Personal Statement
I am a Junior at Shanghai American School Puxi Campus. As a South Korean student that lives in Shanghai while studying in an American school, I've been in touch with diverse cultures all my life. At SAS, I'm a sprinter for the school Varsity team. I primarily run the 200m and the 400m.
I've been passionate about the sport since middle school, which culminated to winning the Junior MVP award in freshman year in the Varsity team. I ran 56s for the 400m and a 24.9 for the 200m that year as a Freshman. The year after, I ran 55s for the 400m.
Jugging Science National Honor Society, Mu Alpha Theta (Math Honor Society), writing papers, traveling to the U.S. for Intel ISEF, cold-emailing professors, and taking 6 AP exams, it hurts me to realize that I did not prioritize Track & Field as much in my Junior year, which did not allow me to perform to my fullest. The season was less than 8 weeks long including a weeklong break and coincidentally our track had been rendered broken (we trained on grass). I ended up running low 55s for that season, yet I knew that I could perform at a much higher capacity had I knew better and had it not been in the single busiest month in my life. I know this because I remember the times when I trained in negative temperatures with minimal clothing running 100m repeats in our school track, well beyond the hours we were allowed to be on campus. My peers surrounding me and my teachers recognize me for my perseverance and dedication; I made a mistake this year and I know I will never repeat myself. Whichever school I will be a sprinter for, I know that I will run at my fullest potential for.
Under preferences I chose that I am only looking for highly academic schools that are strong in STEM. I was an Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) 2018 finalist and won numerous awards with a machine learning project. More can be found about me in my personal webpage: http://chanwookim.com.