What are my chances and matches? US HS Junior

Chance Me / Match Me!
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Demographics

  • US domestic
  • NJ resident
    Top Private School in NJ(45 min drive to school)
  • Female/White/Jewish
  • Legacy for Cornell(Parent), Legacy for Rutgers(Grandparent)

**Biology Major(s) or similar to that

  • 4.3 Weighted Gpa
  • My school does not do class rank
  • ACT/SAT Scores: currently have a 33 ACT score but will try to get higher

Coursework
Freshman and Sophmore year I took normal classes since my school doesn’t do AP classes during those years. Includes Biology and Chemistry for these two years

Accelerated math for two years
Currently a Junior

Junior Year:
AP Human Geo-did not take ap test yet
AP Biology-did not take ap test yet
Spanish IV
Reg English Sem
Precalculus

Senior Year
AP Enviro
AP Psych
Spanish V
Calculus
Reg English
Physics

Extracurriculars

Athletics
Varsity Basketball-Sophmore and Senior Year(going to be captain senior year)
Varsity Lacrosse-Sophmore Year
Varsity Soccer-Sophmore,Junior, Senior Year(going to be captain senior year)

Additional Extracurriculars

TAG(Teen Advisory Group)(Leadership Role Next Year)
Ambassador for Tour Guides(Leadership Position)
EnACT(Member)
Spokesmen Social Media Content Creator(Member Position)
Debate Club(Member)
French Club(Member)
Science Club(Member)
Science Olympiad(Member)
Science Meets Society(Member)
Model UN(Member)
Jewish Union(Head of Jewish Union Senior Year)
P.A.W.S(Member)
My senior year I could be a peer group leader which is a leadership role

Work Experience

  • Worked at a summer camp for summer 2021

Volunteering
Freshman Year-Tour Guide(10 Hours)
Sophmore Year-Tour Guide, Summer Camp Counselor(two months)-(70 Hours)
Junior YearCurrent-Tour Guide, EnACT, TAG, and I will be volunteering at a hospital this summer(more than 150 hours)

Essays/LORs/Other
I have not started writing college essays but my school has a great college counseling team so I will most likely have good essays and good recommendations.

Cost Constraints / Budget
I have no budget on schools

Schools(no scholarships necessary)
ED: Cornell University-College of Arts and Sciences or College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

  • Safety
    Syracuse(RD), Rutgers(RD), Virginia Tech(RD)

  • Likely
    American(RD), Florida State(RD), Central Florida(RD), George Washington(RD), Lehigh(RD),

  • Match
    Boston University(EA), University of Michigan(EA), UNC(RD), Northeastern(RD), Tufts(RD), UMiami(RD), University of Florida(RD)

  • Reach
    Wash U in St. Louis(RD), Vanderbilt University(RD) UVA(RD), Upenn(RD), Georgia Tech(RD), NYU(RD), Georgetown(RD), UCLA(RD)

disclaimer
These are just all the schools on my current list but I will not applying to all of them.

Thank you for helping me out!

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You sound like a great student and I think you’ve classified most of your schools correctly. There are a couple I wonder about but I’ll let others who are more familiar with them chime in.

I’m wondering what you mean by this :

Does this mean your parents are ok paying full price or does it mean you don’t know what your budget is?

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Do you have any interest in purely undergraduate-focused schools? Haverford, for example, would be excellent for the study of biology.

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Sorry for not clarifying that but my parents are ok paying full price!

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I am looking to attend a larger school so most likely not a liberal arts college

6

Do you have post grad plans… MD or PhD?

I believe some of your matches are reaches, due to low admit rates (OOS rates in the case of publics).

I also suggest applying EA to any schools with that option.

I agree with your comment that you will have the best advising from your private school counselor and assume you will also have access to Naviance or Scoir. If you do have plans for med school, look closely for the schools where you feel you will be happiest… that goes a long way to helping you keep the high GPA needed for those apps.

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7

For further ideas which may align with your current choices, look into Emory, Brandeis and CWRU.

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Does you high school offer AP English, calculus, Spanish, or physics? When your counselor fills out the required forms, will they be able to say that you have taken the most challenging coursework offered? If so, that’s great. If not, that might be a ding for some of the more competitive schools, because many of them view the rigor as one of the most important parts of an application. There are some who consider Environmental Science and Psychology as AP-lite, so that might be a consideration for you as you work on your senior year schedule.

For your extracurriculars, are the leadership and varsity captain positions already known because they’re awarded based on seniority and you’ll have the most by that time, or are these goals that you’re hoping to achieve next fall?

As mentioned upthread, if your school is the top private high school in the state, your school’s counselors should be able to give you excellent advice.

Also, what is your unweighted GPA?

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I agree with this, I would even say most of the matches are reaches for all students . For example, NE may be a match ED because that’s where it takes most of its students, the RD acceptance rate is below 10 percent. UNC has an 8 percent OOS acceptance rate. Given thIs, I would make sure that you would be happy attending the schools that you listed as safeties/likelies, and narrowing the list of schools you currently have as matches and reaches.

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10

What’s the purpose of saying you have a 45 minute commute ?

Your schools are very different - for example Cornell and GW. How were they picked?

As you are at a top private school I think it’s best you seek guidance from a counselor. They will be your best information. Also you may be able to move up your ACT as it’s early.

If you laid these stats out from a public, I’d say FSU would be a match, and American a likely but only if you expressed interest.

Agree that UF is a match but your other matches would all be reaches.

But note some schools on your match list have early action and you need to apply then vs RD.

But all I’ve rated above doesn’t matter as you go to a top private and that can change everything.

So go talk to your GC.

Good luck.

11

I hope the OP clarifies her end goals. For example, tech schools (eg GATech, VA Tech) are not typically on a pre-med’s list. Which makes me wonder if she may also be considering engineering. And if engineering is a real possibility there are schools on the current list that don’t work so well.

For that reason, I love the suggestion of CWRU above. Maybe U Rochester is worth a look too.

If the OP gets back with more info, we can help fine tune a list for her to discuss with her counselor.

12

I would like to do pre-med and attend medical school in the future. I also understand that OOS is a lot harder to get in and I’m not sure how many schools I could EA(if there is a limit).

Thank you for your response I really appreciate it!

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I am not sure about my unweighted GPA because my school has different levels of classes meaning I would need to find out from my college counselor. My school does not offer AP English and I am not able to take AP Physics because I did not take Physics this year. Instead, I am taking AP Bio. I could do AP Calculus though but I am also considering taking AP Stat. I also understand that AP Enviro and AP Psych are easier AP classes but they would help raise my GPA. The leadership roles are likely but not guaranteed, however, there is a strong chance I will have those roles next year.

Thank you for your feedback!

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Thank you for your feedback, this is really informative. With Cornell, my family is encouraging me to attend and therefore it is my ED. For GW, I really liked schools in D.C so I wanted to include schools in that area such as GW, Georgetown and American. I also fully understand many of these colleges are difficult to get into, especially OOS. I will also try to increase the amount of EA instead of RD.

Thank you once again for your feedback!

15

To find your unweighted GPA, you basically give yourself a 4 for an A, 3 for a B, 2 for a C, 1 for a D, add up all those numbers you just gave yourself and divide by the number of classes you took.

For a more detailed explanation, see the section, “How is Unweighted GPA Caculated?” on this page: What's an Unweighted GPA? How to Calculate It

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So far I am really only interested in pre-med with a biology or science major related to pre-med. VA Tech looked like a school I could get into, in addition I really liked the campus and student life. GA Tech I haven’t really looked at too deeply but heard it was a good school. Overall, I would like to attend a larger school(not sure between city or suburban yet).

Thank you for your response!

17

One of my daughters graduated UDel with an exercise science degree, similar gpa (1 B), 34 act, 9 AP’s including the light ones, but both English ones and AP calc and AP stat (considered one of the easier ones), public NJ HS so not the best counselors. She did not take AP bio, AP chem or any physics and even though she managed to get A’s in those courses in colleges, she really regretted not taking the harder courses in HS, especially chemistry (having just taken honors sophomore year). She’s at BU now for DPT, and knew she’d need a good GPA to get into a good program. Don’t just think short term.

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18

Your parents aren’t going to school. You are. So I’d nix Cornell unless you want to be there.

As for DC, you might add UMD as a large public that’s adjacent.

Private schools -GW, AU, GTOWN etc done have OOS - it’s private. Yes some will give you points you for geographic diversity. Btw - I missed Miami on your list. Agree it’s a match.

While I’m not a med school guru it does seem like schools near shadowing garner a lot of interest - Case Western, Pitt, etc.

If you like the city, you might add College of Charleston with shadowing opportunities at the MUSC which is walking distance. And while I don’t know about shadowing, U of Alabama has the MCCullough Medical Scholars in the Honors College. Both enroll heavily from the NE and both have huge Hillel engagement. Additionally Bama would be dirt cheap. Maybe money doesn’t matter today but how about the four years of med school? You may want to discuss an 8 year plan with your folks and what happens if you don’t go to med school (highly likely - as most don’t get in and many that do have a gap in time).

Back to my first note - go see your counselor - that’s who knows where you’ll fit chance wise.

Good luck.

19

If your goal is med school, then one thing you will need to focus on is getting the highest college GPA you can, including highest science GPA you can. That means you want to get as much preparation as you can in high school (i.e. don’t skip rigor because you fear the effect on your high school GPA). If your GPA drops in high school because you increase the rigor, you can still go to a good college and end up in med school. If your GPA drops in college, then med school may no longer be an option, or it might be an even longer process than it might otherwise have been.

In what type of environment do you do best? Do you prefer an environment where everyone is super strong and pushing the whole group to be the best? Or do you prefer where you’re in the top 10-20% where you’re getting a challenge, but you’re one of the stronger students? Think about that as you decide what type of school you want to apply to. Remember, that half of the students who go to any university as bio majors (or similar pre-med) are going to end up in the bottom 50% of their class, regardless of whether that’s Harvard or Directional State U. Med schools will want to see a high GPA, a high MCAT, and lots of medical-related experience (volunteering, shadowing, etc).

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20

You should first sit down and talk to your parents and consider their wishes, listen to their insights and work collaboratively. They are not only paying close to $50k for your HS (using Pingry as a benchmark) they know you best and undoubtedly have your best interest in mind.

You should then schedule and sit down with your guidance counselor. Once again based on your description, I used Pingry as an example and you have amazing resources.

This venue (college confidential) should only serve as a sounding board to “tweak” a plan constructed with your GC and parents given your circumstances.

For schools such as the one you attend (20-30% matriculating to T20) the GCs have a high degree of insight and control. They understand where you stand in relative terms versus your peers and consequently where your LORs will place you. Additionally schools such as the one you attend have traditional “feeder” relationships. This hierarchy and HS history will play a significant role in your outcomes and require insights that an anonymous review can’t consider or provide.

Thankfully you don’t have to be distracted with finances and will have people who know you well and are extremely knowledgeable about admissions to guide you. While people on CC are well intentioned they can’t possibly provide you with the informed advice you are seeking.

Good luck.

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