Hi, I am Sherbek Abdurahmonov, and I am originally from Xovos, a small rural village situated in Sirdaryo, Uzbekistan. This year, I got into Colby College and Georgetown University Qatar with full-ride scholarships. I committed to Colby College and will start my studies as a government & politics major and mathematics minor at Maine, US this year as a freshman.

My Background & Academics

I studied at a public school for nine years in Xovos before moving to Cambridge International College (CIC), Tashkent with a full merit-based scholarship where I completed the last two years of my high school. Although much more rigorous and better facilitated, CIC does not provide internationally recognized exams such as A-levels, IB, or APs; we studied the national curriculum. That is why even having an almost perfect GPA (4.99/5.00, unweighted) was not satisfactory in my case, so, I knew that having a high SAT score was imperative for my admissions success since it shows high academic standards and compatibility in rigorous environments like in universities. However, standardized tests were not my strength. Taking Freshman’s SAT course was definitely helpful for me since it helped to systematize the learning time and find like-minded students who were also preparing for an exam and had practice sessions together. At last, thankfully I accomplished getting an SAT 1500. At that point, I was certain not to spend any more time on tests anymore. Also, I had an IELTS 7.5 which I think was decent enough. My advice for anyone applying this year or in upcoming years would be that if you are coming from a public school like me or your school does not provide any international tests mentioned above, having a high SAT score is almost a must, especially now universities reinstating test requirements; otherwise, I would not recommend spending much time on it: instead, focus on the other parts of your application like activities or essays.

My Activities

I could say that I was able to demonstrate my passion, intellectual vitality, commitment, and community-mindedness throughout my activities and in short descriptions. Also, those fit in the narrative I was trying to build throughout my essays. I will briefly introduce some of the activities I did and explain what I meant by my “narrative” soon.

First, I won a full scholarship to participate in the Pioneer Academics Research program where I conducted a research project with a Northwestern University professor and got “A” college credit. My experience with Pioneer did not end there: after the successful completion of the program, I reached out to the Directory Board to show my gratitude for giving me an opportunity like this which otherwise I would never have considering my low-income background and requested to join the community as a volunteer to contribute to its development further. Here, I received one of the most impactful experiences ever: I became an Advisory Board member and later joined the leadership team. This particular activity was especially insightful since I was basically stepping up from a learner to a leader functioning in an international environment and working with the arguably most talented students and professors around the world. I am still involved in the leadership/presentation team activities up until now but on an official role and paid basis. Deriving these two experiences, I decided to found my passion project and named it ResearchLab. The purpose of the initiative was to gather ambitious and high-achieving public school students, like me back in the day, and help them to get a glimpse of what undergraduate research looks like. I conducted research seminars and individual sessions where I did my best to share my experience and help them cold email professors for finding mentorship or research assistance positions. Overall, the experience was quite successful I can proudly say.

Some of my other activities were conducting another research project with a local renowned professor, participating in Future Generation of Scientists and Veritas AI with full scholarships, and being a member of book and movie clubs. My general advice to anyone trying to build impactful and strong activities would be to find an activity that you are truly passionate about and demonstrate your passion, academic strength, and community-mindedness, which are basically what all colleges look for from students, around and deriving from it.

Essays

The personal statement idea came easily for me since I had a unique narrative as a first-generation/low-income student coming from a rural area and escaping the narrative by getting involved in high-profile academic and community activities. I tried to build the whole narrative around this profile by showing the typical struggles of village people like me and engaging in high-level talks during group discussions with my cohort members and professor at Pioneer. The story, in short, demonstrated the transition and my future aspirations in academia and community. It is especially the right time for those who have not started thinking about writing a personal statement and applying this year: procrastinate no further and get it started. Find the unique experience you had and build the story around it, showcasing your personality. After all, every one of us has a unique story to tell; we just have to dig deeper to find and convey it as Valera Arakelyal, Founder of Freshman Academy, said.