College Admission Help!

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hey guys! I am currently a high school student who plans to be a pre med student (majoring in Biomedical but unsure yet) in college and I would like to receive some input to improve my odds into getting in my desired colleges. Below I listed a general idea of my application. Any help is useful! Thanks!

Grade: Junior
Location: Northern Virginia
Current GPA: 4.08 (mostly likely 4.18 by the end of junior year and hopefully around 4.3 by the end of senior year)
Current SAT: 1410 in second attempt (plan on taking it a third time in May to reach 1500+)

Extracurriculars:
-Volunteered at the DC VA Medical Center for the last 3 years in OR, ER, and Pharmacy. I was able to gain insight in the medical field by shadowing doctors and the medical staff and watching surgeries while also providing help in the hospital such as handling prescriptions for patients, inputting patient surgery information, and distributing medical supplies throughout the departments. Accumulated over 400 hours within this organization and recognized for it. I plan on volunteer here this summer in their Research Department and to reach 500 hours
-Volunteered at the Walter Reed National Military Center last summer in Occupational Therapy and Surgical Waiting Room. In Occupational Therapy, I helped my supervisor find technology for current and former US military personal who are disabled or impaired from combat to assist them in their current living situation. In Surgical Waiting Room, I comforted the patients families and helped them keep up to date on the current status of their loved one in the OR. Volunteered around 90 hours from Walter Reed
-Volunteered in the Red Cross for the last 3 years and accumulated 84 hours from this organization. Served as a Blood Donor Ambassador during this span and helped out in various events to promote general safety from homes to disasters
-Started recently volunteering in the Medical Reserve Corps to help improved health and safety of communities and provide emergency support in the case of a disaster
-Founded FBLA in my school and am a member of National Honors Society, Math Honors Society, and Science National Honors Society

Current Course Load:
-AP Language/Comp
-AP Psychology
-AP Calculus
-AP US History
-Academic Physics
-AP Chemistry
-AP Computer Science A

Planned Senior Year Course Load:
-AP Literature
-AP Statistics
-AP Biology
-AP Physics
-AP Human Geo
-AP Gov
-Accounting

Schools I am interested in:
-VCU
-Virginia Tech
-Penn State
-UPitt
-William and Mary
-University of Virginia
-University of Southern California
-NYU

My parents are generous enough to pay for all or most of my tuition.

2

You will be a competitive applicant for all your current choices.

And you only need one to say yes.

I like your list and keep up the good work.

3

@AlphaDog1031 Do you mind if I ask you a question? Among your current classes, about what percentage of your time do you find yourself studying for each one?

4

@damon30 25% Psych, 20% AP Chem, 15% APUSH, 14% Calc AB, 3% AP Lang, 6% Physics, and 17% Comp Sci. I expected Psychology to have a lesser course load compared to the rest of my classes but my teacher gives my class huge amounts of readings and assignments to do. Chemistry also takes up a lot of time due to the sheer amount of worksheets and labs we have to do and US History is also pretty time consuming because the amount of readings to do. Thanks for the reply!

5

@privatebanker Really appreciate the response! May I ask you a question? How do you think my application would fare if I applied for a direct-med program? Do you also have any suggestions to improve my application?

6

You mean like a Brown Plme program or other BA/MD guaranteed acceptance program ? If so which ones. They run a wide range of selectivity. Although all are very competitive.

7

You are in the running for all of those schools and you have a good spread. I caveat that with fact that your GC will be able to give you a better read on the VA state schools. She’ll have data that can hone in on what it takes for likely admissions to those colleges.

My experience with outcomes from those combined MD programs has been that they are very competitive to the point that kids accepted to HPY and such were sometimes not accepted to any of them. Your SAT as it stands now is low for consideration for such programs. SAT2 and AP test scores from junior year would figure largely into that picture. Also more information about you and your app would be needed to gauge chances at these highly selective programs.