Emory Scholars Program Chance me Please!!

Colleges and Universities A-Z Emory University
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So I know that Emory’s Scholar’s program is extremely selective. I guess what I’m asking is whether or not I’m at least competitive enough to be considered. Thanks

Applying RD

Objective:
SAT I (breakdown): 2280 ( 710 CR, 800 M, 770 WR)
ACT: 34 (36 M, 34 E, 33 S, 33 R)
SAT II: 800 Chem 800 Math II
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 4.0
Weighted (5): 4.84
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): top 2-3%
Senior Year Course Load: AP Calc BC, AP Gov, AP Stat, AP Physics, AP Latin, AP Lang
AP Scores- Chem (5), U.S History (5), Macro Econ (5), Micro Econ (5), Lit (5), Calc AB (5), Bio (4), World (4)

Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): FBLA 3 Regional awards (1st, 2nd, 3rd) 2 states awards (3rd, 5th) 1 national award (4th)
US Chemistry oly - nationals
Piano Royal conservatory level 5 and 8 (out of the10 levels) high honors
National Latin Exam and Etymology tests - 3 Gold medals
State Latin convention - 2 Club awards (1st) and 1 individual award (1st)
National Merit SemiFinalist
AP Scholar with Distinction
National AP Scholar

Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): Varsity Soccer (4 years, 2x conference champs) Varsity Track, FBLA President, Chemistry Club VP, Latin Club Officer, NHS Treasurer, Weight-lifting (school records), Basketball (county/state tournament champion x1) 10 years of competitive piano with awards, worked for a company called SENA (administrative), youth worship leader (guitar, piano leader), tutoring for school.

Summer: Governor’s school of Health Care (Shadowed/interned with neurosurgeon)
Volunteer/Community service: Summer volunteer service in Downtown Philly (since freshman year), 100+ hours working in Radiology department (Abington Hospital)

Essays: I think my essay topic was somewhat overused, but I definitely wrote it in a very idiosyncratic way. It was good

Teacher Recommendation: Calc and Chemistry teacher: Calc teacher is known for writing good recs, Chemistry teacher loved me
Counselor Rec: better than average
State (if domestic applicant): PA
Ethnicity: Asian
Gender: Male
Hooks (URM, first generation college, research, etc.): None

Also, can someone explain to me exactly how yield protection works? As I have seen it mentioned before

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What is your academic interest, as in major of interest…not pre-professional track (meaning do not say pre-med as it is too generic and is not a major)? If chemistry, you may be interested in Emory at the right time :wink:

You “may” be considered but many others interviewed were quite ridiculous. If you are a fit for or actually interested in Emory seriously, then they could interview you but one common thread I see among newer scholars is that many have flat out started organizations or have a rare interest or deep academic focus not as common for Emory. Your track record is more similar to a normal Emory admit who would just so happen to fall into the top 75% score wise. Your chances are higher for scholarships at places that like to pad their scores a lot…however you do have music going for you meaning that at very least, slightly smaller but substantial scholarships are very possible (such as a music scholarship). Of course we can never know.

As for yield protection: Typically used on high stats. candidates who seem to have a VERY low chance of yielding if they get in anywhere else, As in such a person doesn’t seem much like a fit and has high stats so you get denied but more likely waitlisted. I kind of think Emory does it but nowhere near to the extent places like Vanderbilt do (they actually post their stats on collegeboard and like a 1/5 or more students are waitlisted-6000)and WashU is accused of doing. I thought Emory was more aggressive with this…but it really isn’t. It takes huge risks on its yield and continued to do so even during last cycle which had the huge bump in applications. Most schools to control yield and look (and maybe become) more selective simply accept less students (literally less, not just % wise) and put crap tons on the waitlist whereas Emory accepted slightly more than in the year before with less applications. Furthermore it accepted the same quality stats wise while things like the academic diversity went up a bit. Enrollment figures also suggests that academic quality went up in “non-USNWR” metrics such as AP credit (for example, an honors linear algebra class for freshmen was offered for the first time and it filled! I promise you it would have 1-2 years ago).

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@bernie12
Wow thanks for the info.
There is a high possibility that my intended major will be Chemistry (could you elaborate on what is going on with their Chem department?). At first, I was interested in the 3-2 program and would have majored in some engineering, however if I do become pre-med, I would risk tanking my gpa.

I’m just anxious because i really want to go to Emory however without the scholarship, I’ll probably go to a different school :frowning:

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There are always other scholarships my friend, don’t be afraid to try for them! There are scholarships even for those not in URM groups, so you can try to apply for those and also hope that a smaller, but significant scholarship from Emory may help.

As for chemistry, this is supposedly happening if the college approves it:http://www.wsj.com/articles/chemistry-departments-try-to-attract-more-students-by-retooling-the-major-1428880862

and

http://www.wsj.com/articles/chemistry-departments-try-to-attract-more-students-by-retooling-the-major-1428880862

I think it is a great idea, though I wonder about its execution. I will say that the flipping of general chemistry (if you get to visit Emory on M-Th between say 9 and 2:00 you’ll get to see the classes in action) has been really well received so far and Emory has to be basically the only medium sized and top private to try flipping all of its general chemistry sections. However, a person with your background should not opt in to general chemistry as there will be plenty of other start options for those with better backgrounds that will both meet pre-health requirements and be much more interesting (while not necessarily being harder). It will make Emory a more interesting place to be for biology and chemistry than most other schools, especially near peers (many of which have many science programs but aren’t particularly special for them…other than I guess Cornell and WashU). Also, Emory has engineering sciences which will basically cover you if you plan to perhaps pursue grad. school in engineering or want a job (like most tech oriented people at Emory, you’ll become even more competitive because you will probably intern)

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Do you happen to have any stats on the Scholar’s Program? Such as # of applicants or average test scores…the such.
How do you think I would do Regular Decision? You also talked about other scholarship’s? How would I apply to these (Emory I’m assuming)?

The article seems very interesting, but I plan on probably starting with organic Chem seeing that I do have a passion for chemistry and feel competent enough to skip the general class.

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No, they don’t publish those. Just assume most finalists were in or near the 75% of last year’s class and know that it isn’t really stats based.

@Brownhead As for the article…there is not but lol. That’s the point of the restructuring! To allow people like you to start in several places as opposed to ONLY general chemistry or organic. If you took advantage of the organic option, that is exactly what they would have wanted. The current structure is traditional and promotes a lot of gaming of the system like people with 5’s on AP/IB taking both semesters of gen. chem. The idea is that, even if you chose to take the 1 semester course in chemistry, the second semester, you must actually choose something else that is in one of the actual core areas of chemistry (note that no researcher I know studies “general” chemistry). This track disincentivizes gaming ones way to superficial success and basically forces people to learn applications or specialized areas and ultimately will provide better training I suppose (because gen. chem is kind of stupid when taught in the traditional way with the traditional topics taught without any context as it is at like…almost every other top school).

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Also, as for RD, yes your chances are solid

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@bernie12 Whst do you mean by “flipping classes”?

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@MyOdyssey http://www.edutopia.org/blogs/tag/flipped-classroom

Less didactic lecture or students being talked at. Usually students don’t like it because it removes the handholding of lecture and makes them more responsible. Often students claim to not be learning unless they are being explicitly told information or receiving a demo. However, the reality is that you often learn by doing. A flipped classroom (especially in STEM, the humanities and Soc. sciences have almost always had small classrooms that are discussion based) when done well, can allow students to try exercises and get instant feedback from the instructor instead of the students pretending to learn in a lecture (just blindly copying notes) and then having to solve harder problems without teacher supervision or feedback from an authority.

See Dr. McGill talk about learning catalytics because it is a similar principle here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm20FJZgTuE . Last year, gen. chem wasn’t flipped

Biology at Emory already had many professors employing such techniques or hybrid versions of it (some lecturing followed by case study or data analysis problems), which is actually…quite rare at elite privates. Most privates, especially in biology depts, are sticking to boring memorization packed lectures in both intro., intermediate, and even many advanced courses. Emory is fortunate to have many who at least try different things.

And of course, we have to be one of the only if not THE only top 20-25 private trying this on a large scale in the chemistry department especially for a large service course like general chemistry. And again, surprisingly, it seems well received in students in both biology and chemistry who have taken instructors employing more active learning. Neursoscience classes, when they do, apparently not as well received by that crowd (many of these students seem to love lecture so ratings of profs. who try otherwise go lower, whereas all of those doing it in biology have pretty high ratings).

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My last question…
For my supplement I essentially wrote about how Emory’s decision to bring Ebola into America was noble, however, it should not be in the power of a private institution to make decisions for the whole country. I believe that the essay definitely goes counter with most of the essays they’ll receive and it’s certainly a valid argument (so my editors say). Do you think that will put me in a bad light (somewhat bashing the school…sorta)??

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@Brownhead : Uhmmm…it could because I would kind of wonder why and it would really depend on how you went about your argument and whether your grounds for concerned are legitimate. I will present a critique of one potential argument that would have been made (or just critique the whole idea/premises).

I feel as if that would be an issue if the US government was indeed blocking influx of Ebola patients (and then Emory says: “Screw you, I’m caring for them anyway”), but it appears that the intake and further treatment of them was left to the states (and subsequently the local level). By making such an argument you are essentially saying that the US was squeamish about accepting any patients to any research institutions (private or not) in the US (in any capacity for that matter-in this case, they were clearly coming to be treated, they weren’t coming to roam the streets or ride a bike which is more than can be said for a certain state in the Northeast) and I think most people read it as: “Accept and treat them at your own risk”. You are responsible for them when your locality accepts them and you should have a plan, at least Atlanta/Emory had a well thought out plan". The main concern was actually from the Atlanta area and not all of the US. This was displayed again in the case of how Dallas pretty horribly failed and was not able to save that patient and in fact ultimately treated them really poorly (they even missed the diagnosis- however, this wasn’t a case where they were specifically brought to be treated). If you are going to make this argument then you should also expand it to say that you believe the federal government should have explicitly made an official decision on whether or not any E.bola patients (or potentially infected people) would be taken at all and where they were allowed to go.

Your current idea seems to single out Emory which was a place that did decide to and successfully handled it. Your argument should maybe reoriented to seem more fair and informed. Maybe even use the Dallas case to show how things could have gone awry to explain your apprehension and discomfort. You can see that I concerned with you going in this direction simply because smaller institutions below the federal level clearly had a lot of autonomy in this case. Furthermore, the federal government did not decide to intervene in any such cases which is further evidence that their deliberate intake was not viewed as an issue that would be dealt with at the federal level. You also have cases where certain states, cities (and even public schools) had contemplated (some flat out blocked) blocking immigrants or American citizens returning from the affected countries. There were also interesting quarantine policies of “potentially” affected people. These localities caught lots of flack but ultimately were allowed to implement certain policies without federal intervention.

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@bernie12 Would you mind taking a look at it?? it’d be easier that way.

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sure, why not?