Major: Neuroscience
State: Ohio
School: Very Competitive Public
Ethnicity: African American
Gender: XY
Class: Junior currently
GPA: 3.97 W and 3.6 UW (Yikes)
PSAT: 1420/1520, track to be commended
ACT: 30
Subject test: Math 2 - 700 (retaking, took in 10th grade), US History - 720
AP: AP US History (4)
Awards: Honor roll, Scholar athlete, academic medallion, Salute to Excellence
Freshie
Honors Algebra 2 - A
Honors English 9 - B
Physical Science - A
World History - A
Spanish 2 - A
Electives - A
Sophomore
Honors Pre Calc - A
Honors Bio - A
Honors Chemistry - A
Honors English 11 - B
Spanish 3 - B
AP US History - B
Electives - A
Junior
AP Calc BC - B
AP Physics 1 - B
AP Economics - A
AP English 11 - B
Spanish IV - A
Electives- A
Senior
AP Statistics
AP Psychology
AP Chemistry
AP Spanish
AP English 12
As one can tell, my GPA is on the lower end.
EC:
In school
Basketball - lettered sophomore year, won division 1 districts, really big part of my life, takes up LOTS of time
Track - lettered sophomore year, won division 1 districts, takes up LOTS of time
African American Culture Club -Vice President,
Diversity Acceptance Program - Vice president,
Youth For Christ - Vice President,
LabLink - research club
Selected freshmen mentor
S.P.L.A.S.H - Selective program for leaders within my school
Out of School
Partner at Be The Change Venture - diversity and inclusion movement within Cleveland
Junior Ambassadors - Volunteered 109 hours at Cleveland Clinic main campus in the summer
Research Assistant - Assisted post doc at Case Western Reserve’s biomedical engineering lab
Student Board for DifferentLikeYou.com - summer internship at non profit - website for kids with disabilities
Interned at Artificial Intelligence Laboratories - Interned at firm based in San Francisco
Council Member at the City Club of Cleveland - year round
Food bank - Volunteering
Ron Brown GPS Program
Started my own lawn care company 2 summers ago
Sure you should apply! You may do better on your standardized testing with your retake. You have some great ECs and solid grades. Of course you will want to finish junior year strong and start senior year with As if possible… bu of course you were planning that already, correct?
Good luck!
Edit: But you may want to finish out the AP Physics track by taking the second course senior year. It will be hard, but maybe you can do some of the work over the summer. You have a tough senior year planned, but it would look really good if you could turn your B in physics I into an A in physics II. I would suggest taking Physics II over AP Psych if you feel you need a study hall. I hear that AP Psych is not too hard, it fits with your neuroscience interest, but stopping the physics track short may look bad.
Additionally, my kid went to an admitted students’ reception last evening for the class of '21 and learned that this was the first year that the entire admissions committee (and I think it was recently expanded in size) had to UNANIMOUSLY vote to admit a student before admission was offered. So for the class of '22, you don’t want to leave anything obviously incomplete in your HS career if you can avoid it!
as a sought after minority student with a strong high school transcript, I advise you to apply broadly. But you should also put in applications for merit scholarships, which is going to be tiring and pull a lot out of you in time required for extra essays and in lining up letters of reference. At Vanderbilt, you not only should apply, you should write the essays for the merit scholarship…the Chancellor’s in particular. My son was white and received this award but it’s original vision was to bring in more minority students and to land them. If you can afford ED, do it. Since basketball season is very taxing and seniors are honestly very hard pressed to fulfill all their obligations, I would focus. You don’t have to do all the activities you have taken up. Stick with three that mean the most. Your lawn job is as good on a list as most clubs. Don’t let everyone tugging on your sleeve distract you. You are going to get into a fine university. So sit down with your parents and make up your minds how much they really want to pay, keeping in mind that you will probably go to graduate school as well. You are going to get fabulous offers in your state flagship colleges. You will get offers in private colleges like Vanderbilt so I don’t see any reason for you to apply to any private colleges where you don’t get attractive need money with no loans or merit money. Money matters when money matters so be realistic and do the calculator on your expected family contribution. Making these calculations will mean a ton of conversations among your family, guidance counselor and smart assessment of your chances. If you were my kid, I would drop AP Psych and take something easy. Your real fifth course: college applications. AP Spanish is pretty hard…my Vandy son nailed a B with his best efforts. Stats is a great course if you major in social sciences or hard sciences…so take it. You won’t regret it. AP Chem is a great foundation course–but it requires keeping the ball in the air every week. I would say no to a lot of things and take the Real ACTs in the red book at home this summer and sign up for that exam in October of your senior year. One of my sons added a huge boost October of his senior year…the other tried but basically made the same score twice. You never know. Take ACT practice tests open and read the answer explanations and then take timed tests. The ACT is long and rewards stamina. The ACT is one of the last things within your control. The other is holding steady on grades and finding the right references. If you are an athlete, you have stamina. Take on the ACT with all your might but only after training for it. Then let it go, forget about it and move on. Good luck. Glad you like Vandy.
Take the ACT again for reassurance as every year admissions gets more competitive, but in general ED is easier to get in than RD, I think you would have a chance at ED
As a URM with a 30 ACT, your chances are pretty good as long as your class rank is reasonable. Looking at your app overall, I’d say it’s likely that you would be admitted EDI.
