Chance me! (Brown, ED 2025)

Colleges and Universities A-Z Brown University
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1

Hi, I love everything about Brown, but I am unsure of my chances of even getting in because of my stats and subpar ECs, please let me know what you think my chances are!!

Major: Health and Human Biology with a focus on Global/International Health

Stats:

  • straight A student
  • mostly honors/accelerated/AP classes
  • unweighted 4.0, weighted 4.47
  • have taken and passed 5 APs, taking 5 more senior year
  • have not been able to take the SAT/ACT yet

ECs:

  • UNICEF Club VP for two years, secretary for one
  • Have raised $600 through online fundraising over quarantine for the Crisis in Yemen
  • Female leadership academy
  • 7 year private piano student, advanced piano student at my school
  • Member of a highly selective college readiness program that selects only 90 students from across the country (9% acceptance)
  • member of my school district’s college readiness program, which selected only 30 kids of all applying sophomores in my district
  • co-founder and vice president of my school’s Asian Student Association
  • Female Leadership Academy
  • Outdoors Club, treasurer for four years
  • Link Crew Mentor for two years (program that helps underclassmen)
  • SOS Club, does focus projects every year for a different third world country
  • Review for Relief contributor, wrote study guides for a student-led organization
  • Annual volunteer/medicine packer for the Cambodian Health Association of America
  • Member of my class senate
  • Foundling member for Fiveable
  • volunteer at my city’s symphony, several marathons, community events, the ronald mcdonald house, and my old middle school

Academics/Honors:

  • AP scholar with distinction
  • Pursuit of Excellence award for English 5-6 Honors
  • Pursuit of Excellence award for Advanced Piano
  • Semi-finalist in my academy’s environmental business plan competition
  • Selected to do biomedical research with USC and UCLA scientists
  • Gold “L” Award (for involvement in campus activities and such)

Athletics: extremely underwhelming

  • one year of tennis
  • one year of cross country/track
  • Tyler Noesen Award (given to two girls for having enthusiasm and tenacity throughout season)

Summer:

  • summer immersion bridge camp in China
  • 6-weeks of intensive college-level calculus with a college professor and different college workshops (approximately 170 hours)
  • did fundraising for the crisis in Yemen
  • contributed to a student newsletter about the BLM movement

Personal Statement:

  • writing it about my identity culturally
  • how I communicate through different languages as well as music

Other:

  • I filed EDD for my dad due to Covid-19
  • I manage my club’s social media (is that something I can link on the app, even though the following isn’t that large??)
  • first-gen, low income, minority, female
  • getting letters of rec from counselor, Chinese teacher, and English teacher

Please let me know what you think! I haven’t really done anything super major, so I don’t feel like I’m the strongest applicant (not many awards, national recognition, large internships/research opportunities)…

2

You should probably post this in the Brown University forum to get more people to respond who are familiar with Brown but I can offer my advice. If you are a low-income applicant, I highly, highly recommend that you look into the Questbridge Scholar and Posse Scholar programs, as they are amazing programs that can make attending a school with a high sticker price like Brown very, very affordable.

I am an incoming First-Year at Brown who applied ED, was deferred, but ultimately accepted RD. I highly recommend applying ED (or if you apply via the Questbridge Match, rank Brown) if ALL of the following are true:

  1. You LOVE Brown and would 110% attend if admitted.
  2. You're confident that you can present a well thought out and crafted application by the ED deadline of November 1st (I believe Questbridge has earlier deadlines and multiple rounds of selection from students at my HS who have applied, so keep that in mind.)
  3. You and your family can afford Brown if admitted (run the financial aid calculators posted on Brown's website.)

I had similar grades to you when I applied, however, I’ve realized throughout this college admissions process that while academics (test scores/GPA/courses) will open the door, it’s up to the rest of your application to get you through it. In Brown’s case, after Admissions is certain you are capable of handling the coursework, they look to your essays/interview/letters of recommendation etc. for proof of how you see Brown as the best place for you, how you’ll take advantage of the opportunities at Brown (from your essays yes, but also from how you’ve taken advantage of your high school’s resources,) and how you’ll go on from Brown to become a Doctor, Epidemiologist, Lawyer etc: someone Brown would be proud to call their alumni in the future. Regarding extracurricular activities, I didn’t have any major national competitions or research experience etc, but the activities that I did have were done over the course of multiple years, so Brown values long-term commitment and definitely takes into account your personal circumstances, your school etc in context.

Also, YES, the Brown application (supplemental) has a section where you can link to an online portfolio etc (I linked to a YouTube playlist with videos that I had created for freshmen at my school, but you could definitely link to your club’s social media page.)

Hope this helps! Good luck with admissions!

3

Brown is the one college you DONT want to apply ED because Brown explicitly states that ED wont help at all. Your stats are great so don’t waste EDing to a school that won’t even help. You might end up being accepted to all ivys but you were forced to go to Brown :confused: