Hello! I am Omar from Cairo, Egypt. I graduated from STEM High School for Boys - 6th of October in 2021. Currently, I am a rising senior at the University of Chicago. This is my whole journey.

My background

My family moved a lot, and I often found myself changing schools – sometimes, changing countries. I spent middle school in Saudi Arabia, and I was homeschooled. However, at the end of my middle school journey I realized I did not want to stay in Saudi Arabia much longer: I did not have many in-person friends, and I wanted a taste of home once more. To me, STEM Egypt schools was the answer I was seeking, being a boarding school in Egypt. Likewise, after researching the school curriculum, my persuasion increased: it was a school for students who loved mathematics, science, technology, and fabrication. To me, this was the ideal high school experience. I put STEM High School for Boys - 6th of October as my first choice after I sat through the admission exams due to its proximity to Cairo but also its unique and bold building design, which stood in contrast to other STEM schools.

Why I chose the US as a destination

STEM School was a competitive environment. From day one, I wanted to use my passion for knowledge and skills to do something unique. When I was in Saudi Arabia, I developed my grasp of the English language. Thus, my main strength in high school was my English skills. Moreover, after living in Egypt for a time, I did not feel my personality fit in this place. The U.S. was one of the most perfect and obvious options because of its diverse social structure and plentiful academic opportunities. Furthermore, most of my classmates and older classes applied to the U.S. So, I had much information about the admission process.

Why UChicago?

To be honest, UChicago was not my first option. My first option was Harvard and it was my restrictive early action (REA). I preferred Harvard because in middle school and high school, I was doing creative writing and graphic design. Consequently, I looked for a university with a focus on liberal arts and I loved how I could take classes at MIT as well. But I got deferred from Harvard. After the Harvard decision, I began considering UChicago and Middlebury College as options as they fit my application. At first, Middlebury was my ED2 choice and UChicago was part of my RD: I was not too keen on taking another big risk with a top-10 university. On the night both apps were due, I hesitated. I decided to write the UChicago creative essay – an open-ended open-prompt creative response essay and decide accordingly. “If the essay is good, then, well… I will go to UChicago.” My prompt was “what is actually divisible by zero”– very quirky.  I sat down before a Google Doc, took a poem I wrote a while earlier, and repurposed it to fit a faint vision I had for the essay, serving as the introduction. It was a love poem inspired by the sightings of Jupiter and Saturn in the sky at the time. On the other hand, the repurposed poem used a lot of the same imagery to describe how small we are when compared to the expansive universe. As a creative writer, it was easy to write as I go. I wrote 3 pages in 1.5 hours, then I sent the essay to some of my friends and older peers for review. With overwhelmingly positive reactions, I was set on UChicago as my ED2 choice. One last curveball had to be dealt with–UChicago’s app was due in 3 hours and I was still one essay short: the Why UChicago essay. I wrote to the regional admission officer to see if it was okay to submit a late application and I received their affirmation. A while after submitting the application, I also sent a creative writing portfolio, an art portfolio, and my website.

Stats, Grades, and Test scores

• GPA in high school was 4.0/4.0

• ACT was 35/36

• I took TOEFL and my score was 118/120.

Extracurricular activities

I attended a summer program at the University of Iowa and obtained a recommendation from my professor. I was supposed to give a talk in TEDx October but it got canceled due to COVID-19. I gave a talk at TEDx Maadi instead, it is on YouTube. I was vice STEM director at IEEE Helwan University, where we worked to teach high school students coding in C and web development in preparation for our end-of-year high school hackathon In addition, I pondered over adding one extracurricular activity from middle school to my application: Disney Bel-Masry, a Disney fan-page, and campaign that was aimed to change Disney Middle East and North Africa’s dubbing policies. I had been working on it since 2013, reaching over a million followers and playing a key role in the policy changes that later followed. It was the most amount of work I ever put into anything, but I was no older than 16 when I started channeling my efforts elsewhere. Instead of using one of the 10 Common App slots, my dear friend from elementary school, Abdelrahman Khater, who was also my peer at STEM school wrote a recommendation letter for me detailing our middle school involvement with Disney Bel-Masry among others. I wrote him a one as well for his application to NYU. 

Support from community

On the other hand, my friends were my main resource. My connections with school alumni, who went to top schools, were helpful. However, the most important pieces of advice I got from my classmates who helped me review everything from college lists to essays.

Financial aid & Fee Waiver

I applied using the application fee waiver for all my applications. Regarding my college, I got into UChicago with a nearly full scholarship that covers 100% of my needs.

Pros & Cons at UChicago

UChicago is one of the most diverse universities in the whole U.S. The study materials, classes, and professors are amazing. However, I have my contentions: many of the classes are only rigorous in the sense that they focus on the amount of work – not the quality thereof or the learning experience. In addition, many core curricula – the common college curriculum taken by all students – are taught by professors who are only marginally specialized in the topic of the class.  Similarly, most of the classes are reading-based and practical, hands-on classes are a few. I remember I took an acting class to satisfy the art requirement. Having done the acting part of the class, I still had to write 3 play reviews after! UChicago focuses mainly on the theoretical side and not the practical side. As a computer science major with a desire to break into software development, this is not exactly my cup of tea.