Build your profile
Grade, GPA, activities. Takes about 2 minutes.
Students + activities + essays database
Browse real admits. See what they did.
illuma.me/database/students
Real admits · past cycles
№ 0821
Finance/Applied Math
STEM · CS
AsianFemaleNorth Carolina
GPA (W)
4.06
SAT
1330
Decisions
3 adm1 WL1 den
Activities
Democratik AI · Marketing / ComDev intern (10th–12th)
TiE Silicon Valley Program · Student entrepreneur, top-8 pitch
#Snapchat · News reporter / social media manager
№ 0822
Physics
STEM · CS
Asian AmericanMaleNY
GPA (W)
4.00
SAT
1530
Decisions
3 adm1 den
Activities
Varsity Tennis · Captain, section semifinalist
JV Tennis · 4 years, singles player, captain 1 yr
Symphony Orchestra · 1st violin, concertmaster senior year
№ 0823
Physics
STEM · CS
Asian AmericanMaleNY
GPA (W)
4.00
SAT
1530
Decisions
1 adm1 WL1 den
Activities
Varsity Tennis · Captain
JV Tennis · 4 years, singles player
Orchestra · 1st violin
№ 0824
CS
STEM · CS
LatinoMaleCA
GPA (W)
3.95
SAT
1510
Decisions
2 adm1 WL1 den
Activities
Robotics · FRC · Captain, worlds qualifier 2 yrs
USACO · Gold division, top 25% Platinum
Sympy · Open-source contributor, 12 merged PRs
№ 0825
Humanities
Humanities
WhiteFemaleMA
GPA (W)
4.14
SAT
1560
Decisions
4 adm1 WL
Activities
Debate Team · Nat'l qualifier, captain, 3rd place TOC
Lit Magazine · Editor-in-chief, tripled submissions
Youth Court · Judge; presided over 60+ cases
№ 0826
Bio + Policy
STEM · BIO
BlackFemaleGA
GPA (W)
3.88
SAT
1490
Decisions
2 adm1 den
Activities
Bio Research · NYU · Summer researcher, sickle-cell drug screening
Debate · State qualifier (Lincoln-Douglas)
Policy Podcast · Host, 5K downloads / episode
Essay evaluator + sharpener
Score your essay. Sharpen your ECs.
illuma.me/essays/eval
Essay eval · Parsons why-school
paramount · 94
Dimension breakdown
4
Specificity4/4Sensory anchors are dense and bodily across multiple paragraphs — 'a heron standing stock still in the reeds, a dragonfly skimming the water, a turtle that had somehow gotten onto the path' — and informational anchors (Professor M.'s work on civic terrain, the named studio, the derelict park in Queens, the two-meter path shift over a creek) are so precise that the reader inhabits both the writer's childhood world and their current intellectual one simultaneously.
4
Distinctiveness4/4'I want a roomful of people to argue with me about that two meters' is the kind of sentence an AO would read aloud to a colleague — the organizing image of a two-meter path adjustment as the vehicle for an entire intellectual identity is a move no other applicant would land on.
3
Emotional honesty3/4'It was also where a grandmother and grandson wanted to spend their mornings' renders the inherited ritual without explaining the love, and the admission that 'most of my design thinking happens alone' names a real limitation without self-pity — both modes land, though the emotion doesn't quite linger at the next-day level.
3
Voice match3/4Register holds from the sensory opening through the intellectual middle to the quiet close; no paragraph reads as counseling-edited, and the shift from narrative to analytical to aspirational is the same writer moving through modes, not a different hand.
4
Prompt fit4/4The essay doesn't just name Professor M.'s research direction, the three-dimensional design sequence, and the named studio — it shows the writer engaging the prompt as a genuine intellectual question about why this school, not a task to complete, by tracing how the school's specific offerings would correct a named gap (designing alone) in a way few applicants reach.
3
Craft control3/4Every paragraph is structurally distinct and load-bearing — the wetland memory, the engineering reveal, the architectural realization, the critique of American parks, the school pivot, the professor anchor, the studio anchor, the closing aspiration — and the one-sentence paragraph 'That is why I am applying to Parsons' is a deliberate structural hinge that earns its isolation.
3
Show, don't tell3/4The claim that the writer thinks in spatial terms is earned by the Queens park notebook and the two-meter path sketch; the claim about designing alone is earned by the contrast with the studio culture paragraph; no significant claim is left unsubstantiated, though the closing aspiration is stated rather than shown.
4
Earned payoff4/4'Landscapes that solve problems most visitors never notice, while giving them reasons to stop every few steps anyway' closes the loop on the wetland's dual role, the grandmother's herons, and the writer's intellectual goal in a single sentence that earns an exhale — the closing line is the kind an AO reads aloud.
3
Intellectual honesty3/4The essay reads American parks against the grain — 'sites to pass through instead of systems that engage with life in a city' — and the continuity arc (the wetland was already teaching the lesson; the school would let the writer articulate it with others) is non-default and lands cleanly.
School list + chances
Build a balanced list. Know the odds.
illuma.me/list
Your list · 6 of 12 · CS
3 Reach2 Match1 Likely
Reach11%MIT
Cambridge, MA
REA · Nov 1avg 4%
Reach9%Stanford
Stanford, CA
REA · Nov 1avg 4%
Reach14%Carnegie Mellon
Pittsburgh, PA
RD · Jan 3avg 6%
Reach8%Harvard
Cambridge, MA
REA · Nov 1avg 3%
Reach10%Yale
New Haven, CT
SCEA · Nov 1avg 5%
Match34%Georgia Tech
Atlanta, GA
EA · Oct 15avg 17%
Match22%UT Austin
Austin, TX
RD · Dec 1avg 12%
Match29%Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI
EA · Nov 1avg 18%
Match32%UIUC CS
Urbana, IL
RD · Jan 5avg 21%
Likely58%Purdue
West Lafayette, IN
EA · Nov 1avg 42%
Likely52%UMD
College Park, MD
EA · Nov 1avg 38%
Likely61%Wisconsin
Madison, WI
EA · Nov 1avg 44%
We never make things up.
Students trust Illuma to guide real decisions about their time, their money, and their future. That trust is fragile. So we make a promise: we do not present information we cannot verify, we do not cite sources that do not exist, we tell you when we do not know, and when we get something wrong we fix it publicly. Accuracy is not a feature. It is the ground everything else stands on.
“I liked Andy because he kept it real but constructive. Couldn't have gotten into my dream nursing school without him.”— Alexander
“Andy was so insightful during the process and he did everything from essay brainstorms to college lists to making my essays sound more polished.”— Zachary
“Andy was an incredible college counselor throughout the entire process! He was always patient, easy to talk to, and you could really tell he was passionate about writing. His advice was thoughtful and practical, and he took the time to answer my questions without making me feel rushed.”— Allison
Start hereFree · no credit card
Three steps to your first result.
Free to start. No credit card. Cancel or upgrade whenever.
See your college chances
Per-school admit probability built from real past-cycle admits with your profile shape.
Evaluate an essay
Nine-dimension rubric with concrete rewrite suggestions. Read in 30 seconds.
Start free →First 5 minutes: profile setup, then instant chances, then one essay eval.