PSAT National Merit Scholar
National AP Scholar
800 Math II, 760 Chem, 800 Biology
Probably 1, if not in top 2%
AP US (4), AP Bio (5), AP Chem (5) , AP Micro(5) , AP Macro (5) , AP Lang (5), AP Stats (4), AP Calc AB&BC( both 5’s), AP Physics 1(4), AP LIT (4),
Senior Year: AP Gov, AP Psychology, AP Comp Sci. A, AP Environmental, AP Physics C, Multi variable Calc and Linear Algebra ( Through a college), AP French, Engineering
Extracurricular/Achievements:
Research (11-) Working on publishing as a co-author. Worked on microbial fuel cells.
(11)Worked as a high school research assistant at the local medical school.
(9-12) Varsity Tennis
(10- ) Started a tutoring program for students in my county for SAT/ACT.
(9- ) Worked as a tutor for the school tutoring program
(9- ) State math competition winner Top 10
9 Qualified for US Math Olympiad ( School stopped giving AMC tests afterward)
(9-12) President of school’s international club.
(11- ) Started a Chess Club
(10-12) NHS
(9-12) Current VP of SGA
(9-12) Around 300 hours volunteering at Hospital
Volunteered in India over the summer helping spread Hygiene awareness in local elementary schools.
Worked with local school administration to get more rigorous courses for the high school
Helped start school’s “Maker Lab” and currently run it.
Other
Intended Major: Biomedical Engineering or Biochemistry
Income Bracket: <50,000
State: WV
School Type: Small public
Ethnicity: Indian
Gender: Male
You’ll have a better chance at MIT than the ivies since they don’t look at race/ethnicity as significantly as the ivies do .
HYP - those are lottery odds for you, the one thing you have is you’re from WV, not a highly represented state.
the other five ivies - if you apply ED, then you chances are higher, they’d still be reaches for you but not impossible. Penn and Cornell are the best ivies for engineering/science so visit them, if you really like one of them, apply ED. Also you can’t be a NM scholar yet, right, those don’t come out till after the applications are out, spring of senior year.
OP your resume looks good. But did you apply for Questbridge? given your financial circumstances you have a good shot. Unfortunately today is the last day for application and if you make it to finals ivies are a good possibility.
@theloniusmonk@aoeuidhtns@stwide19 Do you think that an essay about my identity between being a West Virginian and Indian and the conflicts between them is a good idea?
You have good chances if you apply ED to a school like Penn. You have a strong profile so I’d expect you to get into one or two Ivies in the regular decision round
(full disclosure: when I see “Chance me for Ivies and MIT” on a BME applicant, I read “I am a prestige hound/label hunter” There are a quite a lot of schools that are much better for BME than several of the “Ivies”, and if you haven’t done the homework to know that, you haven’t done enough homework).
That, right there, is one of the hurdles you face, OP: the difference between a good essay and an essay that is successful at the level you are aiming for is higher order thinking / analysis / understanding. Examples of conflict between two parts of your identity (and @aoeuidhtns is right, many applicants have conflicts between parts of their identity) are just the beginning. How have you processed that? how has that experience informed your understanding of you / your world / our world? how has it affected your trajectory? have you been able to integrate the two? do you think you could - or should- eliminate the conflict? what does it mean for you going forward? those are just a few examples of ways that you could develop the essay into something interesting to more than just you.
Thanks for the detailed reply. I have looked at some other places for BME including Johns Hopkins and Duke, (public schools in other states would be pretty expensive for me.) As a result I have had to rule out places like Georgia Tech and University of Michigan. I also am looking at applied mathematics as another possible major. Does going to a college give an advantage for their med school?
The questions that you have posed are really helpful. I am trying to use an anecdote of events in my life to show a transformation and also a goal towards a balance between those two. Do you have any other suggestions @collegemom3717 and @aoeuidhtns ?
I think your stats show nothing that will prevent you from getting accepted into an elite school, such as the schools you mentioned. But, as you most likely well know, the acceptance rates at those schools are extremely low, with many “super” kids applying, majority of whom will not get accepted, the scale can tip in either way for you. You seem to be one of those “super” kids, but without a significant hook, you’re at the mercy of the ad com whether you will get in or not. Only think you can do now, which you have control over, is to come up with a fantastic personal essay, which truly expresses to the reader who you are, and how it will benefit and contribute to their student body and make their school great.
By no means am I a “super” kid. Most of the class I have taken were recommended by my counselors and the director for STEM at the county. After reading some profiles on cc during freshmen year, I thought I had no chance at any of those colleges. Only recently was I told that I should apply for these schools. @noanswers .
@aLlsUn by the way, if you are a very good tennis player, have you thought about reaching out to the coaches of the schools you are planning to apply? Are you good enough to be recruited? The Ivies might be tough since it is a Div 1 school and most athletes are nationally ranked. Perhaps at MIT which I think is Div3, the coach might be able to give you admission support. Can’t hurt to ask.
@collegemom3717 I’m interested in hearing the rest of your disclosure – how do you define a school at being better at BME than another school. Are you going by ranking? If so, doesn’t that fall under the same “label hunter” ethos that you’re describing?
The way I see it, it’s not like school X is going to teach different concepts that school Y teaches. No matter where you go, the education will largely the same. However, a prestigious institution often comes with many other benefits, such as the strength of its overall student body, the resources available from a large endowment, the power of alumni community, and the weight of the school’s name on a resume.
@aoeuidhtns, I disagree that ‘no matter where you go the education will largely [be] the same’.
School X may not teach different concepts, but it may have more resources for a particular field than School Y; it may have better undergraduate opportunities or programs than School Z; and it may have a better name in that field than either Y or Z.
It is relevant that the OP is looking at a specialist program, where a ‘better name’ is based on specific expertise and resources. In a specialist field, such as BME, the weight of the school’s name will correlate more to the reputation of the school in that field than overall. Ditto, the value of the alum network within a specialist field will (in general) trump the value of the alum network of any given institution overall. It is closer to the way grad schools are evaluated than undergrad.
This is particularly true of BME (as the OP to some extent indicated in the follow up post): some of the strongest BME undergrad programs are not in the “Ivies”, something anyone seriously interested in the filed should know pretty early on in the college process.
Fwiw, the other ‘big names’ for BME are not exactly slouches: they are “prestigious” institutions “with many other benefits, such as the strength of its overall student body, the resources available from a large endowment, the power of alumni community, and the weight of the school’s name on a resume”
They just don’t happen to belong to a particular sports league.