Check my College List

College Search & Selection
1

Hi guys,

Here is my current stats and college list:

Objective:
GPA: 3.83 Unweighted, 4.2 Weighted, 4.19 UC GPA
SAT: 1540
ACT: 35
School Type: Competitive Public
Rank: N/A
Intended major(s): Want to go Pre-Med, so biology/chemistry related
Location: California
Ethnicity/Race: Asian
Income Bracket: High

Coursework:
All honors classes
APs: Chem, Bio so far, AB Calc, Environmental Science, and Lit next year (School doesn’t allow non-language APs as underclassmen) (Haven’t gotten AP exam or SAT II results back yet)

Awards/important recommendations:
Internship at Stanford Blood Center this summer
Stanford STaRS Reconstructive Surgery Internship (2% Acceptance Rate) as a rising junior - Have a letter of rec from a well-known Stanford professor
Interned at a Biotech Startup between 9th and 10th
Top 20 in the State of CA in the Geo Bee (Was in 8th grade, but I thought I should throw it in anyway)

Extracurriculars:
Eagle Scout
Managing Editor of one of the nation’s best HS newspapers

College List:

Stanford University
Harvard University
Princeton University
Columbia University
Yale University
Duke University
Cornell University
Brown University
University of California – Los Angeles
Washington University in St. Louis
Vanderbilt University
University of Michigan – Ann Arbor
Dartmouth University
University of California – Berkeley
University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill
University of Texas – Austin
University of California – San Diego
University of California – Davis
University of California – Santa Barbara
University of California – Irvine
University of California – Santa Cruz
University of California – Riverside

I know my list is VERY top heavy, but I thought I should apply to as many top schools as possible just to make sure I cover everything and don’t have any regrets later.

Let me know what you guys think!

2

This is a ridiculous list, you just took out a page from USNEWS and start to check from the top without discrimination. First of all, all those top schools have thousands applicants have your stats, so how could you stand out? You have to spend a lot of time to write an essay cater to that individual school. If you put 20 top schools on your list, your essay will become a bland of similar essays and the adcomms will be able to figure that out and you will fail.

As an CA resident and ORM, your chances in premed are limited. There is no advantage to attend a tipy top school and become an average student for medical school. Rather, you should attend an average school in that you are the top 10% of the accepted students and become the star in that school, with a high GPA, Mcat and good medical ECs, you will succeed to get into a tipy top med school, which will be your ultimate goal.

You must narrow down your list to 4 super reaches, 4 matches and all the UC as a group, perhaps add SLO as a safety?

UC-Riverside is good for your premed quest. They have a good med school and hospital for you to gain medical related experiences and if you are good, you will be pre- selected to attend their med school after sophomore. Check into that program.

All US med schools are good, its how do you perform in med school counts for your future.

3

You are competitive applicant and I agree with @artloversplus 's assessment that you do not need to go a top elite school to get into Medical school. Unless any of these schools costs come out less than the in-state UC’s, save your money and attend a UC.

Freshman admit rates (2016) for UC GPA of 3.80-4.19:

UCB: 14%
UCLA: 14%
UCSD: 44%
UCSB: 54%
UCD: 58%
UCI: 65%
UCSC: 85%
UCR: 94%
UCM: 96%

4

Top Ivy would be hard, just based on those specs. SAT and ACT are high enough to back you up to a point, and you’ve obviously completed internships and took initiative (however, so has everyone else who is applying to top colleges). Eagle Scout shows strong leadership and newspaper editing shows some activity.

Here are some weaknesses they might see in the top schools:

  1. Extracurriculars - they usually like to see sports, or if you’re not a sport-person, at least some diversity in the EC’s that you did during high school. Based on the lack of AP’s (even if your school didn’t allow it), they will assume that you had plenty of time to do other things. With just Boy Scouts and editing, no matter how rigorous it was, they’ll assume you didn’t do much unless you can elaborate on how much dedication you put in (then again, if you put in that much time into newspaper, they’ll wonder why you’re going pre-med).
  2. Lack of AP - even if your school didn’t allow it, this is still a pretty big weakness. AP shows academic rigor and shows your knowledge level. Without any humanities AP (like social studies), this will be a great defect because once again, you haven’t diversified your academia. They prefer people with a broad understanding of many topics rather than just one topic, as it’s more applicable to have many topics under your belt.

Internships are good but they’ll only help you if you can elaborate on what you did in them and identify your contribution. If it was just an internship where you managed calls or helped with communications, the internship won’t really be a big help. GPA is a defect but shouldn’t be too big of a problem. Really, it’s the extracurriculars that matter more.

Stanford might be a stretch but you could go for it if you already know professors there. UC-Berkeley would be a reachable option (I don’t know how prestigious their medical program is) along with UC-Davis (same question) and other UC schools, but like artloversplus said, med school is really where it matters which school you go to; as an undergrad, you’re just getting ready for it and really doesn’t matter which school you go to as long as you’re getting the experience.

5

Congratulations on your hard work and success in high school! Your scores and grades will make you a competitive, serious applicant at some of the very highly ranked schools on your list. You certainly can apply to any and all of them that you can afford. Here are some important things to consider though.

–Students/families highly (over)weight prestige as a factor in the college application factor. It IS a potential factor. If someone was accepted to two schools that were otherwise precisely equal FOR THEM, it would be perfectly reasonable to choose the one with a superior reputation. But prestige is far from the most important factor. One does themselves a disservice when overweighting. it.

–Dartmouth/UNC/Columbia are as different as Laurel, Mississippi; Spokane, Washington; and Chicago, Illinois. If these cities, for some reason, were all enormously prestigious in someone’s mind, would it seem inexplicable if they said they were trying to decide which one they were going to choose as a residence, based on that prestige? It’s the same with these schools. All are terrific. Dartmouth is in a very quaint small New England town, near nothing but small Vermont towns and some cows. UNC is in a great southern college town with top-notch academics and a fun sports environment. Columbia is not that far from Times Square. The only thing, really, they have in common is prestige. If you are thinking of applying to lots of schools, you might try to figure out which ones (or which type) seem like a good fit for YOU.

–There really are amazing faculty, staff, and students at many, many schools. Pick a number between 70-100 on the USNWR list of national universities and/or LACs. Look up the schools that are ranked that number. Go research the school, visit if possible. I promise there are lots of amazing people there. They are working hard, and many will go on to be as successful as many people at any Top 10 school you might name. That 70-100 school may very well be a perfect fit for you. You might take classes and do research with an incredible, inspiring professor and have a more rewarding experience that at the Top 10 school. Maybe not, but maybe.

–The top 20 or so most highly ranked schools are ridiculously hyper-competitive. You might be accepted to any of them or might be denied admission to all of them. It’s hard for ANYONE to be confident when a school is accepting 5-8% of applicants, counting athletes and others who receive preferential handling. It’s not personal, just an extreme supply and demand situation. You can only apply ED to one. RD is very tough these days. Trust me, perfect SAT/ACT students sometimes are not accepted at these schools.

–The Cal schools on your list are great. You might find some other schools where your strong record makes you a likely candidate for admission and maybe merit aid. What if you applied to those on your list, and you were only accepted to the Cal schools, not including Berkeley and UCLA? Would you be happy with your choices, or would you also like to have an exceptional school like a Colgate, a Wake Forest, or a William and Mary (all still very competitive and not a guarantee) as a possibility as well? Maybe not, but maybe. (Check out the new Wake Downtown campus, which houses biosciences.)

http://news.wfu.edu/wake-downtown/

–In the end, you are the one going to a school FOR FOUR YEARS. Go where it’s affordable and you are happy. You will certainly go to a good school. Don’t worry what others think about the prestige of a school. They have their own paths. Good luck!

6

I agree that your list is kind of ridiculous. However, what @koalasium said about APs is just wrong. You will not be looked down upon by admissions officers if your school did not allow you to take certain APs.

7

The regrets that you may have are not that you didn’t apply to enough reaches, but that you don’t have safeties and matches that you would be happy to attend. As a CA resident, you are fortunate to have a wonderful array of schools. Make sure you know and love your safeties – they aren’t safeties if you wouldn’t be comfortable going there.

The first step in building a college list is financial – sit down with your family to run the Net Price Calculator for a variety of schools. If your family is full pay, can they afford to write those checks? Or do you need to find schools which will give you substantial merit awards?

Schools which have the reputation for liking high test scores include Notre Dame and Wash U. Wake Forest is another school that might be a possibility.

Take a hard look at that list, and build out some matches and safeties, removing a handful of super reaches.

8

It’s not that you will be “looked down upon” for not taking AP or dual enrollment courses; with more than 170,000 applications to UC’s in 2016, what makes you stand out??? You will be competing with students that have GPA 4.0 and above, 8-12 AP’s with 4’s or 5’s, dual enrollment classes, AA degrees and credits, captains of sport teams, hundreds of hours of community service, owners of start up companies, national awards, etc. You are not first generation, you are an ORM, etc. I would strongly suggest that you look at some LAC’s that offer good merit aid. Your list lacks the true match and safety schools. You need to attend a schools that does not have grade deflation. Med schools want well rounded students who have at least 3.7 GPA and high MCAT scores.

9

https://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/infographics/top-feeders-medical-school