Angad’s two‑question rule for crafting an application is a gold standard to try for yourself.

Why it works: admissions readers skim thousands of files and pattern‑match in seconds. Generic lines (“I’m passionate about computer science and helping others”) dissolve into the slush because hundreds of kids write them. Angad’s first question is an anti‑generic filter. It forces specifics (nouns, numbers, names, outcomes) until the sentence becomes irreducibly you. The second question is an integrity check. It prevents try‑hard, performative writing that rings false. Together, they create sentences that are both undeniably personal and verifiably real, which is exactly what fatigued readers trust. It also sharpens fit. Tailoring isn’t stuffing a school’s name into a paragraph; it’s choosing proof points that match the school’s actual values and programs. Angad didn’t simply state he likes “tech + leadership”; he wrote a separate essay for Berkeley’s ultra‑selective M.E.T. program because his record (building automations, scaling a nonprofit, deploying ML) maps to M.E.T.’s builder‑entrepreneur DNA.

Try bringing general thoughts to life with concrete examples. Show them who you are through story rather than telling them outright.

Colleges care because specifics cut through the noise. Admissions officers skim thousands of files, and only concrete details survive the blur. Those details also build trust, since verifiable examples carry more weight than polished but vague claims. And when chosen intentionally, they not only show what you’ve accomplished, but also signal how you’ll fit with and contribute to that particular campus, not just any school.

Based on Angad's rules, run your application drafts through a quick check.

When asked how to find authentic passions, Angad’s advice was pragmatic: try everything first.

He paired journaling with strict time-blocking to keep commitments in balance. “After school I’d work out, then spend the first hour on my nonprofit, second on homework, third on another project, and so on.” He also distinguished himself from applicants that join countless clubs and orgs just to pad their application and look smart. Rather than engage on a surface level, he joined with the intention to test personal hypotheses and explore his interests.

• 425 Tutoring — CEO — Scaled a tutoring nonprofit to 700+ tutor–student matches (450% growth) serving disadvantaged communities; built automated pairing software and oversaw curriculum development. • Kiddie Academy — Software Engineer — Created 15 automated HR workflows saving 2,000+ hours/year; digitized 1,900+ employee records; integrated OpenAI-powered sentiment analysis into HR systems to improve employee engagement tracking. • Hack Club — Co-Founder & Co-President — Launched and led a local chapter; maintained a course schedule site with 2,900+ monthly visits and hosted events with 80+ attendees, including Google DeepMind guest speakers, on $0 budget. • Class Proxima — Machine Learning Engineer Intern — Fine-tuned CLIP models with Caltech and MINES Paris researchers to compile daily video summaries for childcare centers; achieved 83% accuracy and 57% latency reduction; deployed adaptive ML systems to edge devices. • University of Cambridge — Research Intern — Mentored by Dr. Taher Pilehvar; fine-tuned BERT for targeted entity lexical smoothing, contributing to ongoing NLP research. • Debate — Competitor & Coach — Ranked Top 10 in state; founded and ran a summer debate camp for ~80 students, designing curriculum and leading instruction. • Perfect ACT Score — 36/36 — Demonstrated mastery across all tested subjects, positioning academics as a foundation for broader impact. • Microsoft Certified: Power Platform Fundamentals — Validated proficiency in building automated workflows, apps, and data solutions on Microsoft’s low-code platform.

🎯 The Specialist — Depth over breadth. You build expertise in a niche field rather than spreading yourself thin. Colleges value Specialists because they know you’ll arrive ready to contribute in a specific domain. For Angad, that domain was electrical engineering and computer science. His high school years were anchored by four CS/EECS internships, including research at Caltech and the University of Cambridge, software engineering for a real company, and machine learning model deployment with measurable performance gains. Even his nonprofit leadership involved building automated tutor–student pairing systems. Every experience, from debate camp to HR automation, was an extension of his core technical skill set. 💯 The Perfect Score — Your academic excellence speaks for itself. You might be a valedictorian, an academic decathlete, or have a perfect SAT/ACT. Few people can match your numbers, but the best Perfect Scores also show they’re more than their stats. As more schools go test-optional, it’s not just about acing the exam — it’s about pairing that achievement with personality, leadership, and impact. Angad’s 36/36 ACT was a signal of mastery across every tested subject, but he didn’t stop there. He used that foundation to pursue high-level research, technical internships, and leadership roles that made his application far more than a number. The perfect score gave him credibility; his specialization gave him character.

Q: Now that you’ve been through the college application process, what’s a piece of advice you’d give your past self starting out?

Q: Now that you’ve decided on Berkeley EECS, how did that whole process of picking your final school actually go? Did you always have Berkeley in mind, or was it more like starting with a bunch of options and narrowing down? A: Honestly, this goes back to junior year. I had this massive college list — like, literally any school I’d ever heard of went on it. Then I started doing the research: looking at their websites, watching YouTube videos, talking to people who went there. Slowly I cut it down based on fit for my major, which is electrical engineering and computer science, and what I wanted to do in the future. Berkeley CS is… yeah, it’s kind of a luck game. Out-of-state admit rate is about 1%. So I didn’t go in thinking, “I’m gonna get in.” I just applied and hoped for the best. The real narrowing happened after I got in — I looked at all the schools I’d been accepted to, compared them to the criteria I set for myself, and Berkeley just made the most sense. Q: How many schools did you end up applying to? A: Twenty-five. Q: Wow. What’s applying to that many like? Could you reuse essays or did you have to write from scratch every time? A: The UCs were easy — six of those schools but just one application. I also had a couple of local state schools with no essays. But for the Ivies, Stanford, MIT… you have to write unique essays for each one. Berkeley also had me apply to this special program called M.E.T. — Management, Entrepreneurship & Technology — so I had to write an extra essay for that. Some essays you can reuse, but for the top schools, you really need to make them specific. Q: For Berkeley specifically, was there anything you did to make your application stand out? A: Yeah — whenever I wrote something, I asked myself two questions. First: Could anyone else have written this? If the answer was yes, I changed it. Second: Is it actually true to me? If the answer was no, I rewrote it. If you hit both of those, the admissions people can tell you’re not just another generic applicant. Q: What were some things on your résumé that you feel no one else could have written exactly the same way? A: I think for any major you apply to, you should have actual experience in that field. For me, that meant four internships in high school. Two were research — one with Caltech and one with a Cambridge professor — and two were software engineering. I made sure I could show real, measurable impact from each one. I also ran a nonprofit that connected K–6 students in disadvantaged communities with high school tutors. We matched 700 tutor–student pairs during my time there. I didn’t start the organization — I joined freshman year and grew with it through senior year, which I think showed growth. And then debate — I was top 10 in my state, and I started a summer debate camp that had about 80 students. So overall, it’s like: computer science, education, debate — all tied together with impact. Q: If you were talking to a freshman in high school, how would you tell them to find their passions and turn them into something real? A: You’re usually passionate about stuff you’re both good at and enjoy. But you don’t know what those things are until you try a lot. Freshman year, I joined a bunch of clubs and orgs. Sophomore year, I started narrowing down to what I actually liked doing. One thing that helped was keeping a daily journal — just writing down what I did that day and whether I liked it. Over time, you can see patterns. Q: When did you start journaling? A: Sophomore year. I also started keeping a to-do list so I didn’t lose track of things. Q: Outside of journaling and to-do lists, what else helped you manage your time? A: Time-blocking. I had a set routine — after school, I’d work out, then spend the first hour on my nonprofit, second on homework, third on another project, and so on. Q: Now that you’ve been through the whole process, what advice would you give your past self? A: Don’t set arbitrary limits for yourself. A lot of what we think we can’t do is just in our heads. Try new things, push past what you think your limit is. Even if you don’t succeed in one area, you might in another. The important part is that you’re actually doing stuff, not just thinking about it. Q: Last one — were there any essays you felt really showed who you are beyond the numbers? A: For Berkeley, not so much — their essays are super straightforward and focused on stats. But for other schools, like Stanford, they were more creative. I wrote one about how in math class I started reading graduate-level textbooks on the side. Stuff like that, where you’re clearly pushing yourself beyond what’s expected, really stood out.