Am I Competitive?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

I’m a junior at a reasonably top- notch high school in California. My stats are as follows:
No Rank (School does not rank)

UW GPA: 3.931 (My school does not weight grades)

SAT: 2270 (2300 superscore): 780 CR, 740 M, 780 W.

SAT II: 730 Literature, will be taking Bio and Math II as well.
New PSAT: 1470/ 1500 (National Merit Scale- 219). I don’t know if I qualified to be commended or anything yet.

AP: Currently taking 2: Calculus AB and Biology. My school only allows AP classes to be taken from Junior year, so I’ll be taking 4 in senior year.

My main problem is my extracurriculars, or rather, my lack of them.

  • 11 years of Indian classical dance (Recieced title for completing Arangetram- graduation)
  • AVID and Afterschool tutor (10- 11 grade)
  • Hospital Volunteer (10- 11 grade, likely have 70- 100 hours so far). At the hospital, I’m a regular junior volunteer and I train new volunteers (leadership?), and I’m currently training to work as an ER volunteer.
  • Competed at Regional Science Fair (Synopsys) 9th grade
  • Competed in Engineering competition (Tech Challenge) 10th grade
  • I’m a member of the Quiz Bowl Team and part of California Scholarship Federation along with several other clubs. But I’m only a member, not an officer.
  • I’ll also be doing a research internship over the summer at Boston University for 6 weeks. But it costs almost $8,000, so I don’t think colleges will care much. I’m excited though, to gain some lab experience!
  • I MAY also be able to gain around 30 hours or so of shadowing a cardiologist at Rochester
    And that’s it. I’m not aiming for Ivy League schools, although I plan on applying to Penn.

However, I am looking at BS MD programs, mainly UPitt, Boston University, and Penn State. Aside from these programs, I’m planning on applying to the UCs (Irvine, Santa Cruz, and maybe Santa Barbara as potential safeties?) as a California resident, Rice, Baylor, Johns Hopkins, University of Rochester, Cal Poly SLO (safety), Case Western Reserve, and UNC Chapel Hill.

My TOP schools would be UCLA, UCB, UCSD, UNC, Rice, Baylor, and Hopkins. Are these reasonable given my grades, scores, and lack of strong extracurriculars?

2

Also, if you have other suggestions for smaller colleges (preferably ranked in the top 100) where I might be able to get some research experience, that would be awesome!

3

Those are all definitely reasonable reaches/matches/safeties. I would highly advise against LA, B, and SD for pre med though. Horribly cutthroat for good grades in pre med. I would recommend smaller schools with good med schools such as U Miami and Tulane (as long as you don’t party too much there haha) they have great pre meds, also check out Brown. Awesome pre med. Duke and Rice are amazing for pre med also. If your willing to go to a small LAC without med schools but still great for pre meds, check out Bucknell, Colgate, Franklin and Marshall, Holy Cross. Check out the Experts Choice list for colleges with great pre med programs. Any one on that list should be good. Good luck!

4

Edit: Rice is already on your list, didn’t see that

5

Thank you! Brown and Duke were initially on my list, but I was told by some friends who applied that my ECs are too weak and that I didn’t have enough APs. Do you think that Hopkins, Rice, Duke, and Brown are too much of a stretch to get into?

6

I mean maybe but why not give it a shot? You’ve got some cool ECs like 11 years of dance and the summer research. They’re called reaches for a reason, don’t expect to get in but hey their is always a possibility! If you didn’t apply you will never get in and you definitely have a chance like everyone else if you do