Aiden

Two-Year Package | Vanderbilt

Aiden joined us in 11th grade from Thomas Jefferson High School of Science and Technology (TJHSST). Although a 4.39 GPA and a rigorous course load would impress at most schools, at TJ it placed him well below peers targeting T20 colleges. With a B+ in APUSH, an A– in English, a 4 on the AP Computer Science exam, and an ACT that needed work, schools like MIT, Caltech, Berkeley, and Michigan were realistic only if something extraordinary offset the numbers.

Insight

Aiden’s transcript told one story, but his outside-the-classroom choices told another: every summer he skipped GPA-padding AP courses to build. He was already prototyping AI tools and teaching underserved students to code—evidence of entrepreneurial grit and social purpose. The key would be to make colleges see that trade-off as intentional, not under-performance.

Strategy & Execution

Testing lift. We paired Aiden with a specialist to raise his ACT from a 28 to a 34, clearing the basic academic bar.

Entrepreneurship + impact.

  • Non-profit expansion: Guided him in scaling a coding-and-robotics nonprofit from Northern Virginia to seven states and India.

  • Mission-driven startup: Helped shape a for-profit company building AI tools anchored in ethical use cases—securing $200 K in external funding by senior year.

Ethics angle for CS. To differentiate in a saturated computer-science pool, we built a CS + Philosophy hook:

  • Curated online coursework in philosophy and ethics.

  • Mentored him through a publishable research paper on AI personhood with a Georgia Tech professor.

  • Integrated that ethical lens into essays and recommendations, framing GPA trade-offs as purposeful time allocation.

Narrative coherence. Every element—resume bullets, activities list, supplemental essays—highlighted principled innovation over grade-chasing.

Outcome

Aiden applied Early Decision to Vanderbilt, whose admissions readers prize intellectual spark backed by tangible impact. His acceptance confirmed the power of an authentic, mission-centered story: a builder who chose people and progress over incremental GPA points, and proved it in code, classrooms, and research.