I understand that there is no definitive answer to this question, but will I have a good shot of getting into top 25 universities? If not, please leave suggestions about how I can improve.
Background: White middle-class mall living in metro NYC. Not a minority.
Stats:
~97 unweighted GPA, 101 weighted (top 5% of 250 estimated)
June sat ii estimates - 780/790 chem, 770+ world
APs- only able to take two so far, likely 5 on world, 4 on seminar?
ECs / leadership
History Bowl officer (2 years) nationally ranked in geography and history, led team to top 40 at nationals.
Pre Med (starting next year) First treasurer of the club (I will hold this position next year)
DECA state competitor (2 years)
Jazz Band member (2 years)
All State A rating (alto sax)
Science Olympiad member
Science Research (at school for 2 years + during this summer, most likely will be working in a lab summer before senior year)
Guitar / piano / sax (9, 9 and 8 years respectively)
Awards
Regional college science fair first honors winner (name omitted for confidentiality
NY State archives merit research award
Various school awards for leadership and responsibility (selective among HS)
National rankings in History Bowl and Geography Olympiad (both team and individual for consecutive years).
Note that I am a sophomore and all of these activities (except for pre-med which will be starting when I am a junior) have taken place over the course of my freshman and sophomore years.
Grading is done where honors get x1.05 and AP gets x1.10, I am currently taking 3 honors and 2 APs which is the maximum. I hope this clarifies the grading scale
I am not a big fan of strong premed students attending the most academically challenging university that they can get into.
If you are premed, then I assume that you want medical school to be a realistic possibility. To me this means that you want a university that will prepare you for the MCAT (approximately top 200 or 250), where you can get a very high GPA (you will be in the top 1/2 and preferably top 1/4 of the incoming students based on stats), and that are affordable (in-state or very good merit aid). Then you need to get there and work very hard based on the fact that premed classes are tough and other premed students will be very strong.
Nearly every student at MIT and Harvard and Stanford were top 1 or 2 in their class. Many of the international students were top 1 or 2 in their country (I met a few at international student events). Most of them expect to be in the top 1/2 of their class at university. Half of them are wrong.
To answer your question: So far I think that you are competitive for a top 25 university, but that they would be reaches. A year from now we will have more information to base our guesses on.
For ECs, I am a big fan of doing what you want to do, and doing it very well. This approach did get me into “top 3” schools twice (once for undergrad, once for a master’s).
I understand that it is nearly impossible to “chance” someone; however, I am wondering if there is anything that you notice that puts me at a major disadvantage for these schools. Many who are qualified get rejected, but I am just curious if I count as qualified at this point
“if there is anything that you notice that puts me at a major disadvantage for these schools”
The only thing that I notice is that you are asking about “top 25” schools. Why do you want to attend a top 25 school? Why do you want to attend any one particular top 25 school?
I think that you need a good answer to these questions. You do have at least a year to think about it however.
What is your ACT/SAT? Also what the other guy wrote about being premed is true. If you want to be premed what is important is not going to the highest school you can but a school that will let you get excellent grades. also @damon30 do you post that on all of the chance me for t20s?
i didn’t take any as I am a sophomore; however, I scored a 30 on the preACT and english was my lowest. I have since scored 34/35 on ACT english practice tests after some studying thus I don’t think improving that will be difficult. I will be surprised with anything sub 33 but I am aiming for 34+
I agree that it might be a disadvantage to attend the most challenging school you are accepted to if you intend to be premed. I would think about attending a good school that is not in the top 25.
@CollegeSoteria
Right, it’s not an automatic process. I once suggested to skieurope that he collect all his post/response pairs, create a deep learning training set and then classify posts according to his answers so he wouldn’t have to repeat himself all time. I said he could call the resulting bot “roboski”. (He never replied.) If I did that with my post/reply pairs, the “robodamon” bot might give an answer like the followIng:
Not sure why you keep bumping because there isn’t much else that anyone can tell you at this point. It is impossible to chance any unhooked applicant for top tier institutions, a number of which have acceptance rates under 10%. Simply put, there are many more very well qualified candidates than there are spots. On top of that, you have a GPA and ECs for only freshman and sophomore year and you have no standardized test scores (please don’t ask people to spend time projecting based on your estimate of what scores you might get). Lastly nobody on CC will see things that can help to differentiate you such as essays, LORs etc. I think all anyone can say is that you are doing very well so continue to work hard and be the best “you” that you can be.
Like many HS students you seem to be focused on reach schools. IMO it is even more important that you spend time seeking out match and safety schools that both appear affordable (run net price calculator) and that you would be excited to attend. Trust me – they are out there if you look for them.
Not sure why you are bumping. You are a sophomore asking about admission to super competitive schools. Even with perfect stats it’s a long shot for all applicants.
Continue to work hard, study for your standardized tests, and create a balanced list of reach/match/safety schools that are affordable when the time comes.
I completely understand your point and I wasn’t clear about why I bumped. I was curious to see if anyone had further suggestions about activities/things i could do to improve my extracurriculars, im aware that it is near impossible to predict anything at this point but I am curious if there is anything else I should be doing
Thinking about the responses you got to your question would be a good start. DadTwoGirls already gave you an opinion about ECs. Others had very good posts too.
Instead of focusing on what ECs might make you competitive for a top 25 school I think you need to focus on why you want a top 25 school to begin with. Going to a top 25 when you want to go into medicine isn’t going to impress anyone and, if you don’t graduate with a stellar GPA, you may have trouble getting accepted to med school. Look for colleges that will help you meet your goals.
You aren’t getting the answers you want for at least two reasons:
You are looking for something that doesn’t exist: there is no formula. You can get dozens of suggestions from posters, do all of them and still not get in. Read this post (written for applicants who were deferred) from MIT: https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/there_is_no_formula/
and
You are asking the wrong question. A focus on the ‘top 25’ ‘top tier’ etc., can reflect a focus on the external validation of acceptance to a prestigious college- that moment when teachers / classmates / parents see what a success you are based on the perceived prestige of the name on your sweatshirt. There are (quite literally) tens of thousands of outstanding students chasing the exact same schools. They are just as outstanding whether their college destination is a household name or not. Read this (written for applicants asking what they can do to get into MIT): https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/applying_sideways/
I agree with the previous posters. Premed is intense. Go to a college where you can graduate at the top of your class. A small liberal arts college would be a good choice, preferably one that will give you lots of aid.
If you can graduate college with a > 3.8 GPA, you are in good shape. The trend nowadays is for many premeds to take a gap year after college, and then apply.
The undergraduate college that you attend is taken into account, but won’t overcome low grades or MCAT scores.