Chance Me & Advice for A Dreaming Junior

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

I am a junior who is absolutely stressed about the college application process. Please chance me and tell me what I can do to improve my chances.

I am an African American female at a large public school in Maryland. I am in a specialized STEM program at my school focused on aerospace engineering, but I wanna major in Biomedical Engineering.

GPA Unweighted: 3.7 almost 3.8
GPA Weighted: Unknown
Class Rank: Top 15%
AP Exams: AP Gov(4), taking AP Bio and AP Lang this year
AP Classes: 3(AP Gov, AP Bio, and AP Lang) taking AP Physics, AP Comp Sci Java, and AP Calc next year
*I couldn’t take a lot of APs due to my program and scheduling issues. Sophomore year,I was placed in two languages, Sign Language and Italian. However, it was amazing and fun to learn so, I did not complain. I hopefully will continue taking classes in college.

Courseload: Genetics, AP Bio, Physics Honors, Art(req), Algebra 2, AP Lang, Engineering Class
(taking pre-calc during the summer)

ECs/Hobbies:
NHS: 2 years
SGA: 2 years
MESA: 1 year
Girls Who Code: 1 year
Hobby: Coding: 2 years : I’ve been learning Python for a while now. After I hope to learn C++, CSS, and HTML.

SN:
I also know Solidworks, an engineering application. I am currently working on an series highlighting people in STEM. In senior year, we do a research practicum, where we research and engineer a product. I plan to make something involving biomedical, engineering.

Schools:

Safeties
UMD College Park
George Washington
Virginia Tech
WPI

Targets
Boston University
Georgia Tech
UVA
Northeastern University
UMich

Reaches
Columbia
USC
UC Berkeley

Is my school list unrealistic considering my stats?

2

From another thread your PSAT was a 1040. You note that was without studying, but unless your V was super high and your M super low b/c of material you hadn’t learned yet, that is a red flag.

Even if your actual SAT/ACT is very high, engineering is a challenging admit. I can’t imagine that any of the places on your ‘safety’ list are actually ‘safe’ from either an admissions or financial perspective (except perhaps UMd financially). From your ‘match’ list OOS GaTech & UMi- especially for engineering! - are reaches academically and financially.

From your other thread you are planning to apply for outside scholarships, but have you run the numbers to see how much you need? getting more than $5-10K in external scholarships is uncommon- and usually a lot of work. You have a lot of out of state publics and some very pricey privates on your list.

3

That’s a reasonable list. I would try to get a high SAT/ACT score to show your academic strength to the reaches. Also, an internship/job over the summer would be great.

4

To me, your safety schools are not safeties…and your target schools are reaches.

Have you used the NPC for these schools? Are they affordable?

5

Realistically, you need some real safeties, and you need fewer reaches:

Matches
UMD College Park
George Washington
Virginia Tech
WPI

Reaches
Boston University (low reach, but a reach)
Georgia Tech
UVA
Northeastern University
UMich
Columbia
USC
UC Berkeley

For a colleges to be a safety, you need a larger than 70% chance to be accepted. So colleges with a 45%+ acceptance rate are only safeties if you are at the top of their top 25% by stats. Otherwise it’s a match

6

You’ll need to re-do this list completely. Every school here is a reach. UMD has a hyper-selective engineering program. Every other school is either private or out-of-state. This pretty much means if you get rejected by UMD’s engineering program(high probability), unless you have a 300k wad of cash lying around to pay triple the tuition plus room & board, you’re not going to any of these other schools either…and you spend a year at community college.

You need to talk to your parents and find out what you can afford before you do anything. An out-of-state public school won’t offer financial aid to cover the high tuition costs. For the exception of maybe Harvard, a private university won’t either.

A true safety school has to have 4 criteria. First , it has to be affordable. Second, it has to have a high chance of admissions. Third, it has a reasonable assurance of the major you want. Fourth, it has to be a school you’re serious about. Your match and reach schools should have at least 3 of those criteria.

7

What are some safeties you would recommend?

8

It all depends on your financial picture of course.

However with your strong profile and the desire of schools to have young women in stem and a diverse pool of undergrads there a few excellent schools imho that would be a solid matches for you.

Public’s. Virginia Tech. NJIT. James Madison. In state is Towson State’s 5 year dual degree in engineering plan, St Mary’s College “pathways to engineering” option.

Private schools may have good aid programs for you if that is a focus. There are many.

Also if you are not admitted to the Clark school at UMD you may be admitted to the arts and sciences program. You can be admitted into the engineering school from there if you work for the grades.

Don’t worry. Focus on the job at hand. Keep your grades up. Study for any boards diligently . Give back to your community and have some fun. You can only control your inputs and not your outcomes. Worrying never made anything happen. You’ll be fine. You really will.