Hello! Advice needed for an Ivy. [NY resident, 90.65/1560, pre-med]

Applying to College
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If your income is 45k or so, you’re eligible for fee waivers. Ask your HS college counselor.
If you mean rhe cost of college rather thn cost of application, you really need to run the NPC on 1 each of: SUNYs, LAC, Private U.

Is your HS a selective/exam based school?

Apply to Questbridge and rank a mix of universities and LACs (all colleges on the Questbridge list are super prestigious, even if you’ve not heard of them trust that they know their peers.)

If your parents want Ivies on your list, Brown is not a bad idea - you don’t really stand a chance imho but they’re looking for more FGLI applicants so if your HS is competitive and adcoms know a 90% there indicates a strong performance, well, odds may be 5%.
Cornell would be the other one: review the majors offered in CALS carefully and apply to one of them. As a NY resident you’d have some priority. Still a high reach but worth a try.

Why Bucknell? It’s very different from the others, very Greek.
Drop Syracuse: they don’t meet need.
Look into Dickinson, Lafayette, Franklin&Marshall, Muhlenberg, Skidmore, St Lawrence.

SUNYs : Binghamton, Geneseo, Stony Brook, Buffalo all make sense and should be on your list. Add a few others as safeties: New Paltz, Oneonta, Fredonia? Apply to Honors whenever available.
Seconding Macaulay and Sophie Davis programs.

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And possibly also have stats matching 95% of the students NOT being accepted! That’s where those figures can paint a misleading picture - because people think it implies anything about personal odds.
It does NOT.

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Three things occurred to me when reading this thread (after I posted my previous response).

One is that you are attending a private high school. How to interpret your grades and GPA will depend upon your high school, and most of us are not familiar with your high school. The admissions officers at top schools will be at least somewhat familiar with your high school. Therefore, your chances might be a bit better than some of us are expecting. With a 90.65 GPA from the public high school in the town where I live now you would not be in the top 10% and would not be headed to an Ivy League university. However, with a 90.65 GPA from the high school that I attended (some time ago) you would have been one of the top 2 students in the high school, would have pushed me down one notch, and very well might have been headed off to a highly ranked university. Grade scales will vary from high school to high school, and university admissions will understand this and will interpret your GPA in the context of the school that you are coming from.

Regarding your likely major and career path: There is a lot of time to figure this out. It is very common in the US (and Canada) for students to change their mind part way through. At the time that I graduated from university (with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics) I still had no idea what I wanted to do with my career. I still ended up doing quite well in a field that did not even exist at the time that I graduated from university. One daughter started university as a languages major, but took “biology for biology majors” freshman year. She discovered that she loved biology, and switched to being a biology major. She briefly toyed with the thought of medical school, and did well in the premed classes (straight A’s). However because of her switch in majors she needed to take four lab courses at the same time sophomore year, and discovered that she loved lab work and was good at it. Lab work was way more appealing to her than medicine. She then took as many lab courses as possible for the rest of her undergraduate education (including doing research). She is currently doing biotech research, and is considering what sort of graduate degree (if any) to get. She is however doing well as a research associate with just a bachelor’s degree.

The point is that you will be exposed to quite a bit in university, and this will help you think about other possible careers. Medicine is one possible career, but there are others. Some of these other options are biology- or medicine-related, but many are not.

The third thing that occurred to me is to be very cautious regarding any loans that go beyond the federally subsidized amounts. It is possible to get part way through university and discover that you are not able to borrow enough money to finish. I have met one person who ran into this, and have heard of a small number of others.

Regarding what your parents can afford to pay, I am under the impression that we do not know. They might have money squirreled away, or other relatives might be willing to help. However, be cautious about taking on debt. When you get your acceptances with financial aid offers, you and your parents will be able to figure this out. Until then it might be helpful if you could get clearer guidance from your parents, but I understand that this might not happen.

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Re: costs. I asked before but I don’t recall seeing an answer. Are your parents self employed?

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No, thank you so much for the suggestions, I will definitely be looking into them.

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I don’t mean to be a nudge, but the answer to this question really could have an impact on the accuracy of the net price calculators at some colleges.

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According to my counselor, I am definitely available for fee waivers, which I will ask about once school is back in session.

Yes, I attend a selective test based school.

Unfortunately it is really difficult to get recommendation letters: I am a very quiet student.

What is FGLI?

My tutor/mentor for college that my parents kind of hired(?) recommended it- good for bio program I believe.

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My father works part-time! Otherwise they don’t work.

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I actually attend a public high school, although it’s a selective test-based admission.

A lot of former seniors I know have gotten into highly selective colleges (such as Ivies, MIT. NYU, etc.) which kind of places a bit of unintended pressure.

I will keep this in mind (Congrats to your daughter: straight A’s in premed has got to be extremely difficult).

As for the financial situation, my father does keep telling me not to worry too much and to just try my hardest to get into a “good” college, but I think that might just be what all parents say, which is why I’m keeping SUNY’s as the main application.

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Thank you for the answer. I take it he works for someone who pays him a salary or hourly rate, and not a situation where he earns tips or the like.

If your parent works part time and earns $40,000 a year, I’m not sure how they would be able to help you at all with college expenses. With the new SAI guidelines, I’m not even clear if you will qualify for a Pell Grant (@kelsmom might have some idea).

A college that meets full need for all accepted students would certainly be a help to you.

I think you need to see your school counselor ASAP when school begins. Perhaps they can give you some good guidance on where you best could apply, be accepted and afford to attend.

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Thank you, I’m planning on asking to meet as soon as possible.

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The new Pell rules have a look-up table to quickly determine whether a student is Pell eligible. This is part of the effort to simplify financial aid for low income families. https://fsapartners.ed.gov/sites/default/files/2023-05/202425DRAFTSAIGuideSupplementEligibilityforMaxorMinPellGrantResource.pdf. If the parent AGI is at or under the amount listed for family size max Pell, OP will get a maximum Pell grant. If “around $40,000” ends up being higher than the amount listed for the family size, they will still qualify for Pell (just not the full amount).

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First generation (your parents don’t have a 4 year degree)
Low income (generally, under 65-75k a year)

LoRs aren’t necessarily about the most talkative students. Quiet and intense works, too! :wink:
You’ll need to prepare a “brag sheet” - something to help techers write sth genuine and unique about you. You will write why you love their subject - a book you’ve read, a concept from their class… that blew your mind - moments that struck you, where you really appreciated their teaching, their choices in making you learn in a specific way or a specific part of the class, a memory you’ll never forget from their class -what you hope to become and how the class ties in with that goal or makes you a better person -the hardest part of the class for you and how you overcame it - a situation when you helped others…

If you’re eligible for fee waivers, you can apply to 7 SUNYs for free.
You can also apply to 20 CommonApp colleges.

And of course there’s Questbridge -a program for lower income high achievers (the fact you got into a NYC exam bsed HS means you’re a high achiever) that is equivalent to 12 ED chances at once.

Does your working parent have a pay stub or w2? Do they pay taxes? ( you do not need to answer here but you’ll need the information.)

It’s very likely your parents don’t want you to worry about the cost of college and their ability to pay. They may not know how much college in thr US costs, too.

Borrow a "Princeton Review’s best colleges " (2022, 2023, 2024 issues are all ok). Use Questbridge colleges as a starting point and look up those colleges. Can you find 10 you hadn’t heard of that sound perfect for you?

Read the descriptions in that book or in Fiske Guide: can you pick up details that help you distinguish Brandeis and Bucknell?
Bucknell is rural and has a vibrant Greek life well-suited for extroverts, boisterous kids who love parties, what is called work hard-play hard.
Just as good but better for quiet students, you have Brandeis.

You don’t need to major in biology to go to med school. Biochemistry, biostatistics, bioinformatics, biophysics… exist and have better ROI.
But you could major in anything. The only issue is that at some universities (especially public/oversubscribed) if you’re not a science major it’s hard for you to register in science courses for majors. At many universities anyone can take any course.
Look at the Medical Humanities minor.
Look at open curricula: Amherst College, Connecticut College, URochester, have a version of that. Is it appealing to you?

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OP, your best chance at an Ivy is to apply ED to the College of Human Ecology at Cornell.

Even at a challenging, competitive HS, your GPA and imputed class rank make all of the Ivies and other colleges with comparable admissions rates a giant reach, even with first-gen status.

At Cornell CHE, the admissions office will be very familiar with the context of your HS. As one of the NYS land grant colleges, it gives a slight edge to in-state applicants. They have several majors that seem to fit your interests. You would need to write an incredible “why” essay explaining how one is right for you.

Cornell’s other “statutory” colleges that fit your interests, Dyson and CALS, are test-blind: they will not consider your excellent scores. I don’t think that your scores guarantee admission, but they do add a valuable counterpoint to the GPA, and I can’t see how it would help your chances to apply without them. CHE is test-optional and your scores count there.

With a family income of $40,000 and typical assets, your EFC at Cornell would be zero.

Apart from this very specific recommendation, I do think there is a subset of colleges where your test scores will be sought after because they are aggressively trying to move up in the rankings. Someone mentioned Denison earlier; that is an excellent example.

Good luck.

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