Chance me: ED to Cornell/ED2 to Washu (need input please!)

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Here are my stats:
Male, White, high income family (no need for financial aid)

Applying for engineering for WashU, biochem for Cornell (engineering program at Cornell seems too stressful)-on premed track

GPA: 4.13 W, school doesn’t give UW or rank (excluding freshman year, my lowest grades have been 2 B+’s)

ACT: 34 (36 36 30 35 and 34 32 34 34-hoping my other math scores will make up for this anomaly)

SAT: (haven’t taken)

SAT II: 800 Math 2, expecting 800 Chemistry

AP’s taken/taking: Psych, Stats, Chem, Multivariable, Gov (school has a policy on AP’s and forces us to take several other classes before we can take AP’s-also we have to take certain classes which fill up our schedules)

AP Tests: 5 on Psych, Stats, and BC (self studied)

Letters of rec: precalc teacher who loved me and graduated from Columbia so I think his is going to be good, and my English teacher whose letter I know is going to be great

EC’s: shadowed a doctor over the summer, competed in DECA nationals, done community service work, some other clubs, part of NHS and tutor for it, and am hopefully starting biological research soon (more out of interest but I hope to mention it), also have taught myself very high level math out of interest (graduate level stuff idk if it matters)

Others: have a sister attending the school (undergrad) and have spoken to two reps in person and am fairly certain I made a good/memorable impression with both. Also have suffered from really bad injury/severe health related trauma which caused me to miss most of my freshman year and caused my gpa for freshman and sophomore year to be much lower than it should’ve, also took away a ton of time from doing ec’s as the recovery process took a very long time. This is gonna be my essay topic and im discussing how it made me stronger. For WashU I’m gonna write the supplement about how my passion for math has inspired me to translate my problem solving skills on paper to problem solving skills in the real world which I think is going to be good.

Are my chances okay?

2

In the others section I forgot to say I was talking about Washu; my sister goes there and ive spoken with two reps from there

3

I believe WashU does superscore the ACT so the score should be a 35.

The demonstrated interest does help, but the chances would be better for ED1. Although ED to Cornell and ED2 to WashU would be a good strategy.

What Engineering do you plan to apply for at WashU? BME would not be advisable if you are thinking premed.

Also, I don’t see any Biology or Physics taken. And do you have any foreign language? The top schools will expect you to have 3 lab sciences and possibly up to Level 4 in a foreign language.

4

I was thinking bme, why would that not be a good choice? Also my school requires us to take honors level sciences before AP sciences so unless we take a college/summer course we can usually only take 1-2 AP sciences. Last year I decided to take 2 other AP’s instead of an AP science to boost my gpa. I tried to take ap bio as well this year but there was a conflict with chem so I chose chem and anatomy/physiology. Last year I took spanish 4 but cant take it this year because I have no space in my schedule.
Thank you for the response.

5

IMO, this was a poor decision if you are aiming for schools like Cornell. Grade protection should not come at the expense of academic rigor of core courses, especially if you know you are planning a STEM major.

If you are planning on being pre-med, you may want to rethink Cornell. Biochem is going to be a very competitive major and there is no grade inflation.

6

BME is typically a tough major to earn a high GPA…and a high GPA is required for med school admission.

I still don’t understand whether you have taken bio and physics…seems like you are covered on the FL side by completing Spanish 4.

Have you been demonstrating interest at WashU?

7

WashU is a grade deflator as well and the introductory science classes (Chemistry, Biology, Physics) are pretty notorious for being weeder classes. Organic Chemistry at WashU is infamous and significant numbers of students take it at a different school.

BME at WashU also weeds out a lot of students as well. Up to 1/3 of the freshmen BME students eventually get weeded out. The workload is going to be hard enough, but BME premed is going to be rough.

If you have taken some sort of Biology and Physics already, that may suffice, but most applicants to Cornell and WashU considering STEM will have at least AP Biology and AP Physics completed/in progress.

Agree that taking 2 ‘easier’ AP classes for a GPA boost over an AP science class was not necessarily a good idea.

8

I’ve taken honors physics and bio at my school and done very well in both. I met with two reps from the school and it went really well, toured it, been to a visit to my school and other visits in my area, and my sister goes there.

9

I think I’m just going to apply to the engineering school undecided (leaving out premed) and see what type of engineering I like (unless there are drawbacks from doing that), if I find it too hard I guess I’ll transfer out and declare myself premed. I want to experience engineering because its the only thing that appeals to me other than medicine.
Honestly I guess that my choice with AP classes wasn’t great, but imo AP classes do nothing more than prepare you for the test and I could likely teach myself everything I need to know for either bio or physics and take the test at the end of this year. I think that my stats/grades show that I’m pretty solid w STEM so I don’t think it’s going to kill me.

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For other students reading this thread who aren’t seniors in HS, AP courses don’t just prepare you for the AP test, they prepare you for the rigors of college courses. They can also potentially help you skip the weeder courses for competitive majors. Self studying for the test is not a substitution for a class like AP Physics C.

OP - At Cornell, while you apply to one of the colleges, you don’t declare a major until second semester sophomore year. If you are going to be pre-med, you need to take the pre-med courses in conjunction with your engineering classes. There should be decent overlap though for the first year.

I think what people are telling you is that it’s tough to be an engineering major and keep your GPA high enough to be competitive in med school. If you find it too hard and choose to switch out, the damage to your GPA is already done.

And pre-med isn’t a major, it’s an intention. You can be pre-med from any major.

11

Honors Physics and Biology might work, although 2 AP science classes would have been preferable.

If you are interested in Engineering, Cornell is the better school for it than WashU.

12

I know engineering in Cornell is better but I’ve heard it’s incredibly stressful. Not that Washu engineering will be easy, but kids in the engineering school typically have time to do other things besides studying

13

Kids in engineering at Cornell also have time for fun ; )

Engineering is going to be rigorous and stressful at any ABET accredited program.

14

As a parent of a WashU kid who has a double major in Arts and Sciences and a minor in Computer Science, I can assure OP that it’s not all fun and games at McKelvey. Just as Cornell Engineering students can find to decompress, WashU Engineering students work just as hard as needed.