Thank you for your kind words. I’m grateful for all the support I’ve had getting here, and I felt weird doing this video about me, when so many people have helped me throughout, and when I’m wary of possibly intimidating and discouraging others rather than supporting and inspiring them, like people have supported and inspired me. Your thoughts have touched my heart deeply. Thank you for commenting.

I'm really glad to have helped you out. Thank you for supporting me, I appreciate your kind words!

Thank you so much! Thank you for all your viewership over the past couple of years! I see you comment from time to time and I'm always glad to see you on my videos! I wish you the best too!

Hi Cymr, thanks for your comment. I really hope you go where you want to go. The college admissions process SUCKS, and I hope the odds are in your favor. It's alright to be authentic- often, colleges are looking for people diverse in personality and who can fill the different niches in their student body! So as Owl City's "Fiji Water" expressed, its okay to be an oddity- there is more to you than meets the eye, so be who you want to be! Keep being true to yourself!

I think some videos can set intimidatingly high expectations, so I’m really glad you find help from this video!

Know that many people including myself will be praying for you. Read King James version of Proverbs 3, Love from Alabama

You are so welcome! Thanks for watching! :DD

Thank you!

I will insyallah! Thank you for the well wishes!

Hi Andres, Thank you for your comment. Reading it meant a lot to me and I'm grateful to know your life story. Your life is filled with a lot of challenges- moving around constantly, being a military child, and dealing with autism in the world we live in today, and I admire you for all you have grown through. When you publish your book, please send me the details so I can read it.I wish you the best of luck on completing your degree and living a fulfilling life. I hope, if fortune grants it, that we can meet someday! Kindly, Aiman

Thank you for believing in me. I appreciate your kind words!

Thank you!!! ^-^

Thank you! :D

THANK YOU

Most importantly, with proper support and initiative, it's manageable!

Yes, they are! How did you know? Also, thank you for the compliment, it means a lot to me C: good luck on Stanford! It's a wonderful school!

Saurrrrr!!!

I took the UCONN courses during the school year! They were taught by a teacher at my high school, whereas I actually took the Yale courses with other Yale students during the school year!

Awww, thanks!

I plan to major in Mechanical Engineering, but I might also be interested in Business Administration by recommendation of my friend due to the possible career flexibility. I'm also interested in minoring in Physics and in Art! Thanks for watching!

Yes, I had interviews with Harvard, Yale, MIT, Stanford, Rice, and Princeton. Cornell had an “interview” but they told us it was a discussion as opposed to an interview.

I took courses at Yale through a partnership program they have with the school district I was in, New Haven Public Schools! Undertaking a lot of rigorous coursework definitely requires grit. Yknow, maybe I’ll make a video on how to manage a heavy courseload! Thanks for watching!

@@EyeOnAiman that would be amazing if you could do that

Hi! Thanks for your questions! I appreciate them! Don't worry about asking them- they're cool! Question 1: Studying for the SAT and ACT The SAT and ACT are both a bit different but the way I'd suggest studying for it is taking practice tests. This allows you to both experience the feeling of taking the test for real (so you can mentally prepare yourself) and also check which areas you need to improve on. Focus on correcting and improving your weak areas first and foremost, then on reinforcing your strong areas. If you are better at math, a lot of people say the SAT has easier math questions (this is oversimplifying it, they're "different" but not necessarily easier), but if you are better at verbal, a lot of people say the ACT has easier English questions! Take both if you have a fee waiver because it can't hurt you then! For the SAT, you can old practice tests online on Collegeboard's website. I don't know where you can find practice tests for the ACT, but if you have a fee waiver, you can use the ACT's own official Kaplan test prep course. TL:DR- Practice tests for mental preparation and using it to assess where you're weak so you know what to study. Question 2: Passions Try to make yourself open to everything. Find a lot of stuff and see if you "feel" fulfilled by doing it. In particular, try finding productive things that you can get lost doing or lose a sense of time doing. And balance it with your work. The idea is "Work, then play", not "Work > Play" or "Play > Work"- while work takes priority, it's also important to make sure you're doing the things you love at the same time! It's even better if you love doing your work, but you don't have to. And you definitely have interests. Favorite movies? Favorite TV shows? Favorite activities to do? Sports? Video games? Set time aside to do those, and find things you're okay doing by yourself. To be fully transparent, you can't tell someone exactly how to find their passion. They have to find it for themselves. But there are symptoms of passion, like what I stated before. Question 3: Dual Enrollment Explanation: (it's a bit complicated) Some people say that dual enrollment courses are courses you take at (in-person) or with (live online) a college while you're in high school. Others may say that dual enrollment refers specifically to courses that are taught at your high school but have college-level rigor. At my school, we used this definition. Typically they're GPA weighed like AP, IB, or honors classes depending on your school, because college course rigor is more than the typical high school course rigor. Pros: Colleges and programs view people who take dual enrollment courses as people with more rigor, making them more appealing applicants. High school dual enrollment courses I took, which were literature and history based offered a college level perspective on those subjects, rather than the base level high school perspective that might not be as enriching. College courses also offer exploration beyond normal high school courses- at Yale, I learned about copyright law, and at UNH, I learned about criminal justice, which I never would have learned in high school. Dual enrollment courses might be used for transfer credit if you go to that college, perhaps even allowing you to graduate early and with less debt if you accrue enough credits! Some credits may even transfer to other schools if they're willing to accept them! Cons: Obviously, dual enrollment courses have more rigor- they're challenging, harder, and frustrating. While I loved the college courses I took, I actually hated the high school dual enrollment courses I took (because they were english and history, both of which I hate). So consider if you're willing to go the extra mile and put in that effort. Especially if a dual enrollment course doesn't seem fulfilling or interesting to you. Dual enrollment courses may demand a higher, more sophisticated workload than you're used to, requiring longer hours or study outside of class, so you must also assess whether you can manage that workload, and balance it with your high school work. Additional Info: If you go by the definition of attending courses at another college, you might have to think about time management- colleges and high schools don't run on the same schedule. You may be limited in your selection of classes, you may find yourself having to struggle with transportation to and from the college, and going to college on days when you might have a break on high school. Look at other resources on these questions, as I definitely did not cover all the intricacies of each, but those are my few cents! I wish you the best of luck and I hope you work hard and go through high school feeling fulfilled! :D

@@EyeOnAiman Thank you so much for the advice and the encouragement!!

Usually that would go in your Work section! Being a member of the sustainability council is better suited for your Activities section!

@@EyeOnAiman Okay thank you!

Hey, thanks for the question! For my visual art submissions, each college had a specific "Slideroom" website to submit files to. I am not sure if it's the same for music submissions, but it likely has the same format. I would suggest just making a separate document/website for your music portfolios anyway, so that you can reference it for later or for applications that require you to attach a music portfolio!

While content knowledge is important to standardized testing, being a good test taker is also key- being able to eliminate answers, critically think to reason for answers when I don't know them for sure, putting possible answers even when I didn't know for sure, and being able to memorize certain tips and tricks were significant factors in my scores. For specific exams: AP Bio - This was easier because I watched a lot of Wild Kratts when I was younger, so I had a lot of latent knowledge in the back of my mind. But drawing models to make sense of different topics really helps. AP Calc AB/BC - Do a lot of practice specifically in content areas which you are underdeveloped. I was underdeveloped in differential equations and sequences and series, so I trained in DiffEQ and watched videos on series (because I did not have enough time) and just drew on brief memories I had of those videos AP Computer Science Principles - Though I got a 4 on this exam, it is the second easiest exam because it is for computer literate people and most youths nowadays are computer literate; I likely got a 4 because I had a poor performance task, so make sure you stick to the rubric when doing it. AP Psychology - Memorization for the easiest AP test; I have never used flashcards, except for in AP Psych. A lot of the questions are intuitive as long as you have that latent memory. AP Chemistry - My class did not finish the course by the time I took the test (well... I didn't, I took the paper test alone earlier than my digital peers) but I will say that procedural knowledge (knowing when, where, and how to apply procedures and formulas) is key. AP Lang - This is a toss up. Test taking strategies pulled through for me here, and when writing the essays, I referred as best I could to the rubrics. I think this was a chance 5. AP Physics - Physics kinda asks for a mindset (just /reading/ some problems can be difficult), so its important to inculcate that mindset through repetitive practice; also, drawing models REALLY helps in physics. AP USH - I didn't take APUSH as a class, but I took a college class on US history. Test taking strategies helped me out here, as well as content recollection from my classes. AP Stats - I took this when it was online, only 2 FRQs. For me, remembering sentence structures depending on the topic I was given (for example, for correlation variability, it'd be like "n% of the variability of x is dependent on the variability of y" or something like that), really helped me. AP US Gov - I took this when it was online, only 2 FRQs. The questions happened to be about topics I was very familiar with, and I drew on every little thing I could possibly remember from the course.

Take my advice recognizing that I’m not an admissions officer so I can’t say for certain how the process happens- but also acknowledge that it is difficult for international students to get into the top universities here. That being said, you can make yourself stand out with extracurriculars, the activities you do outside of academics, and a well written essay! There are more specific resources and videos out there to help international students get into colleges here so I suggest you keep doing more research and asking more questions to get a better sense of what to focus on! Sorry for The nonspecific answer- there are a lot more qualified people experienced in this matter than I am!

@@EyeOnAiman You were of great help. Thanks!

Thank you!

We both know that using the bathroom is a cheat, it’s not fair to the other students 😅

Hi! Any high school senior, regardless of citizenship, is eligible for QuestBridge, as long as you attend high school in the United States! Good luck with your application!

I committed to Harvard, for mechanical engineering! I’ll be doing a separate video on why I chose Harvard, so stay tuned! Stanford actually would have been the better choice for mechE, so it wasn’t an instant decision!

@@EyeOnAiman I’m also planning on majoring in mechanical engineering, so I’m interested on knowing why you chose Harvard! I’ll stay tuned :)

Terima kasih!

I didn't study often, maybe up to 5-10 hrs a week if I really needed to, but in high school, a lot of my learning took place in the classroom, where I paid a lot of attention and asked a lot of questions. I encourage everyone to have emotional intelligence with their studying and to know how they study, where their strengths and weaknesses lie, and how to effectively study. I spent maybe 15 hrs on homework per week, going up to 30 if we had projects due. However, despite the time I personally took studying, I want to emphasize that studying is still extremely important!

Go beyond! Plus ultra!

Well, 3 years is a lot of time to work on them. I'm a senior and I only really started participating in ECS at the end of junior year which I do NOT reccommend. Starting now is a good idea

It's never too late to start!

No, but I can offer my advice if you want!

Yeah, I wish I could have done more sports in high school but there were too many issues with getting involved, especially the fact that my school didn't have any sports teams.

@@EyeOnAiman Ok, kind of makes it hard if your school has no sports teams!

What’s that supposed to mean 😳

@@EyeOnAiman ur too smart to be held back and u look to old to be 18 or 19

@@EyeOnAiman you just look a lot older and the way you express yourself is mature, to say the least. are you actually 18?

What a weird comment

Yes, he looks younger than 18.. He is soooo cute and adorable..!

What?

(01:48) A lot of people don’t recognize how instrumental parents are to their children’s future- they are a major source of support, motivation, and guidance, and the presence of great parents can help push a student to their best self. I am very thankful for my parents for always supporting and loving me, and I am grateful for the sacrifices they made for my future. I mentioned them throughout the video. To attribute it to my parents solely and to disregard the rest as “incidental” would invalidate the efforts I put forth myself for my future. A lot of the things I demonstrated in this video were of my own initiative, and I do believe that while it is important to recognize that my parents wonderfully facilitated my growth, it was through my efforts that I got here. For a student to succeed, they should be propelled by extrinsic factors (parents, family, community, and friends) and intrinsic factors (intrinsic motivation, interests, hobbies) and develop that grit for academic success. “The rest” is not incidental. Those facets of myself, along with the hopes and dreams of the people who support me, of the friends and community who built me up, of my dear parents who raised and supported me, are significant parts of who I am, and I am thankful for the help I have received getting here.

@@EyeOnAiman very good

@@EyeOnAiman I didn't have time to fully address your response, so here goes. I'll keep it brief. Despite all the beautiful things you said. The time, space, opportunity to work hard in a relatively peaceful environment without fear of gangs, not having to really work a job (of course your job is to be a student), comes from those who have provided it for you. Hardwork based on your own efforts is definitely a factor young man, and I'm not in anyway taking that from you. However, in your particular case, the space, time, peace, that causes the fruitful outcome of your wonderful efforts do not completely come from you. In a large part they come from the sacrifices of those who come before u. Your wonderful parents, which it's very clear that you have. For some children, college is the furthest thing from their minds, simply because they just haven't been exposed. Malcolm Gladwell writes a lot about this concept in Outliers. Yes, it was super extreme of use the word "incidental". That was wrong.