Chance me fam

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Schools: UCLA, UCSB, Berkeley, USC, Caltech, Stanford, Harvard, Yale, etc. Top schools in general.

Planned Major: neuroscience

I don’t have a T-10 or bust mentality but I want to see if there’s a decent chance of at least getting into one of these high end schools if I applied to all of them with my stats. Also, my essays are fantastic and well crafted and specialized for each school - kind of “packaged” and altered to show truly why I want to go to each college, not just because of their reputation for being a highly ranked school.

Grades/test scores:

GPA: 3.9/4.0 unweighted - One B in Calculus BC sophomore year. I made up for it with a solid A second semester and a 5 on the AP test. My first semester in 10th grade was a bit rocky with several A minuses and the one B in AP Calc BC but going from there, I had very solid grades with A’s and A pluses

SAT: 1580
ACT: 35
SAT II Math 2 - 790
SAT II Biology - 800

AP Classes: I have consistently taken the most rigorous courses available to me (our school is pretty weak when it comes to AP course selection). My AP classes and scores are: AP Biology (5), AP Calculus BC (5), AP Chemistry (5), AP Physics 1 (4), AP US History (5), AP English Lang (5), AP Government (TBD), AP English 4 (TBD), AP Statistics (5), AP Physics 2 (TBD)

Extracurriculars: I have good ones that mesh well with my career goal of med school and neuroscience. I also have some others that will stand out from other premed kids.

  • Leading member and captain of our school's high powered rocketry team - we compete in Team America Rocketry Challenge (TARC), and placed 16th in the nation at Washington DC last year. We have also been invited to Huntsville Alabama by NASA to participate in the Student Launch Initiative to launch a huge rocket with an experimental payload. It's normally for college students but we are a pretty accomplished team netting about 20k in scholarships from Boeing, Aerovironment, Aerojet Rocketdyne, etc.
  • Over the summer - I did the Research Mentorship Program (RMP) at UCSB. I did neuroscience research one on one with a postdoc and got a lot from the experience.
  • The next summer I did RISE at Boston University. It's another month-plus long program in computational neurobiology. Did research and presented it. I also may be accepted to SIMR at stanford which is a cost free research internship for medicine over the summer and you actually get a stipend for working there.
  • Academic Decathlon Captain winning several medals over the years.
  • I've worked at Kumon all my years in high school. In addition to Kumon tutoring I tutor on the side at school.
  • I finished Calculus BC in 10th grade and went on to take classes at community college like multivariable and diffeq's
  • UCLA Math Circle, a pretty selective program where you attend math seminars and learn about higher math topics with graduate student mentors.
  • I have been teaching high level math classes at my local Math Circle for a couple years now.
  • I've shown a lot of personality in my essays, and I love skiing with my family in my free time. I play Tabla, an eastern percussion instrument and as an Afghan American it is a way for me to express my culture and heritage.
  • I have worked at a free clinic in my area providing free medical care to disadvantaged people and have learned a lot about the struggles people face to obtain quality medical care through my 3 years at the program. I have spent 4 hours every week throughout my 3 years working here and it has made a huge impact on me personally.
  • Finally, I think I will be able to seal the deal with neuroscience research with a professor from Caltech that I know personally. However it may not work out so just like the SIMR please judge me without this additional experience and with it too.

Recommendations: I have recommendations from my AP Biology teacher, AP English lang teacher, and superintendent. My Superintendent who is the organizer of our Rocketry team. He and I are very close and his letter is very meaningful as are the other previous teachers who I am also favorites of.

I just want a good idea of my admission chances for these top schools. Appreciate it.

2

First of all - great job! Whatever you do and wherever you are accepted, you have already done a lot of which you should be proud.

You are competitive for them all, however, the reaches are reaches for anybody.

UCLA, UCSB, Berkeley - you need to compute your UC GPAs, and see what percent of students with similar GPAs and SATs were accepted to these universities (the info is here: https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/freshman-admissions-summary). Depending on your UC GPA, UCLA and Berkeley can be between high reaches to low reaches, while UCSD and UCSB cane can either be high matches to almost safeties. I assume that, based on your GPA, your weighted/capped UC GPA is higher than 3.9.

Stanford, Harvard, Yale, etc - the acceptance rate of unhooked applicants who apply RD is about 2%-5% for any of those, so yours could be maybe double that at most, so consider them all to be high reaches.

As for colleges with a 15%-30% acceptance rate, it would depend on how well you craft your application, what is the acceptance rate of non-athlete from your high school to those colleges, and whether you apply ED. So the chances can be anything from excellent to very unlikely.

Apply strategically - find colleges which are the best fit for you, put together a well crafted application, demonstrate interest in those colleges in which this is important, and I think that you will likely have your safeties, a few of your matches, and a good chance for one of your reaches.

Your recommendation from a university professor is not helpful. Colleges are just looking at what your teachers and counselors say about you. However, doing research at a university does help.

So now it’s time to start setting up your list of colleges.

3

I rarely reply to chance threads, but just wanted to say that you seem to be a very strong candidate for any college. Good luck!

4

Are you a senior - and you’ve already applied to all of these schools?

5

@sherpa Thank you. I know it’s impossible to CC to give me an admissions chance based on my stats but it’s always good to hear that I’m in the right direction. I think I’ll be happy wherever I go, and in the end I just need to get a good MCAT as well as good clinical experiences during undergrad in order to make my medical school dreams happen

6

@DCCAWAMIIAIL No I’m a junior. Still got a ways to go.

7

@shredboi - I’m sure someone will jump in here shortly and ask if you know what your budget is, and expected family contribution. (so it might as well be me) :slight_smile: Most of the schools you list won’t give merit based aid, so depending on your family financial situation, you could be looking at some hefty costs for attendance.

I realize your question was more about whether you could get in (and hey- you have a fantastic background to apply and give it a shot), but make sure you are also considering whether you will be able to attend if you get in. The UCs will be relatively affordable compared to the others if you don’t qualify for aid.

Good luck and have fun with the process!

8

I’m fortunate enough not to have to worry about the incredible costs of college due to my family’s financial circumstances. I do however value money and likely will be attending one of the upper UCs due to them being much cheaper and me planning to go to med school down the line anyway. I am also an NMF so USC might be a great choice given the 50% ride.

9

I’m glad that you are aware and thinking about long term education expenses. My S20 has academic stats that are similar to yours, but not as strong in the ECs. He has actually focused on pursuing schools with strong merit scholarships so that he can use what we have given him as his budget towards grad school. You have time to sort out your strategy- we have found some really solid advice on these threads.

10

@chaphillmom Thank you for your advice :smile:

11

Are you really going to apply to all of them, “the top schools in general”??? You have a much better shot with each individual college if you take the time to understand them individually and figure out which ones are the best fit FOR YOU.

Don’t underestimate the amount of time necessary to complete the essays tailored to each school - although you imply that you have already completed them all?

Also have you looked at Wash U in St. Louis - excellent neuroscience program - and an interesting program called Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology. A friend of my daughter’s is studying in this program.

12

I have a college counselor as a junior and I’ve essentially gotten down all my supplemental essays for the schools that don’t really have changing prompts, unlike uchicago for example

13

Decide what size and type you would like (large university, medium/small university, liberal arts college, etc). What path you want to follow (neuroscience undergraduate, biology undergraduate, psychology undergraduate, MD route, etc). What areas in the country do you prefer?

With your stats, and you also say that you have no serious budget limitations, you have reaches, matches, and likely safeties in all of these categories. So first you need to define what you would like in a college. Then you need to make sure that you have a couple of colleges which meet those qualifications to which you have a very high chance of being accepted. Then you can choose some to which your chances of being accepted or rejected are about even. If you want, you can then add a few colleges from which you are much more likely to be rejected than accepted.

While people seem to be obsessed about making sure that they have reaches, and then obsess about the reaches, and mostly ignore any others, that is the route to disappointment and bitterness. The way to make sure that you end up happy with the college that you will attend is to make sure that you are as happy with your safeties as you would be with any other college to which you will be accepted.

14

Thank you @MWolf . It’s good to hear that I’m competitive. Do you think with my stats, considering that my essays and letters of rec are stellar, I have a high chance of getting into at least one of the T20 schools I mentioned?