Chance me for Stanford, Columbia, JHU

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Demographics: Asian Male Bay Area in a Bay Area-esque school(yikes!)

Intended Major(s): Biochem or Public Health

ACT/SAT/SAT II: 35 ACT, 800 Chem, 800 Bio, 800 Phys, 800 Math 2

UW/W GPA and Rank: 3.87, 4.25 (school is pretty severely deflated– avg gpa for Stanford at our school is literally like 3.9. I’m in the middle of accepted applicants, according to Naviance [though we do have a bunch of faculty].)

Coursework:

[AP Coursework]: AP Chem (4) :(, AP Lang (5), AP French (4), AP Phys C E&M, AP CSA, AP Bio, AP Macro&Econ, AP BC Calc

[DE]: Went to Stanford and took Organic Chemistry I&2. Got an A in both.

Awards:

5 Scioly medals (lol)

Extracurriculars:

Scioly (2 years). Basically placed at every event I’ve went to.

Interned at SRI and worked on a paper on Antibiotics– unpublished unfortunately due to restrictive nature of the company

interned at Stanford working with COVID stuff– can’t say too much for fear of doxing. I will likely have a mention in the paper tho and the stuff we’re researching about is (luckily) blowing up quite a bit and we’re a big player in the field.

Writing a research paper on MeHg in my local community with a Berkeley prof. Will be published before REA / ED. I’m also making a short film.

Did stock trading (used to want to go finance but not anymore) and earned about 10k (300% :o) and donated it all to local hospitals for food and PPEs

CoPres of Chem Club

Board of an NPO (no details, dox) – raised 20k last year for our cause

President of a Immunotechnology club at my school.

Co-leader of KWHS Wharton investment competition team

Spent quite a few summers in Yosemite doing survey work for the local forest rangers (awesome experience/volunteering, 10/10)

Essays/LORs/Other:

LOR from AP Chem teacher: she’s not the type of teacher you become friends with. lot’s of tough love. had her for 2 years. our dynamic is great though and I think she’ll write a great LOR come time. also, if it helps, almost 75% of the people who get into t20s at our school (which is quite a bit of people might I add!) have had letters from her. correlation != causation but just thought I might add that.

LOR from Lang: probably not too amazing…? she knows I’m extremely passionate about the writing I’ve done and that I’m ok at lang bc I got a 5 but the class was large and we didn’t get as much time to converse as I would’ve liked.

Undecided on who to ask for my 3rd letter. Either the Stanford Prof, the SRI researcher, or the Berkeley prof. I’m closest to the Stanford Prof and Berkeley Prof though, so I’ll probably look there.

My essay writing is not great. Mostly a stem guy (as you might tell lol) but I’m gonna work extra hard on it to be the best that I can be :). 6/10.

Note: the reason why I have jack for my awards is because Chem olympiad and another Chem comp got canceled due to COVID. I hope to be able to write it in the COVID essay but honestly, I doubt it’ll do much.

Schools:

Early: Stanford or Columbia. I honestly don’t know at this point

the rest: JHU (ED 2 maybe), NYU, Yale, Cornell, UChicago, UPenn, WUSTL, Princeton, Harvard, Northwestern, USC, Dartmouth (eh), Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, UCI, Tufts???, SUNY stony brook

As you can see, I’m gonna shotgun hard with my apps. I expect that I will be rejected from all, save NYU or USC, but i wanna hear what you wanna think :).

2

I like your plan. Statistically for the first early round, you have a better shot at Columbia. But even Columbia is going to be tough. I see that your ED2 choice of JHU is solid, makes good sense.

Have you considered any UK schools? They generally want multiple 5s on relevant APs. I see that you only have one 5. But look into them. If you can pay in full, it might be a good deal, esp since a UK bachelors degree is only 3 years long.

3

Ah ok. I think my biggest weakness in my App are my APs. Since UK Schools love their standardized testing, I don’t think I stand much of a chance of getting anywhere good there. What do you think?

4

I think that with that many reaches, you may be spreading yourself too thin regarding working on essays, etc. I disagree with @sgopal2 and would recommend Stanford, because they are more familiar with you high school and with its grade deflation. Columbia may be comparing you to kids from the many high SES high schools with grade inflation.

Looking at your interests, I would drop Princeton, UPenn, UChicago, WashU, and Dartmouth. Unless you really like NYC, drop NYU as well. If you want a couple more reaches, Rice would be a better choice than those. I also think that UCD would be a better choice for you than UCI.

Another couple of matches/low matches/safeties would be U Minnesota (if it isn’t too cold), Wisconsin, OSU.

However, there are a couple of questions:

A. Aside from a college having a great Biochem/Public Health programs, what are you looking for in a college?

B. How much can you parents afford?

While a 3.87 is a top notch GPA, especially in a high school with grade deflation, unfortunately, the majority of high schools from which students apply to the most competitive colleges have grade inflation. I would recommend that you focus efforts on colleges with which your high school has good connections, based on the patterns you see in Naviance.

Good luck, and congratulations on your excellent high school achievements!

5

I agree that you should apply to Columbia. Every school sends an overview of your school, so they will know what the average GPA is and what classes are offered. IF you ED to Columbia, you have a really good shot.

6

@MWolf I mean I genuinely don’t mind writing a bit extra. My thinking had been that if I applied to enough of these far reaches, I’d get into at least one. Thanks for the suggestions though! I actually did recently add rice on my list.

7

@Tenn_Food ahhh thank you so much! Columbia is def a dream school of mine. I think, depending on how well my LORs are, I will make the decision of REAing to Stanford or EDing to Columbia.

8

Be aware this is more than stats and your stem activities. And for biochem, the AP 4 score could be an issue.

Make sure you have a good read on what those reaches value and look for. From them, not various anon opinions. Then you can assess and strategize.

9

Can you give more detail on the sci olympiad medals you won? I’m not a big fan of ED especially for a strong applicant like yourself, I would lean to Stanford SCEA, unless you really love Columbia.

10

@lookingforward yeah that chem score HURT me. I hope that my A in ochem and 800 in SAT chem makes up for that.

What do you mean by value and look for though? Are you saying that certain schools value certain traits over others?

11

@theloniusmonk Haha that’s very flattering! The medals I’ve won are state level. The events themselves are epidemiology, multiple medals in chemistry, and experimental design. I am currently leaning into Stanford REA. Might as well shoot my shot

12

No hook, right, unless the Stanford prof specifically sticks his neck out for you, and says he wants you there ? Would he do so?

Given that, ED Columbia, ED2 JHU for best odds. But, you are young and gifted,…if you can’t take a chances now, when can you? I always told my kids to go for it when going Early.

If you are going to shot gun a lot of highly selective schools, I recommend you pick your favorites and spend a lot of time in crafting each app individually and with care. Yes, it makes a difference for such schools. Also make sure you pick some very good safety schools— THats where the true challenge of college search and choice lies. Easy to pick those easy to find name brand schools and dream about them. Not so much doing the grueling work of finding the hidden gems not so well known. Get those apps out before you shotgun the rest of your lottery tickets.