Chance me for WashU, Northwestern, Duke, Rice, and others!

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hey, all. Thanks for reading. Here’s some background: I’m a white male from Kansas in a medium income bracket looking to major in Biomedical Engineering or Astrophysics. Haven’t decided which is better yet, but one of the two. Maybe doubling.

UW/W GPA: 3.8, 4.3, strong upward trend (Started with a 3.4 Freshman year)

ACT: 33 (36 E, 30 M, 33 R, 34 S, 33 W), taken twice, thinking about taking once more

SAT II: Won’t have until late November/Early December, don’t know how much this will hurt.

Awards: National Merit Commended, the highest awards for classwork from my nationally-ranked high school, AP Scholar with honors, various decorations for Orchestra at the state level

4 AP Exams under my belt: 5 on Lang, 5 on Euro, 4 on APUSH and 4 on Physics 1

ECs: I’ll start small and work big: I play intramural tennis for my school, mostly for fun. I also write novels in my free time and have won NaNoWriMo four times. I used to be in Boy Scouts and am an Eagle Scout, my project involved constructing signs around a local park. I am a Varsity member of my school’s Scholar’s Bowl. I am involved in four NHS organizations as a member and one- History- as President. I am First Viola on my school’s orchestra and I also tutor violin for a living; I am also a member of my district’s invitation-only Honor orchestra and will be playing keynote to my city’s symphony in a month’s time. I am currently involved in my district’s iGEM project investigating the applications of CRISPR gene editing on antibacterial resistance; and I am the founder and president of my school’s BioClub and our own, independent iGEM team, currently brainstorming for project ideas.

Senior Course Load: AP: Lit, Phys2, Calc AB, Gov, Bio; Honors Engineering; Honors Orchestra; and Gifted.

Extra, potentially relevant information: I travel a lot, and have been to 32 states and 9 countries in the last year; I was raised by my single mom; I’m told my essays are the most powerful part of my application; and I am a self-published author.

So, yeah. That’s what’s up. Think it’s enough? I have no idea what to expect. Currently looking at a myriad of colleges with good atmospheres and high rankings in medical fields, including the ones mentioned in the title, as well as Stanford (lol), Columbia (lol), Yale (lol), and some more match-like colleges like UNC Chapel Hill, UIUC and Umich Ann Arbor.

Thanks for the input!

2

What’s going to hurt you the most is your GPA. But, ECs will help. It’s definitely a reach for the duke and the ivies, but the other ones you mentioned you would have a better shot at.

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I’d recommend you take the ACT once more – you never know! I took it three times, went from 31 to a 33 to a 35, with a 36 superscored. It definitely couldn’t hurt.

Given that your statistics seem close-ish to mine and extracurriculars seem superior to mine when I applied to some of these colleges, I’d say WashU, Rice, and Northwestern would be good matches/low reaches. Yale, Stanford, etc. might still be a bit outside of reach (tbh they are for nearly everybody), but if you have as good of essay as you say you do that can really tip the adcom’s in your favor!

Overall, I think your list is pretty good. I’d say take the ACT one more time, make sure that essay is perfect, and apply to 5-6 mid-high reaches (Stanford, Yale, Duke, Columbia, Amherst :wink: etc), 2-3 low reach/matches (WashU, Cornell maybe, UNC maybe) and a safety.

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@junior2017 Yeah, I figured. I’m really hoping that upward trend I have going caries me a little, but I’m well aware that I’m at a heavy disadvantage. Thanks for the input.

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@AmherstClass2020 I’m currently signed up for the October 22 ACT, but I’ve been kind of blowing off studying in favor of essay writing because most people I’ve asked told me that 33 is ‘good enough.’ I should probably go crack an ACT book eventually lol.

As for the college list, I have like 12 on my commonapp right now. I’m doing Stanford/UNC/Umich for EA, and the rest (Northwestern, Cornell. WashU, Rice, Duke, etc) as RD. I think that’s a good strategy, because I’m a little afraid of that word ‘Binding’ and places like WashU and Northwestern use ED. Looking forward to my Stanford rejection letter on December 11th.

I’ve had a ton of people review my essays, and I’ve gotten some great criticism from them; with that, I’ve improved them and I hope they’re top notch at this point. I’ve also covered my ass and already been accepted to three safeties, so no matter what happens in the next few months, I am going to college. Hooray.

Anyway, thanks for the input. I’ll definitely get to studying.

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@Tgmeier36 You seem to have your sh*t together, good job. When I took the ACT, I just took a ton of practice tests. Probably ~20 in total. There is a site (powerscore) that has some good free ones for practice if I recall correctly. A 33 is definitely “good enough” for all place essentially, but a 34 or 35 is even better. Might as well attempt to get that extra boost – you never know when it might mean the difference.

12 is a good number. I was confused as heck when I applied to colleges, so I applied to the maximum + MIT (literally 21 different applications!). Keeping your list small allows you to not only focus better on individual apps, but also keeps your decision of where to go in the end hopefully easier.

Because you seem like such a strong applicant, I’d agree with you not to apply ED to NWestern or WashU (I think you can do better than that :slight_smile: ). The lightheartedness you take to rejection letters is okay, but don’t forget to put your heart and soul into those Stanford essays still. If I recall correctly, Stanford has you do a lot of writing. Now is not the time to slack!

You seem smart, best of luck m8.

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Is 33 your super score or single sitting? Keep in mind that WashU super scores.

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@ap012199 It’s both, superscore doesn’t improve me at all. Too bad, I know.