Chance Me For Pre-Med/ Archeology

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

I’ve always wanted to go to an ivy league school because I am incredibly interested in both studying archeology and Pre-med, and few schools have good programs for both, so my dream schools are Brown, Yale, Columbia, or UPenn

School: A medical specialty magnet school, requires you test in and is very completive

School Rank: Unknown (they don’t tell us)

I’m not sure how my school calculates my GPA, but I have 96.1 average
All my classes are honors level, no AP’s or IB’s are offered

Ive only taken the SAT once, and got a 1480 (760 in math and 720 in English), but I plan to retake it 2 more times, or until I get a 1550.

My extracurricular are:

Varsity Crew (spring, summer, fall, winter seasons): Beginning the summer after freshman year, every season I have been in crew. I first made varsity the spring of freshman year, and plan to keep doing it into senior year. I consider myself a good rower and have won many medals.

Treasurer for Students of Service (Junior and Senior year): A volunteer club at my school, Students of Service focuses on raising money and supplies for those in need, through various service projects.

Active Member of NHS (Junior and Senior year): My local chapter of NHS holds various service projects throughout the year, intended on helping the community and my school. Examples of such projects include a fair we held for the local big brother’s big sisters and a raffle/ talent show night for my school

Active Member of Model UN (Freshman, Junior and Senior year): We hold multiple after school conferences. As you probably know, each person chooses a country and everyone debates an issue as their country would. We attend the Seton Hall conference every year, with people coming as far as California to participate. I have won many awards, from best delegate to best position paper

Active Member of HOSA (Junior and Senior year): Health Occupational Students of America, this club is a competitive medical-oriented club that focuses on students competing in various completions. My competition was medical photography, and after a few levels, I placed 3rd in my state. In its volunteering aspect, it also has many projects, such as an annual blood drive.

TEAM (Freshman, Sophomore, Junior Senior year): A club that’s intended to introduce the freshman into our school. This club is very exclusive and requires you be interviewed to be let in, of which only about 8 kids out of the average class size of 75 do get in. We hold various picnics, info sessions, and orientation events to make sure the freshman feel comfortable and confident transitioning into high school.

My Towns Historic Society (Junior and Senior year): As I live in a small town on the Atlantic coast, there is a lot of history in my town. My town’s historic society does a lot, but as a member, I mostly give tours of the main historic mansion in my town. I explain the history of the place, the time period, etc.

Local Summer Recreational Camp: (Summers of Junior and Senior Year) I am a volunteer counselor, helping keeps the kids safe, making games to occupy them, leading them in various activities, and making sure they have an overall fun time.

Weekly Volunteer at a local hospital (Sophomore, Junior, and Senior year): I give patients water, make sure they are comfortable, and try to make the patients happy by talking to them. I also have learned a lot from helping many of the nurses, things such as how to take vital signs!

Weekly Volunteer at a local historic lighthouse (Junior and Senior year): I meet and greet visitors, and help the guided tours of the lighthouse, as well as providing the visitors with information about the site

Works for a pool cleaning company: (Summers of Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, Senior Year) Scrubbing poolside’s, fixing machinery and vacuuming pools

Over the summer I also have plans to volunteer at my cousin’s archeological site in Virginia, where I would be helping excavate antebellum slave quarters in the rural south. This would involve things such as soil analysis, cataloging artifacts, and writing up result findings.

I also intend to start working at my local EMT division and starting to volunteer at my local red cross.

2

Lots of info to analyze here, so bear with me.

You want to go to an Ivy league school. Great! Many people do too. What you should compel you is not only the spectacular education, but also the very name of these universities will get you into opportunities you had no idea even existed. This alone will propel your career. Because you are looking at such selective schools, make sure to consider the amazing programs other schools offer. You might get the same quality of education at a fraction of the price and a fraction of the stress!

Your major is pre-med which is overwhelmingly competitive. Good Luck! In my state school (UMass), the GPA to get in for the school is around 3.00, but for nursing at UMass Amherst it’s a 4.0. In other words, may you have the bestest of luck! However, archaeology is super cool and rare, marketing you as a very unique individual. Schools love this! If you represent your quirkiness in your essays by showing passion for archaeology and pre-med, that will soften the fact that pre-med is so competitive.

Your SAT is high. If your application was based alone on SAT, you would be fine. However, to give yourself an edge you can always try to go higher. Mine was 1500 which is super high, but I actually tried out the ACT and managed a 35. That’s equal to a 1590, and I feel I put in the same amount of effort in to the SAT as the ACT. So try out the ACT!

Your GPA is great, you basically have a 3.8-4.0. That’s quite an achievement. Schools look at the GPA arguably the most out of any component of your application, so you are in a great spot. Don’t let this drop! However, since it is so high, you may want to apply ED to a school because you don’t need to send another semester of grades, yours are already fine.

You may get the impression that you are at a disadvantage because you did not take AP’s. Not at all. It is true that people will apply to Ivy’s with 12 AP’s or something ridiculous. Schools don’t mind the number as long as you challenge yourself and take the highest level classes you took. Your school offers 0 AP’s so in other words you took the most AP’s you could. This can be a negative because if your school does not offer AP’s than you cannot be judged by the AP scores, and your school might not be regarded as a top school in your state, which is a big setback.

Your EC’s are robust. You need to remember that schools are looking for two contradicting things. They want to see that you are well rounded, meaning you do all sorts of stuff like art, music, drama, sports, leadership, community service, etc. They also want to see that you are pointy, meaning that you achieved a lot in one certain field. Since you seem like you are centered around medicine, a perfect candidate might volunteer at a hospital, but also do service trips involving medicine in third world countries, AND play a sport, instrument, etc. You have a lot of these components so you are well off. But always try to achieve more so that you can show how far you got. Go the extra mile, it will pay off.

Schools love leadership so try to get involved in leadership positions. They also have wierd infatuations with numbers. For example, they love when you start a club and it grows to 100 members. If you write the numbers in your club and they are impressive, that’s a huge bonus.

For you cousin’s archaeology site, I would include that in a supplement or even your essay. Definitely do not include your accomplishments in your essay, it is overkill and colleges want to see a different side of you. Putting it in your supplements allows you to demonstrate obvious passion.

SInce you are so accomplished, you might want to look at the number one med school in America, Johns Hopkins. Yes it is extremely competitive. But you won’t get that kind of education elsewhere. Cornell and Duke are good too.
Karolinska Institutet. I’ve been and it looks like it is from the year 2300!

So, your obviously going places. I hope I could help, don’t stress, you have all the cards in your hand. Stay confident and make smart choices. I wish you the best of luck, and a bright future!

3

@stressedmhs Thank you so Much for that helpful in-depth response! I will definitely look more into leadership things!