Stanford’s academic superiority. Basically I want to do a diagnosis of why I was rejected.

Why I was rejected?

1. I applied for financial aid

Oh, the horror! (insert soundtrack from random Korean horror flick). With only 30++ international students who get in with financial aid (because they are so kind to US Citizens and so unkind to internationals), it takes a miracle to be accepted. I ought to be super super competitive.

2. Bad design

I read from the book A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink, that bad design cost Al Gore the presidency. Oh, I should know better. As I look back at my application, I found that I made a huge mistake of typing all my essays like…

…this.I thought by doing like this,I might be able to save space to reveal more information about myself,so that I will gain an advantage,so that I stand a better chance to be admitted.But to my horror,it feels so darn uncomfortable to the eye.In short,it is a total turn off.A visual turn-off.Bad design.

3. Last minute essay editing

I wrote my essays well in advance before submission, but as I was about to submit them (that was like at the very very last minute, like 10 minutes before the deadline), a small window appeared, warning me that my essays will be truncated because I exceeded the word limit. So, I edited them in that short amount of time, reading it just once and getting rid of all the unnecessary words, in the midst of trying to adhere to the deadline. While doing so, I believed the quality and coherence of my essay were compromised.

4. Weak reference letter

I chose people who speak highly of me to write my references. Sometimes, I felt that lecturer X should include anecdote Y when writing my reference letter. I felt that some info, if included, will put me in a better light. But I just do not have the guts to tell the lecturers. I believed the reference letters are supposed to be written solely by the lecturers based on their own observations, without my interference. I quietly hope that they will remember some of the things that I did, but alas, they did not. I was being too honest and ingenuous. I could have send them a to-be-included list. Now, who said honesty is a virtue?

Also, I did not provide enough time for my lecturers to write the reference. Everything was done in haste.

5. Poor SAT scores

I had poor SAT Reasoning Test score which I took at the very very last minute just before the deadline. I had 700 for math (very very poor by Asian standard), 650 for writing (very bad compared to westerners), and (hahaha) 570 for critical reading, which I presumed put my English language proficiency in doubt. The lesson is, never take a test without doing practice problems!

6. I did not convey a huge part of my life

I had the option of sending additional stuffs to Stanford to supplement the application. But because it has an earlier deadline and I was not able to make it, I did not. And I could have send in recordings of my piano performance, my songs, my advertisements, my copywriting work, my architecture work, my product design portfolio, etc, etc. Those are some of the things that I spend most of my time doing. And I wasted a golden opportunity.

7. I sounded like an irresponsible person

I wrote in to apologize that I did not put my signature at some parts of the application, where I was supposed to. Yes, I did not complete my application, and I wrote in to apologize. (?!)

8. I was not consistent

At one part of my essay, I wrote that I believed schooling is absolutely unnecessary. On another part I wrote how I desperately want to get into Stanford and enjoy all the benefits of SCHOOLING at Stanford.

9. I did not refine my assumptions

I did not have enough time to write and re-write my essays. I made assumptions. Which might be wrong. I could have shown it to more people. I could have talk to more people about it, get their perspectives, and refine my own assumption.

10. I appeared indecisive

At first, I applied for financial aid. Months later, fearing that applying for financial aid would jeopardize my chances, I wrote in to tell them I don’t need financial aid anymore, and that local corporations are offering financial aids as well. I’m guessing such a flip-flop did not augur well for me.

11. I came across as a jerk

I wrote about my passion for advertising. Yet, I failed terribly to SELL myself. I imagined at some point during the evaluation period, the admission officers all concurred, “This guy is a jerk!”.

12. I stood for everything, and everything means nothing

I think this is the most important reason why I was rejected. In the whole application, I appeared to be the quantity-over-quality guy. I appeared to want to be everything. And as the saying goes, everything means nothing. More is less. I did not display my depth of commitment in one or a few areas. I appeared to want to be the Renaissance man. The Leonardo Da Vinci. The Michelangelo. The Medici family.

I really love music, and architecture, and product design, and business, and engineering, and electronics, and community services, and advertising, and epistemology, pretty much everything (except for competitive sports, although I do jog about 2km and work-out my abs and chest every morning).

But alas, I am just not there yet. I need to work on “depth” to balance up with “breadth”. I sometimes think that I could be more successful if I could just focus and give up on some things. But I think no one has mastered both the breadth and depth since the Renaissance period. And I want to try to do that.

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Those are basically 12 reasons why I was rejected. So the main thrust is that I think it is my inadequacy in the presentation of application that had cost me an admission letter, not so much of my personal limitations (in the spirit of self-belief). As intransigent as anything, I am currently actively planning my next course of action based on these reasons. Things are far from over. Haha, because good things come to those who waited. I will apply again for class of 2013.

I am invincible. I have the capacity and audacity to fail, pull the plug, clear the desk, and start from scratch. Now, when’s the next test date for the SAT?