<p>Hey All,</p>
<p>The summer before my senior year is about to begin. I've been told repeatedly to get started on my college apps early. At this point, however, most schools seem to still be on last year's application materials. Even Common App and Universal College App seem to not be ready for class of 2015/2019's applications and I am wary to write on any essay prompts that are likely to be changed for next year. </p>
<p>So my question is, for anyone who has already been through this daunting process, what do I need to do this summer to make sure that I have the upper hand on my college applications? Any advice is welcome. </p>
<p>Thanks,
J Stanley</p>
<p>P.S. If anyone has insight or time to recommend other colleges I should look into, here are my stats.</p>
<p>Preferred College: Liberal, open-minded community with good Biochemistry and Music. Looking for generous Merit Aid. SO is at Yale, so NE schools are preferred but not essential.
Major: Biology, Biochemistry or Chemical Engineering (Prospective Medical School)
Colleges I'm already looking at: Boston U, Tulane, USC, Clark, LSU, MIT
High School: Top public school in Louisiana, but that is not saying much.
GPA: 4.6w/3.9uw
AP: World History (4), Chemistry (Pending), English Lang (Pending), APUSH (Taking Next Week), Biology (Taking Monday), Gov & Politics (Taking Next Week), Physics (Next Year), Calculus (Next Year), Euro (Next Year).
ACT/SAT - 33/2080 (I'll take ACT again and try a few SAT Subjects, but I'm not planning on another SAT).
Ethnicity: 1/2 Cuban, so National Hispanic Scholar Pending (198ish on PSAT, so good enough for Hispanic Scholar, but probably not for National Merit Scholarship).
EC's: Genomics Research at Local University, Drum Major for Band, President of Debate Club, President of Math Club, Nursing Assistant Certification Program at Local Hospitals, 200+ Hours of Hospital Community Service. </p>
<p>The common app essay prompts are the same as last year. So don’t worry about it. Your ACT score is also pretty good. I would retake again if already signed up for it but you’ve pretty much met the threshold for the top schools.</p>
<p>The common app is keeping their essay prompts from this past year. Obviously, you do your writing on your own computer. Don’t attempt to fill out the actual common app until August or September. You might consider writing out some “diary style” stories and significant situations of your life. It’s lower stress and it can be great material to pull from as you sit down to write your more formal essays later.</p>
<p>Individual colleges can start releasing their writing supplements in Spring/early summer even before the common app releases them. Keep a look out on the schools on your list for that info. </p>
<p>Put together your resume. Put EVERYTHING on it… every activity, volunteer slot, dates, contacts, description. You may have to drop some activities for your college app due to space, but it’s easy to forget that one time you did mock trial in freshman year but didn’t love it. However, some scholarship, some interview, that experience might come in handy and it’s good to have a solid reference to all that you did prior to filling out applications.</p>
<p>Look into scholarships. Some institutional scholarships require applicants to apply prior to the regular date. Local scholarship deadlines can already be published in some cases. It can be overwhelming to manage multiple college applications, multiple scholarship applications AND school/activities so as much work you can do prior, the better.</p>
<p>I recommend finding an EA or rolling admissions safety. A school you like and can afford. It’s really, really nice to have a school “in-the-bag” as you head into heavy application season.</p>
<p>Add some LACs onto your list, most of those tend to be open-minded and accepting. Might I recommend Middlebury, Williams and Wesleyan (this one is like a 1/2 hour from Yale, and it just became test-optional)? </p>
<p>-MIT releases their app in July, before Common App and Universal. If you want to apply EA there, you could very well have your application completed by August.
-Essay prompts don’t change form year to year and if they did, you’d already know by now (when they changed the prompts last year, we knew by March of junior year).<br>
-Ask for recommendations either before you leave school for the summer or in the first week of September. </p>
<p>Here is my advice to you at this very moment: don’t stress out over AP tests. Start thinking about why a school would want to accept you. Write your heart out. </p>
<p>Check the NPC for each school on your list and eliminate the financial impossible. If you are looking for generous merit aid, you need to aim a lot lower. ACT 33 is good but may not be enough to get you good merit aid at good schools even if they do offer merit aid. Obviously, you have not spent much time to look at the details for each school yet. This is what you need to do over the summer. Find out the application procedure and requirement for each of those you are interested in. Make sure you have the subject test scores for those schools require/recommend them. Visit some campuses on your list to see how do you like them. There are plenty to do even before the application forms are available.</p>
<p>@xFirefirex , @turtletime , @violet1996 , @noel597 , @billcsho - Thankyou all for your comments. Each one of them were very helpful. </p>
<p>Here is a question for anyone who is joining later: Do you agree with billcsho’s comment that I should be aiming lower for generous merit aid? I am currently hoping for at least half tuition from BostonU or Tulane University and full tuition+stipends from Louisiana State University. Is this unrealistic?</p>
<p>I agree with him. Certainly choose a couple reach schools you love to apply to. Many of those top tier schools have great need-based aid but their merit (if any) can be super hard to get. My kid didn’t apply to the schools you mentioned. We didn’t see 1/2 tuition merit from the two similarly qualified candidates we know from this year. I don’t know what schools are good for biochemistry so I don’t have much to offer in that regard but you should apply to a school or two where your stats are above the 75th percentile. That is the best opportunity for merit. </p>
<p>It really depends on how much your parents are willing to pay and how much prestige means to you.
Personally, knowing that I had a decent public school as a safety which would cost about 20k, I applied only to match and reach schools regardless of the sticker price knowing full well that if financial aid didn’t work out I had a good backup.
All said and done I was accepted at JHU with a 30k merit scholarship -which is more than I would’ve gotten from any private school in aid (based on NPCs). </p>
<p>Re essays: don’t look on working on an old prompt as a bad thing. Just don’t bother to finalize and polish it. You can get a lot out of doing a draft and a rewrite as practice. It may generate ideas or parts to use in your final essay. Also many college have a “Why X College?” prompt and it doesn’t hurt you to try to dig deeply and define that for yourself as well as if you have to do it --to get past the superficial or usual answers and to personalize it. My daughter like her Chicago essay, from one of their odd prompts, so much she adapted it for one of the essays she sent out to other schools.</p>
<p>First, I recommend adding the University of Rochester to your list. It is a peer school to both Tulane and BU, and is excellent for all things bio. Plus, it has a medical school.</p>
<p>Second, yes, I agree that for merit aid you should lower your sights a little further (but not below LSU). The fact is that substantial merit aid generally goes to students with ACT/SAT scores in the upper 20% to 25% of the entering freshman class. You would not be in that category at MIT, for example, but would at LSU. Borderline with others on your list.</p>
<p>YES, go ahead and apply to all six of the schools you mention (then add Rochester), then also apply to at least three schools which are very likely to offer you merit aid. Want a surprise suggestion? The University of Alabama. Yep, they are almost guaranteed to offer you a FULL TUITION merit aid package. See this webpage: <a href=“http://scholarships.ua.edu/types/out_of_state.html”>http://scholarships.ua.edu/types/out_of_state.html</a></p>
<p>Naturally, you would need to keep any LSU football loyalties a secret. :-" </p>
<p>My sister and her husband are both doctors and got their undergraduate degrees from schools less regarded than either LSU or Alabama. Getting into med school is mostly about prerequisites, MCAT scores and grades. The college or university is almost irrelevant, except for the few medical schools which give preferential admissions to their own undergraduate students.</p>
<p>Hey, I missed the part about biochemistry AND music… So, definitely apply to Rochester with its Eastman School of Music which is one of the best in the world.</p>
<p>@turtletime -
Thankyou again, I will definitely look for some schools that lie between BostonU and LSU’s in terms of selectivity/test scores. You and billcsho led me to find Clark College, which seems to lie in that area and is going to become a possibility. </p>
<p>@saif235 Glad to hear a success story, I will make sure to apply to a broad range of colleges. And congratulations on JHU, I am almost definitely going to be looking over to Johns Hopkins if I get to medical school. </p>
<p>@BrownParent
Thankyou for the tip, I will make sure to keep that in mind - the more essays the merrier. </p>
<p>@NROTCgrad Yes! I remember seeing Rochester not too long ago, but I forgot to save the idea and never looked into their music program. It looks like a wonderful school and, although merit aid will be hard to come by, I will definitely give it a shot. </p>
<p>Colleges added to my list:
Clark
Wesleyan
Williams
Rochester
Alabama (Ill add as a safety - I would prefer a full ride to LSU)</p>
<p>@julianstanley
You might want to take a look at the Rochester Early Medical Scholars program:
<a href=“https://enrollment.rochester.edu/admissions/specialized/REMS.shtm”>https://enrollment.rochester.edu/admissions/specialized/REMS.shtm</a></p>
<p>This is one of those programs which guarantees admission to medical school if you complete your bachelors at U.Rochester. Some other schools have such programs. Anybody who wants to attend med school should take a serious look.</p>