Hi! I’m a rising senior and have recently begun working on essays for college applications. I’ve been researching colleges for a long time now, and have begun to worry about my true chances of even being accepted to one of the universities as well as the particular major I’m interested in.
Basic Information:
Asian (Indian), born in United States
Raised in middle-to-high income family in the midwest
Attending suburban high school with a class size of around 450, total enrollment 1800
Academic Stats:
4.52 weighted GPA, 4.0 unweighted GPA
School does not rank, freshman year school ranked and I was 1/325
35 ACT (36 E, 34 M, 35 R, 35 S) with 12/12/12/12 Writing
1480 PSAT with 220 NMSC, on track for at least National Merit Semi-Finalist
SAT Math II & SAT Chemistry scores coming soon
Courseload:
Honors Geometry, Honors Algebra II, College Pre-Calculus, AP Calculus (AB), Calculus II, and Calculus III
Honors Biology, Honors Chemistry, AP Chemistry, AP Physics 1, AP Biology, College Organic Chemistry, AP Physics C: E & M, AP Physics C: M
United State History, AP World History, AP US G&P, AP Comparative G&P, AP Psychology
English 1, Honors 10th English Language Arts, AP Eng. Lang. & Comp., AP Eng. Lit. & Comp.
PLTW IED, PLTW AE, PLTW CIM
Extracurriculars:
FIRST Robotics Team Captain (state qualified all years, numerous awards at all competitions, team is building a free app to help track other teams during competitions, several outreaches to local schools, organized several events)
National Honor Society Vice President (major commitment, organized Adopt-A-Family event, Adopt-A-Soldier event, organized Easter event for Childrens’ Hospital, attended LEAD Conference in Washington D.C. to present a workshop)
Cats Kick Cancer Committee Head (organized large kickball tournament event to raise money for teacher diagnosed with breast cancer; major event organized with other schools and superintendent that I led and created)
Key Club Vice President (organized several local events for organizations, book drive, coat drive, shoe drive, organized large run event for local charity organization, worked with homeless shelter to create a large fundraising event)
Mathnasium Instructor (tutor students at local Mathnasium branch, really enjoyable and have been working for a while)
Intern at Orthopedic Surgery Center (part of a selective internship/business program run by our district; have been interning here for the summer and have received incredible exposure to the medical field while shadowing doctors and nurses and witnessing surgeries)
Information about Colleges I’m Looking for:
Major - Biomedical Engineering with Pre-Medicine
Colleges I’m Wanting to Apply To:
MIT, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, Vanderbilt, Wash U, Cornell
University of Michigan, Georgia Tech, University of Texas at Austin, University of Minnesota, University of Maryland, University of Illinois, Purdue University, University of Wisconsin, University of Washington, Saint Louis University
Note that medical school is very expensive, so you may want to make cost a priority in choosing a college, so that you have more money left to reduce the eventual debt you will have after medical school, if you are one of the few who gets into any medical school.
Hey there. Your profile looks great. Solid grades and scores, plus great rigor. I think lots of admissions committees will like your profile.
However, as I’m sure you aware, you look very typical for an Indian. Heavy STEM focus with pre-med. Keep in mind that you will be compared to like minded individuals. So the competition is quite stiff.
Are you going to apply anywhere ED? The chances for admission are greatly increased for ED. The RD rounds in recent years at top universities have been brutal, especially so for ORMs/STEM.
May I ask why the BME/med school combo? Getting into med school requires getting the best possible GPA that you can. Most BME programs have brutal grading curves. Also the top colleges for BME are not necessarily the best breeding grounds for a medical school career.
Your ec’s definately point to a biomedical major. If colleges recognize that, you have a good chance at top ivies. I can’t tell you much more except maybe add Brown and Rice to your list (and maybe some other ivies, I don’t see any on your list).
As an Indian pre-Med academic, your odds of MIT, Stanford and Ivies are low so you should maximize your odds by ED to JHU, Rice or Vanderbilt. Going to Rice can help you establish Texas residency and improve your odds of admission for several affordable medical schools in Texas. Also look into Rice-Baylor or Baylor-Baylor BS-MD programs.
@ucbalumnus Hello! Thanks for your feedback. My state of residency is Missouri and I’m trying to keep annual cost under $50k per year. This would mean my parents (I am very grateful for this) would pay around $35k and I would be willing to take out a loan for the difference.
@sgopal2 Hello! Thanks for your feedback. I know it’s unfortunately the sad truth that I seem too similar to other Indian applicants, however I have done all of my extracurriculars out of pure interest. I plan on applying ED to Johns Hopkins (I know it’s a heavy reach but their admission rate is 32% ED as opposed to around 12% for RA). Personally I have a heavy interest in engineering, especially biomedical engineering as opposed to mechanical, chemical, or electrical engineering and I think pre-med would really harness both of my interests. As opposed to biology or chemistry, I wanted to pursue BME since I’m interested in it and I’m not as heavily vested in bio or chem to completely major in it.
I would very much appreciate any additional thoughts. Thank you!
@Riversider I’m actually applying ED to Johns Hopkins since their ED acceptance rate is around 32% as opposed to around 12% for RD. I also plan on applying to Rice and Vanderbilt, though RD of course. I’m not familiar with establishing Texas residency through going to Rice, could you possibly elaborate on this? I’ve been heavily researching BS/MD programs, and Rice/Baylor is one of them that I plan on applying to. I would very much appreciate additional feedback, thank you for your thoughts! Much appreciated.
As an update to this post:
SAT Chemistry - 780
SAT Math II - 770 (not the best possible score, but honestly good enough and I don’t want to retake the test)
Received 5s on all AP Exams (Calculus AB, English Lang, Comp Gov, US Gov, Chemistry, & World History)
Since you’re from Missouri, you should know that WashU is not going to be inexpensive and the merit awards are going to be tough to get.
For a potential premed, the undergraduate GPA is all important. So do not apply to Hopkins/MIT as they are major grade deflators. Cornell supposedly is also a grade deflator as well.
Michigan and UT Austin are reaches for OOS students, even those with your stats.
Also run the NPC for UIUC. I don’t think you’ll be able to attend for less than $50k, although I don’t think it will be much higher than that. Still, you want to keep the debt level as low as possible if med school is in your future. In fact, I would run the NPC on all your schools, since you have quite a few OOS state schools on your list.
Your stats are excellent, though. Still, I would drop MIT and add some more match and likely schools, if only to make sure you have choices next spring.
You can only borrow ~$5500/year. If your parents will pay $35k that means your budget is $40k, not $50k. If you’re interested in pre-med I’d avoid borrowing.
I can’t imagine being premed as a BME major at Purdue either. Grade deflation is very real at Purdue as well and the competition to transition to the BME major was the most competitive of any engineering major last year. Students with the grade cut off still didn’t get their first choice because they capped the major to only 100 students.
BME as a pre-med is going to be tough. My son knows a couple at WashU and they generally take at a minimum 18 units a semester to get all their requirements complete.
The washout rate for BME majors is pretty high. Using WashU as an example, at least 1/3 of declared freshmen BME majors change their majors after freshman year.
The running joke at McKelvey is that Olin does not need to admit new freshman business majors. Just poach the wannabe BMEs. I recall seeing a CC poster writing that BME is an abbreviation for ‘business major eventually’ so there may be a slight grain of truth to the stories.
My son’s friend told him that during the WashU Engineering orientation for freshman, the head of the BME department told students told everyone to say hello to their seated neighbors, as it was highly likely that they would drop out of BME and they would never see them again.
Georgia Tech has one of the top BME programs in the country, but that is going to wreak havoc on your GPA as well. Besides EECS, it’s going to be one of the toughest majors there. Not advised either if you’re planning on pre-med where the goal is at least a 3.7 overall/BCPM GPA.
@austinmshauri I would most likely look at private student loans, but nevertheless it is an outrageous amount of money. I will definitely make sure to look more into some schools with need and merit-based aid. Thanks!
@Groundwork2022 This post is actually slightly outdated since I’m no longer planning on applying to MIT at all. Do you happen to have any middle ground match schools that would be strong for pre-med and/or BME?
@Hamurtle Thank you for the insight, truly. I actually toured WashU three times (general tour, pre-med day, engineering day) since I’m local and I was drawn to it due to the vast amount of resources they have for students and premeds. That being said, I could only imagine the immense competitiveness there based on their average GPA and hearing from students and reading posts. I think WashU definitely highlights their beautiful campus and resources as opposed to shedding light on students’ struggles like GT does. At this point, WashU is just a dream school, though I don’t know I would even attend if accepted due to the crazy annual cost and low GPAs for premeds/McKelvey students. Would love to hear more thoughts from you!
@txstella Based off the information we inputted (confirmed by my father’s HR reps at work), our net price is around $45,000 total per year. This is based off a need-based aid grant (the JHU Grant) that brings down the price around $30,000. That being said, I know this would be my final price since the merit scholarships are far too competitive for me to receive, even with a 4.0 and 35 which is hardly average for Hopkins. At this point I’m contemplating ED since I’m worried about their low GPAs for BME and pre-med, though I’m looking more into that as well.
I’d love to hear more of your thoughts and any info you may have regarding any of this!