Chance Me for any College/University & Please Guide Me - Freshman

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Background: Black female living in suburban Virginia, currently attending a public high school. Interested in pre-med, health sciences, healthcare, etc.

Grades
(For 7th & 8th grade, I just did my final letter grades b/c I don’t remember exactly all of it numerically) (School runs on a 4.0 scale)

7th Grade

  • Algebra 1 - A

8th Grade

  • Geometry - A
  • Earth Science - A
  • French I - A
  • Psychology - A (99.91) (Summer)

9th Grade
Final Grades

  • Health and PE 9 - 100.06
  • Pre IB World History/Geography - 98.86
  • Pre IB Biology - 99.44
  • Pre IB English 9 - 100.21
  • Pre IB French II - 97.25
  • Economics and Personal Finance - 100.00

Midterm Scores

  • Economics and Personal Finance - 100.00
  • Health and PE 9 - 100.00
  • Pre IB English 9 - 97.50
  • Pre IB World History/Geography - 96.00
  • Pre IB Algebra II/Trigonometry - 97.00
  • Pre IB Biology - 96.00
  • Pre IB French II - 98.00

Summer Following 9th Grade (Proposed Plan; still having some uncertainties)
*Was thinking about some AP Courses, also to get ahead

  • Health and PE 10 through Virtual Virginia (to free up an elective for next year)
  • Pre-calculus/Mathematical Analysis ?? through Virtual Virginia
  • AP Psychology (through Apex Learning Virtual School)
  • AP Statistics ?? (through Apex Learning Virtual School)
  • AP Physics 1 (through Proximity Learning)
  • AP Computer Science A (through EdOptions Academy)
  • Dual Enrollment Precalculus I & Precalculus II ?? (through NOVA - Northern Virginia Community College)

?? - means I am still deciding. I am not sure whether to take Pre-calculus/Mathematical Analysis or Dual Enrollment (DE) Precalculus. FYI - Pre-calculus/Mathematical Analysis is an Honors-level course and DE Precalculus is college-level. Would more selective colleges view these differently on my transcript? How would this affect their overall perspective of my academic profile? DE Precalculus is also offered through my school during the regular academic session, brick-and-mortar. Should I just take the DE Precalc during the regular school year or do something else? I was asking b/c I feel it would be less expensive & easier to implement the Honors-level during the summer; however, I know this would lower my weighted GPA respectively to those who elected to take the DE Precalc in my school. I was really looking into such an option b/c I would want to be in a position where I could take AP Calculus BC as a sophomore, although I would like to hear some perspectives. FYI - I am currently enrolled in an IB set of courses. I was really trying to go ahead and get my feet wet with some APs b/c I know I won’t have as much time during Junior/Senior years (once the real IB courses start). I will be doing all the required courses to receive a diploma, so I won’t have any realistic free space in my schedules during those years. Also, wasn’t sure about how/when I should take AP Statistics. FYI - I am quite certain I want to do Premed/some healthcare-centered course of study following high school. I know that having some statistical knowledge is OFTEN required/strongly recommended/encouraged for a medical background.

I know this might look really convoluted/confusing, so please let me know if you have any questions.

Extracurriculars/Honors
*At the moment, I feel I don’t have that many of these, so I also included some that I received beginning in elementary school.
~2013-present: Piano/Guitar
2014-2015: Was an alternate in the You Be the Chemist competition
2014-2015: Was nominated to attend the Junior National Young Leaders Conference (JrNYLC) in Washington, DC.
2015-2016: Was first place regional winner on the elementary school level in the 2016 Tidewater Spring Regional Forum Art contest designated by the Virginia School Boards Association.
2016-2017: Attended the Tidewater Governor’s School for Science and Technology at Pioneer Elementary School and took a Forensics CSI course
2019-2020: Tutored students in Pre-Algebra, Algebra I, Geometry, etc.
2019-2020: FBLA (Secretary)
2019-2020: Won second place in FBLA Healthcare Administration, regionally

  • Also submitted an entry for the Doodle 4 Google contest - still awaiting results
  • Also thinking about the Breakthrough Junior Challenge

Colleges I am Interested in Thus Far

  • UVA
  • Brown University
    still thinking…
2

That’s a lot of info, and hard to sift through, so a few generalities & a couple of questions:

APs:

= colleges prefer you to take AP classes as classes, not self-study.
= any APs you take will be considered in the context of your school. In many schools IB students typically don’t take APs, or only take the one where the syllabus is similar. Talk to your GC about what is typical at your school- and what is considered ‘most rigorous’ for IB students: that is the metric that matters.
= HS is HS, college is college: the fact that you will need to take stats at some point doesn’t mean that it is essential for you to squeeze it in now

College:

= $$ are the first order of business: you need to know what you family can & will pay: if your budget is unlimited- super! If not, you need to factor that in right from the start. Even if you only apply to “meets needs” schools, the schools get to decide what your ‘need’ is- and many many families discover that what the school thinks they can pay is hopelessly unrealistic. So, have The Talk with your family, get them to work with you to run a few of the calculators on the websites and see how the numbers look. Remember that you can only borrow ~$7.5-11K / year and as you are pre-health…

= Health professional programs are typically expensive so you want as little debt as possible going in!

= Only use things from HS- not Elementary or MS

This is from MIT admissions- it’s the most helpful advice I’ve seen yet!

https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/applying_sideways/

3

Your stats are great! You might be spreading yourself way too thin, though, and you are going to need more than just good grades and hard classes to get in.

I would encourage you to find a “hook” or do some special ECs that relate to your major or just some impactful in some way.

Stop worrying so much about all the APs and 99%, that doesn’t matter in hindsight of an Ivy App. If you are on the IB track and managing As it’s not going to matter if you had a 94 or 96, even though it may feel that way now.

Like what collegemom said, only high school achievements are relevant, so don’t waste your time on middle school and esp. elementary.

4

You are a freshman. There is absolutely no way in which anybody can predict what your chances will be.

Your focus should be on doing your best now in high school. Your goals should be “do the best I can in high school, figure out my strengths and weakness, my interests and passions, work on my social skills and on developing healthy relationships with my peers, and take advantage of these years so that when I end high school, I will be a smarter, more knowledgeable, more accomplished, and better person than I was when I started in my freshman year”.

Being accepted to College X or College Y is not a good life goal. College is part of your life’s journey, and means by which you will further your goals or figure them out.

Right now, you have many opportunities, many paths, and many possible goals. Making admissions to any particular college as goal limits these severely.

At this point, the only thing related to college which you should think about is to make sure that your four year plan includes the number of credits from core classes that will give you the widest range of colleges. So think about how many hours of science, English, math, foreign language, etc, colleges like seeing, and make sure that you have those on your schedule.

Over nest year, familiarize yourself with the types of college out there, college costs, the different majors which are available, and the different career directions which are offered in different colleges. Next summer, if you have time, and the pandemic subsides, think of visiting a couple different “sample” colleges, so that you get a feel as to how colleges look. During Junior year, you should start creating a list of colleges which interest you, and start exploring them.

Before the end of Junior year, it is useless trying to figure out you admission chances for any particular college.

I disagree with @hopefulswimmer58 in regards to finding a “hook”.

Find ECs in which you can express your self, in which you find a way to use your talents to accomplish something outside of school, ECs in which you will find kindred spirits. Any EC can be a “hook” if you work hard at it, are able to throw yourself into doing your best at it, and excel in it.

The irony in engaging in “ECs that colleges like” is that you cannot have the engagement in ECs that colleges with holistic admissions like if you choose your ECs based on what you think that these colleges like. Choose ECs based on what you like, based on stuff for which you have passion, and engage in them as best you can.

One of my daughter’s major ECs started in her freshman year was not an EC which would conceivable be a “hook”. It wasn’t a club which participated in competitions for which there were awards, or one which puts on performances, or anything which “looks good” on an application, and it was practically dead. But she thought the cause was important, she and a friend took over the club, and they made it one of the most active and visible clubs in the school, garnered local and regional attention, won awards, and resulted in my daughters being considered one of the leaders in her class.

She didn’t get there by deciding in her freshman year to do stuff which would give her a “hook”. She found her passion and cause, and threw herself into it.

5

I think it’s really cool that you’re thinking about colleges right now, and you’re definitely on the right track. However, I guard against thinking too much about your future and not really enjoying your time as an underclass men. I recommend living your life to whatever happens and just do what YOU want to do.

For your class though, I def would say to stick to the classes you this offers if you are thinking about launching yourself into the AP classes and want to have as minimal of an impact on your GPA as possible.

6

What I meant by a hook was finding what you would like to do and pursue and building ECs around it. I think you misinterpreted what I meant.

7

I think that you are doing very well. I also think that UVA and Brown are great universities.

The only concern that I have is that you should be careful about not doing too much and burning yourself out. Just continue to take the classes that you want to take and that make sense for what you are good at. Continue to participate in the ECs that you want to participate in.

I do not think that you need a long list of ECs. I think that you would be best off to have a few ECs that you did well, where “well” is in the context of whatever makes sense for you.

I agree with the post above about the “applying sideways” blog from MIT admissions. It is worth reading. “Just do what you want to do and do it well” is pretty much what I did to get into MIT, and it did work. In your case it looks to me like you are doing very well and doing what you want to do and doing it well is likely to work out for you too.

8

You are off to a great start but IMO it is way too early to think about specific colleges (especially the hyper-competitive ones). You just have one full year’s GPA and you have no standardized testing.

Please recognize that HS should be an experience in and of itself – a time of learning and growth and not just a 4 year college application prep experience.

It is great to take school seriously and know that college will be on your horizon, but it is too early to start planning for specific colleges. I would highly recommend that you get off of CC (except for the HS Life page) until your junior year.

For now you should focus on:
–Working hard, learning, and doing as well as you can in the most challenging curriculum you can manage.
–When the time comes study for standardized tests.
–Continue your involvement in activities you care about and work towards making meaningful contributions to those activities.
–Enjoying spending time with your family and friends.

When the time comes (junior year) then asses your academic stats (including GPA, standardized tests, course rigor) as well as your financial needs. Create an application list that includes a wide range of reach, match, and safety schools that appear affordable (you will have to run a net price calculator for each school you consider) and that you would be happy to attend. You will need to expand your horizons (good college guide books such as Fiske and Princeton Review can be helpful) and recognize that there are many wonderful schools out there where you can have a great 4 year experience and get where you want to go in life.