Any suggestions for colleges?

College Search & Selection
1

Personal:

  • Asian female, current junior
  • Income relatively well off (<200k+)
  • Northern Virginia public magnet school, ranked #1 several times by Newsweek
  • Prospective major: biomedical engineering/pre-dental
  • Recs from AP chem and APUSH teachers

Academic:
-GPA: 4.15 W (school doesn’t calc UW, but I would say 3.8)
-ACT: 35 (36 Reading, 34 Science, 36 English, 35 Math, 9 Writing)
-SAT: 1500 (780 M, 720 R)
-Subject tests: Chem (800), Math 2 (800), Bio (770), US History (780)
-PSAT: 1490 (most likely National Merit Finalist)
-Rank: School does not rank, but I should be in top 25%
-AP:
Sophomore year: AP Biology (4), AP World History (5) (wasn’t taking class)
Junior Year (Predictions): APUSH (5), AP Calc AB (5), AP Chem (5)
-Senior year course load:
AP Gov, AP Lit, AP Calc BC, Geosystems, Organic Chemistry (Semester), Biotech Research, AP Stats (Semester), AP Psych

Extracurriculars:

  • National Honor Society/French Honor Society
  • Biology Society Vice President
  • Lots of tutoring/volunteering with kids through various extracurriculars (100 hours)
  • Hospital volunteering (50+ hours)
  • Dental shadowing (20 hours)
  • Young Democrats Secretary
  • Biomedical Engineering internship at Georgetown University this summer

Awards:

  • Not really any, some minor Model UN stuff

Hooks:

  • none

I’m planning on applying to:

  • UVA
  • William and Mary
  • Virginia Commonwealth University
  • Northeastern
  • Duke
  • Harvard
  • University of Southern California
  • Vanderbilt
  • UChicago
  • UNC
  • Case Western

Any more safeties/matches that offer really good merit scholarships or good pre-dental programs would be great suggestions!

2

URochester fits your current mix and would be likely to honor your achievements with a significant merit scholarship.

3

Seems like a good list, with the whole range of reaches, safeties, generous merit-aid schools and good in-state options.

If you haven’t already considered and ruled out Rice, it might be a good one to add - good Bioengineering and pre-health, great student quality-of-life with a residential college system, and a full-pay “sticker price” around $15K/year less than private peer schools. (Some merit available too - not as much as at CWRU, USC, and Vandy, but then again that $15K discount is already built in.) Also many nonstops per day between Dulles and Houston.

Do you hope to combine engineering and dentistry, or are you figuring it will be either/or? If the former, you might want to look into some of the research that is being done and see what interests you, as that might give you more ideas about what opportunities you hope to find at your undergraduate school. Maybe consider steering toward the nanoscience and materials end of your engineering field, since there are so many potential applications in dental technology.
https://dentistry.osu.edu/research/research-college-dentistry/major-research-areas/dental-materials-biomedical-engineering
https://www.dental.umaryland.edu/aost/biomaterials-and-tissue-engineering/

4

Automatic Full Tuition

https://callajun.github.io/automaticfulltuition/

http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/

5

If you are pre-dental, I would go to your state school. Saves you a lot of money

6

safety for you with a lot of scholarship and a student body overlap with vandy and usc is smu