Am I good enough for these schools

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

As Junior year is coming to an end, I’m starting to seriously consider college applications. I understand that it’s impossible to know beforehand who will be accepted or denied, but I’m worried that the colleges I’m looking for are out of my reach. Any advice is more than appreciated!

STATS
-female from a small public school in MA

  • GPA: Unweighted 3.95 (I dont currently have the weighted but I’ve taken nearly all honors/ap classes)
    -SAT: 1480 (700 in english and 780 in math). Retaking them soon to improve English and ideally get in the low 1500’s superscored
    -AP’s sophomore and junior year: chem, physics 1 and 2, lang, APUSH
    -AP’s senior year: physics c, bio, calc bc, lit and psych
    (10 AP’s in total, and I’m taking most of the science ones that our school offers)

ECs
-community service club president
-national honors society
-started two annual community nonprofit events
-best buddies club (with special needs students) one on one partnership
-a few other miscellaneous clubs
-theatre (not lead roles tho)
-musical instrument for 15 years, submitting a recording with the application

ESSAYS
-younger sibling is terminally ill - inspired me to raise money for the hospital/research
-I think I’m going to get pretty good recommendations; I’ve asked two teachers who know me really well

MAJOR:
-something with quantum physics probably

SCHOOLS:
----reaches
mit (dream school)
brown
johns hopkins
cornell
dartmouth
----middle
georgetown? (kinda a reach still)
BC (my mom went here so that will help)
tufts
carnegie mellon
----safety
villinova
trinity
University of rochester
Lafayette?

Are the schools I’m looking at too much of a reach? Sorry for the long post but any advice would be great!

2

I’m very sorry to hear about your sister. I can only imagine how that has affected you and your entire family.

I’m sure that others will chime in on this, but I don’t think any of your safeties are actually safeties. They are matches. You still need some true safeties – schools you KNOW you can get into, that you can afford and that you would be happy to attend if you got in no where else.

If you give us more of what you are looking for in a school, you will probably get some great suggestions. Size, location, financial constraints. You said you want to major in physics. Do you also have any interest in engineering?

Also where are you located? You may have some good in-state options.

3

So sorry about your sister. But I have to say that your list looks off kilter to me with too many reaches and no safeties (agree with the above that your safety schools look more like match schools). If you answer some of the questions above, you may get some other suggestions but I’d try to add a couple of schools with acceptance rates around 40%. In addition I would try to add a school or two that has non-binding EA or rolling admissions – it is always good to have an acceptance in hand by December. Be sure to consider any limits your parents have (ex. financial, geographic etc.)

IMO the right question to ask is not “am I good enough?” The fact is that the top schools are so competitive that there is simply not enough room for everyone who is deserving. Getting into a college or getting rejected from a college should never be taken as a reflection on your worth or accomplishments. Fortunately, there are many wonderful schools out there where you can have a great 4 year experience and get where you want to go in life.

4

“-safety
villinova
trinity
University of rochester
Lafayette?”

These are high matches or low reaches.

“tufts
carnegie mellon”

These are low reaches.

5

You are a strong enough student to go anywhere where you are motivated and able to attend.

With an interest in Physics and music and your solid GPA, might take a look at WPI. We are not MIT, but we do have Professor Ram-Mohan and we all do undergraduate research.

Ramdas Ram-Mohan has developed an international reputation as a pioneer in solid state physics, a field that has helped propel extraordinary advances in the speed and power of computers, telecommunications systems, lasers, and other high-tech devices. In addition to exploring the quantum mechanical properties of condensed matter, he has developed powerful computational tools that have made it possible to predict with great accuracy the properties of increasingly complex semiconductor and optoelectronic devices and to precisely control the design of these ubiquitous systems.

Ram-Mohan’s work on high-energy physics, condensed matter, and semiconductor physics has resulted in more than 200 peer-reviewed publications that have garnered more than 3,800 citations. He is also the founder of wavefunction engineering, a method for specifying certain quantum properties of semiconductor heterostructures—assemblies of two dissimilar semiconductor materials that display unique electrical or optoelectronic properties. This innovative method arises from the application of the finite element method, or FEM, a numerical analysis technique used widely in engineering, to quantum heterostructures.

Ram-Mohan, recognized as one of the foremost authorities on FEM, described this new field in his landmark 2002 book, Finite Element and Boundary Element Applications to Quantum Mechanics. CCN was created to address the solving of nonlinear problems in many fields utilizing a multidisciplinary approach. Ideas come from physics, numerical analysis, computer science, and other fields of research. Some areas of research being addressed at the CCN include quantum modeling of nanostructures, quantum computation, designing MEMS (micro-electromechanical systems), NEMS (nanoscale electromechanical systems, multicomponent diffusion in fluids and solids, nonlinear optics, and mathematical biology).

In case you are not familiar with the program, check out https://www.wpi.edu/project-based-learning/wpi-plan.

Performance Music minors are even encouraged. They would enjoy hearing your performance. It is more fun than reading another SAT score. See https://www.wpi.edu/academics/study/music-minor

With over 90% of the graduates reporting In the past five graduating classes of Physics majors, 31 went directly to graduate school and another 20 accepted employment. At least one each year continued at WPI and others continued at MIT, Waterloo, Cornell, McGill, Northwestern, Purdue, U MAss, and others. The Physics Department department only graduates 5 to 12 students per year. They have 20 faculty members on the physics faculty.

WPI has been working very hard to even out the ratio of women to men. Because of the research requirements, you cannot help but know this Physics faculty as a student majoring in the field.

WPI '67

6

Thank you so much everyone- your responses helped a lot!

For those who asked, I’m in Massachusetts and hoping to stay relatively close to home. Ideally, I would prefer a smaller school, and one with sufficient undergrad research opportunities.

WPI looks like a great option, thank you so much for taking the time to reply! I’ll definitely add that to my list