Hello! Applying to Johns Hopkins ED and more. School list has been finalized and costs have been taken into account. See note on bottom for extenuating circumstances
Demographics (location, residency, HS type, legacy, US or Int’l, gender, etc)
Asian American Male, US Citizen, Austin Suburb in Texas, Extremely Competitive Public, Income Bracket: 300k+, No Legacy No Hooks
Intended Major(s)
Mol. Cell Biology or Biochemistry
UW GPA, Rank, and Test Scores (also weighted GPA for systems like UC/CSU)
Significant Downward Trend See Below
3.91/4.0 UW GPA
5.18/6.0 W Gpa
Approx. Top ~12% of Class
1530(730RW,800M)
35(35,35,36,35)
Coursework (college coursework for transfer applicants)
17 AP’s, All math up till Calc BC, all science except Physics 2
Extracurriculars (incl. summer activities, competitions, volunteering, and work experience)
Summer Research Internship at Johns Hopkins University Cancer Lab
Policy Advocate and State Lead for Top 5 University Graduate Level Advocacy Initiative
Lead Researcher at Intel Global AI Winning Non-Profit Organization dedicated to AI Mapping and Refugee Research
Independent Researcher under Professor creating a global advocacy project on eating disorders and independent research paper on pneumothorax
Researcher at t5 University COVID Research Organization, in 3 projects ranging from scientific to economic research + outreach and scientific literacy
Summer Research Intern @ Med Tech Startup surrounding drug delivered technology in medicine
Certified Nurse Assistant, Lecture + Clinical Hours
8.Founder of [REDACTED], an organization dedicated to providing students research guidance and opportunities to involve themselves
Medical Shadowing 100+ Hours, 2 clinics
10.HOSA President @ my high school
Essays/LORs/Other
My essay revolves around intellectual humility and widening perspectives, hope its good
Lor from JHU Professor I worked with alongisde normal LORS
Cost Constraints / Budget
None
Schools including Safety, Match, Reach (include ED/EA when applicable)
JHU ED
RD(Rice, Emory, Duke, Brown, WashU, Pomona) EA/Rolling( UNC-Chapel Hill, CWRU, UT Austin, TAMU, UTD)
Note:
I had solid academics until the start of jr year, (4.0 top 6%) but due to a mix of covid-19 burnout, the sudden death of one of my closest cousins, and poor performance impacted by that, my stats took a huge decline (3.9 top 12ish% (only top decile is reported numerically)) and i went from straight a’s to a couple of b’s in ap courses and such. Although nothing is an excuse for my own poor performance, i still plan to mention the extenuating circumstances that affected me regardless of whether they help or not. They happened first sem jr year, which I ended up having b’s and low a’s in, and by second sem i brought everything back to 94+ with the exception of one B, and currently im doing fine in senior year, but overall a downward trend is stilll present as a whole.
I would not mention your issues. To me, it will build a deeper hole. You don’t make excuses in life - it looks bad and will work against you IMHO. It’s not like you got Cs and Ds. Everyone experienced covid.
I say no for JH and base it on 98% of their class is top 10%.
UTD is your safety. If you end up there will you be ok? I suspect you get into A&M too.
Are you applying to Oxford or just Emory ? Both could happen as could Rice if you demonstrate interest. But are reaches.
Alabama has the MCCullough Medical Scholars ….small cohort. Google it. And you’d go dirt cheap…even rich parents like that !!
Pitt also strong in the health sciences. Apply now - it’s rolling - if interested
Or perhaps add a second tier school like a Trinity, Rochester or Brandeis where you should be competitive.
i see, so mentioning the circumstances is a bad idea? i didnt want to make it sound like an excuse, more use it as an opportunity to show how I’ve made efforts to improve post downward trend, but I’m not sure u might be right so I’ll keep it in mind and decide
yeah JHU is quite unrealistic but thats why I’m EDing i guess, for that small chance of getting it as a dream school
I am doing both as well as rice and am also doing things to show DI rn yeah
I’ll look into alabama, but to be honest because my safeties are UTD + A&M, and NMSQT gives me scholarship money, its extremely unlikely I would go out of state for a school not substantially better or one I like a lot more than my safeties since I get full rides to some of them
I see, I’ll definitely talk to my counselor about that. JHU does have a relatively high ED rate for its selectivity, but ofc everyones competitive so its still difficult. Rochester does sound cool, I’ll definitely research into it.
In my opinion very bad. Sorry for your loss but they’re not going to, in my opinion, factor that in and I believe would hold against if you stated.
@momofboiler1 had a great thought. Let your counselor do it. As she mentioned ED helps at JHU and you have history with the school. My entire assessment was based on rank. We are not AOs. Give it your best shot. M
If you’re good with UtD and A&M, I agree.
Hi there - If Hopkins is your number 1, then I say go for it. Yes, it’s not likely based on the number of applicants (I think your credentials are more than solid enough to get in). But certainly applying ED can only help.
Wanted to mention that my daughter has similar stats and background (3.9UW and 35ACT) - although you seem to have more academic rigor and certainly have “better” ECs esp for pre-med. I mention her background because of the schools she’s applying to, CWRU (per her gudance counselor) is apparently a “match” and like you, she’ll be applying EA I’d think same “match” would be true for you.
BTW, while it’s not her first choice, it is a highly impressive school - don’t know if you’ve visited but lots of opportunity for research and practical experience with four hospitals within two miles of campus including Cleveland Clinic.
Being a resident of Texas, why not go to UT (Dallas or Austin) and save the money you would have spent on JHU for medical school… which will be significantly less expensive at an in-state public medical school in Texas for you than for many others going to medical school?
Starting a medical career with little or no debt versus $400,000 debt can make a significant difference in how much freedom you will have in career and life choices. With little or not debt, you will not have to chase the money at every option, if your preferred specialty or option happens to be a lower paying one.
Of course, going to medical school is not a given, but saving money in undergraduate can allow paying for other kinds of professional school without needing as much debt.
This is my primary concern. This makes Johns Hopkins a high reach.
However, I would only apply ED anywhere if it is definitely your #1 choice, and if you know you can afford it. It appears that this does apply to JHU.
I would mostly focus on two things. One is making sure that you have solid safeties that you are happy with. The other is making sure that if you stick with your plan to get an MD and are accepted to medical school, then you will be able to graduate with a manageable or even better no debt.
Don’t be surprised if 4 or 5 years from now medical school costs more than $100,000 per year.
Even if you attend a university where your years of excellent grades were not needed for admissions, the effort that you put in during high school will help you a LOT in terms of being ready for tough premed classes. Do not be surprised if even at UTD you find freshman year premed classes which are full of very strong students but that have a few really tough mid term exams with class averages in the 50’s or worse even among these very strong students. The effort that you put in up to now will prepare you for this and will not be wasted at all regardless of where you end up for your bachelor’s degree.
In terms of having one so-so semester with COVID being a contributing factor: I suspect that this was probably quite common. Some students who were able to hold it together at the peak of the pandemic still report that it was a very lousy time.
This makes good sense to me.
I do not see anything here that would prevent you from being called “doctor” somewhere around about 9 or 10 years from now. To me it looks like you are doing well.
I am usually sensitive to ranking and such but for the medical school bound may I suggest staying in state? JHU + medical school is around 750k+ at current pricing. Add residency and fellowship, you wouldn’t be working for good pay for another 6 years after that. Why impose this load on your parents? This is non trivial, whatever they may say. Assume they save some 20% of that income, the 750k is about 13 years of saving.
Only GPA, Research, volunteering etc matter for medical school. Not the name of your undergrad institution. It is rational to go to Austin.
I know a kid who had very strong academics, got accepted to Princeton, turned it down, and went to TCNJ for a total 7 year guaranteed cost of less than 30k. This is what really smart medical school bound kids do.
I think you are competitive but your class rank will work against you. JHU gets waaay too many high-stat kids wanting to go to med school. ED is a good strategy. Absolutely go for it.
A strategic ED2 might benefit you as well.
Have you considered Baylor? You will get $$ and great medical school to boot and unlike JHU, you might be near the top.
One final thought. With your stats, you will get into University of South Florida’s 7-year BS-MD program that guarantees an interview at Morsani if you hit 515 on MCAT. Your out of pocket will be like $15K per year and you can spend your last year’s scholarship $$ to take grad level classes. Plus, they will guide and nurture you all the way.
thank you all for the advice. I’ll definitely look into the programs everyone mentioned about 7 year or full scholarship. EDing JHU had been a choice I had made since I was a lot younger and I am quite passionate about, and after talking with my parents it seems I had undershot their income by a few hundred thousand, as I’d never inquired into my parents salary and only assumed our bracket based on our housing situation. However if I do end up ever going to a school of such cost my dad wanted me to take a 2 year loan from him and pay it back to him in the future because we are fortunate enough to afford it I guess. Regardless, I am planning to look into all the programs mentioned and more and see whether or not EDing should be the optimal choice.
Outside of the choice on ED vs not ED, are there any general tips you have towards if there is anything I can improve on my application as a whole? Is it just down to essays at this point? Multiple people brought up the rank concern, that is also my biggest concern as well, as from my own perspective its the weakest part of my application. I do have good course rigor and hopefully can get my counselor to mention the circumstances I talked about above but that won’t negate poor performance so I’m just praying it won’t drag me down too much.
OP- one of the first things you will learn in med school is to look at the evidence before making a diagnosis.
You do NOT need to be beholden to a decision you made a few years ago-- even if that decision- ED JHU still seems to be one you are passionate about. Passion won’t get you in. You have a LOT more evidence right now and can make a more nuanced plan.
There are three things you can control at this point-
1- your essays
2- Your recommendations (by choosing the right teachers)
3- YOUR LIST
Borrowing money from a parent seems like a red flag here.
Agree completely with @blossom, and taking one part a tiny bit farther:
…and by giving them good information. Think hard about what they know about you that you want to highlight in your app. Help them remember specifics about you by giving them a cheat sheet of things that stood out for you from their classroom that includes examples of the traits you want to showcase.
Agree with @ucbalumnus & @blossom that this is not a good plan. Talk to your parents further about what this means to them. Many parents believe that kids should have ‘skin in the game’ so that they will take it seriously. Some parents make deals about loans and then ‘forgive’ the loan as a graduation present. Ask - and listen to where this thinking comes from. Sometimes it’s what they grew up with - back when the total loan was something that could be paid off in a year or two of working. Sometimes it’s a lesson from somebody else’s experience. Listen and learn.
Finally, this:
If you have been telling the world and it’s uncle that you are 100% going to ED JHU b/c it is the very best place for you it may feel hard to say ‘ehhh, nevermind’. But life evolves, who you are now is not who you were then (even if ‘then’ was last month). You are making a multi-dimensional decision, that includes likelihood of acceptance, affordability, other options that could help you achieve your longer term goal better (esp where ‘better’ includes financial impact on your future self), and so on. It’s fair to say 'if they only metric was X, JHU would still be my first choice- but when I add in factors Y & Z, A turns out to be the better overall choice for me.
Are you more passionate about going to medical school? Or going to JHU? Because pre-med at JHU is probably one of the toughest paths out there to becoming a physician.
Medical schools care really only about two things: GPA and MCAT. Getting a mediocre GPA from JHU is not going to look well to med school admissions committees. Being Asian, you’re going to need > 3.7 GPA and 514 MCAT to have a decent chance. Going to a more prestigious college, or having a harder major doesn’t lower the bar. JHU is known for having a cut-throat atmosphere.
Another strategy is to attend a small liberal arts college. One where you can crush it and graduate at the top of your class. You’d probably be able to get a sizable scholarship too. Then start med school with relatively low debt. Getting a 3.8 at a small LAC is going to be much easier than at JHU.
Although I agree overall with @sgopal2, I am going to push back gently on this. JHU does have a reputation for being cut-throat, and there are urban legends about students sabotaging other students, but the students that I know there all say that it isn’t true.
What I know about those particular students is that they are highly self-motivated- and always have been. They compete primarily against themselves, and they thrive in the company of other people who also push themselves. So, if that is how you are built, it can be a great place, but otherwise not so much. It’s all about horses for courses.
I see, thank you all for the advice. I’m definitely looking over my decision to ED JHU and reconsidering whether its the best option at this moment. For the time being I’m going to spend more time focusing on completing applications in general, but thank you for the tips regarding recs and essays. Outside of the decision on where to apply, If I could ask, JHU ED’s acceptance rate is ~20%, but of course every applicant is extremely competitive, do you think there is even a chance of acceptance with my profile, mostly because of the poorer stats? My stats are by far the biggest worry of my application, while ecs/essays are nowhere near excellent or perfect they are not all that bad but the downward trend I faced and me being unsure on how to transmit extenatuating circumstances to colleges to see if it matters is what I believe will end up getting me rejected. I also found out there are 1 or 2 students planning to ED JHU from my own schools with significantly better stats than me, idk about ec’s or anything else, I think I do end up near the top of my class in that regard, but not stats