Help a lost rising-senior help his family out!!

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Well, hi there... I'm so hopelessly lost and confused on the college admissions process. I need some help, please! </p>

<p>I'm a hopeful rising-senior, dedicated to pursuing a career in medicine. (As in... I KNOW that's what i want to do). </p>

<p>My family is not rich, despite our income. We have sisters to send to private christian schools, church tithes of 10%, and our grandma just got breast cancer, which we need to pay for. I need a good undergraduate institution, preferably a LACs, that CAN offer me a full ride, or almost a full ride. I would like to have a good chance of getting strong merit aid, at a decently competitive school. I don't want to financially burden my family before I even get into med. school, although my dad offered to pay $20,000 a year... I don't want him to. I prefer independence, and I love my family's well-being enough to know that it's not worth bragging to friends that I'm going to Big-Name U while shelling out 30 grand a year. </p>

<p>Please keep in mind that undergraduate prestige does not matter so much for medical school admissions, so I mostly need as much savings as possible while still going to a decently well known school (As in... no low tier schools)... </p>

<p>Stats:
Family Income: $120,000. Ethnicity: Asian Male</p>

<p>GPA: 3.96/4.0 .... ~4.65-4.7/5.0 Rank: Top 5% </p>

<p>School: Highly competitive school in Florida. Sent 8 to Duke... used to be in US News top 100 last year, but dropped due to budget cuts. </p>

<p>Course Rigor: Most rigorous. 13 IB classes taken, 10 Pre-IB classes taken, 5 regular, and 1 AP class taken. (Through online school). Will have taken 3 years of both biology and chemistry by the end of senior year, and multivariable calculus. </p>

<p>SAT Is: (Single sitting, only took once at beginning of Junior Year)
800 CR
780 M
650 W... I don't know what happened here. I failed miserably on the essay. </p>

<p>SAT IIs:
800 Bio M
800 Chem
780 Literature</p>

<p>AP Taken:
English Lit/Comp: 5... Hopefully this, along with essays, will offset that abysmal writing score.
Comp. Science A: 5 </p>

<p>IBs Taken:
Math SL (Calculus): 6
Spanish SL: 6 </p>

<p>Awards:
National Merit Finalist (234 PSAT)
(Possibly) SIEMENs competition semi-finalist. I am working with a strong team, researching fractal growth patterns in competing strains of baccilus. </p>

<p>ECs:
Eagle Scout: VERY demanding project, involving $1300+ of funding and over 200 total work hours through me and volunteers... saved my church around $10,000 dollars. Also, I was a Troop Guide, Patrol Leader, and Scribe over the years. </p>

<p>500+ Hours of Focused Service: Most of it involves working with my church and youth group. 4 mission trips for Katrina Relief, and I volunteered heavily (3 weeks of summer) in the construction of a larger church sanctuary. </p>

<p>Weightlifting Team: 3 Years, Varsity and J/V. </p>

<p>Audited (No credit received) 4 classes at the college my dad teaches at (Embry-Riddle). I did all the work and took the same tests... but I was too uninformed at the time to actually REGISTER. Calculus, Differential Equations, Linux and C+, and Trigonometry. Basically ate up all my summers for nothing. :( </p>

<p>Other minor ECs: Church Youth Group (Very significant to me, but useless in admissions), Mu Alpha Theta (4 years), NHS, blablabla.... </p>

<p>Work Experience:
From beginning of Junior Year, to beginning of Senior Year:
Worked 12 hours/week at a retirement home as a server, throughout the school year. I decided to resign because I figured senior year was just going to get too hectic with a full IB schedule taking 3 sciences all at the higher level.</p>

<p>May the kind people on this site please suggest for me some colleges where I have a GOOD chance of getting a substantial merit based aid package? (As in, almost full?!) I simply can't let my already financially stressed parents stop buying food because of me! Preferably a decent LAC, which is known for strong sciences?</p>

2

<p>You want to look for a school that will help you now and has a history of sending students to med school on large or full scholarships. May want to start with Davidson.</p>

3

<p>Right now… I have </p>

<p>Davidson.
Grinnell.
Washington and Lee.
Furman. </p>

<p>On my list… but the top 3 I think are far too competitive for me to be anyway near hopeful of a full ride or hefty waive, for that matter. I need some better options.</p>

4

<p>you obviously have solid stats but so do most applicants applying to these top lacs. i think you will get some forms of fin aid but getting a full ride is almost impossible especially you being asian and coming from an upper middle class family (despite your difficulties). try good but less selective options like denison, knox, whitman, earlham, sewanee et al.</p>

5

<p>Look at Drew University in NJ. If you like it, apply as a Priority Applicant. It’s not binding the way their ED is, and they reportedly give out their best merit scholarships to those who apply as PAs. Plus, you get to know early where you stand. I know someone who got a full-ride at Drew a few years ago using this option.</p>

<p>They also have a dual-degree medical program; you cannot apply using priority applicant status, unfortunately, but it doesn’t mean that you won’t get aid.</p>

6

<p>Your stats are excellent, so in addition to applying to the mid-tier schools which will likely give you good scholarships, ie:</p>

<p>Occidental
Muhlenberg (they have a BS/MD program you may be able to get into)</p>

<p>I would suggest applying to some top-tier schools, ie:</p>

<p>Amherst
Dartmouth (or other similar-difficulty school)
Pomona (grants all demonstrated need, not sure whether you can demonstrate it, but anyway…)</p>

<p>because in addition to the possibility that they will let you in and meet your financial stipulations, they also will help you get better offers from mid-tier schools, which will be thrilled to convince themselves that they’ve snatched you from a top school.</p>

7

<p>Denison has a $34,000 a year scholarship available to National Merit finalists that you might want to look into (you have to apply for it and it is not offered to all NMS finalists, but you would obviously have a decent chance). The overall cost of attendance is approximately $46,000, so that leaves $12,000 a year for you/you family to pay.</p>

8

<p>Won’t UF be free for you?</p>

9

<p>Yes. Free with the 5,500 from National Merit and the rest from Bright Futures…</p>

<p>But the faculty:staff ratio at UF is an absurd 22:1. My idea of class interaction is not through a class of 500 students.</p>

<p>Anyway, my list so far, in order of ascending difficulty. </p>

<p>Furman
Case Western
Grinnell
Washington and Lee
Davidson
Vanderbilt
Duke</p>

10

<p>Case would definitely be a great choice. I still think if you’re looking for free you owe it to yourself to at least put in the application to UF. I’m not a huge fan, but it’s hard to argue with the price guarantee.</p>

11

<p>Oh yeah, of course I’m applying to UF. It’s my “safety school”, where based on stats alone I would get into Honors College… </p>

<p>But, you know, huge flagship research institutions have some nasty stories associated with them. Apparently things go wrong in classes of 500+</p>

12

<p>You’re from FL and looking for a LAC that is affordable, strong in the sciences, and has an excellent record of getting students into med school, right? The Wall Street Journal published a list of feeder schools to top medical, law and business graduate schools, and among public colleges and universities, New College of Florida is second to the University of Michigan.</p>

13

<p>I’m surprised New College isn’t at the top of your list.</p>

14

<p>Apparently New College just assigns grades as pass/fail… not exactly what medical admissions wants to see.</p>

15

<p>Ursinus or Juniata…smaller LAC’s in PA. Strength in sciences and high med school acceptance rates.</p>

16

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<p>The freshmen classes are big, yes, but as a graduate of the engineering program I can say that none of my classes had more than 30 people past year 1. In fact, I was in the honors program so I took the honors sections of the “big” classes like Chem 2 and Physics 2 and they turned out to be quite challenging. They were capped at around 30 people, and I had a significant amount of interaction with professors. Most of my upper division courses had around 20 or less. I find it pretty ridiculous that you’re willing to forgo tuition/board and instead put more stress financially on your family just because of something you heard. Maybe you should take a tour of UF and sit in on classes before making such a judgement.</p>

17

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<p>You are incorrect, about New College and about what medical school admissions people want to see. New College sends graduates to med school every year. New College doesn’t have grades, but they don’t assign pass/fail either. And the lack of grades is obviously not an issue for med school admissions because as I already said, among public colleges and universities New College is second only to UMich in admissions to elite medical, business and law schools. That means that even though New College doesn’t use grades, a higher percentage of applicants from New College were admitted to elite professional schools than from schools like Berkeley and my alma mater UNC, where grades are the norm. Students from New College are desirable applicants to professional graduate schools because of the nature of New College, the types of students and professors it attracts, its undergraduate research opportunities and the required undergraduate thesis. New College may not be the right school for you, but if not it won’t be for any of the reasons you’ve mentioned.</p>

18

<p>Gthopeful:
I’ve taken a tour of UF. Two of them, actually. The guides were pretty frank when they said ‘some of classes might get pretty big’. Intro biology and some math classes come to mind. </p>

<p>Dntw8up:
It’s a wonderful suggestion… I just don’t know WHAT I would do without a grading system though… haha, I’d feel like a fish out of water.</p>

19

<p>Instead of grades, you receive written evaluations from professors at the end of the semester. So instead of just, say, getting a C, you’ll know what you did well and need to work on, which will make you a better student in the long run (if you actually apply professors’ comments to your study skills, of course).</p>

20

<p>The University of Southern California grants NMF’s a half tuition scholarship, and if you apply by the Dec 1 deadline, you may be eligible to receive additional merit-based scholarships. Take a look at the honors programs in science and in the humanities, and if USC appeals to you, it’s worth a shot.</p>