Help me narrow down my list

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hey guys! So just like most people in this particular forum, I’m a rising high school senior beginning the application process. I just recently made my list, and it’s 23 schools long. I know I need to get it down to 8-12 before I actually begin applying.

So the schools I have are: (keep in mind I want to do biomed engineering)

GW
Catholic U
Johns Hopkins
UMD
BU
Tufts
Northwestern
Purdue
UMich
Cornell
RIT
RPI
Duke
UNC Chapel Hill
UVA
VA Tech
Carnegie Mellon
Lehigh
UPenn
Villanova
Georgia Tech
UConn
University of Toronto

So yeah that’s a ton…

And now a bit about me:

GPA: 3.8/4 unweighted (4.6/5 weighted)
SAT: 2170 (planning on retaking)
ACT: 35 w 9 on essay
SAT 2: 760 on Math 2, 720 on Lit
AP Scores: 5 on Euro History and Lang+Comp, 4 on Chem
I’ll be taking 7 AP classes senior year (greatest total of everyone in my class of 520)
Definitely top 10%, most likely top 5%
6 sciences classes throughout all of high school (honors bio/chem/physics and AP bio/chem/physics)
White female of european descent

4 year varsity for Cross country and track
Captain for XC my senior year, captain for track junior +senior years
Math League since sop year (school’s math league is high ranked in state)
National Honor Society, National Art Society, National Language Honor Society
Peer leader at my church youth group junior and senior year
Many hours of volunteer work w youth group- altar serving, eucharistic minister, food drives, etc.
2 weeks total of Appalachia service project - after soph year + after junior year
Art club + Model UN club
Dual citizenship + bi-lingual (English is second language)
Work as receptionist at local gym

So essentially, my choice of college will come down to money. I am the oldest of 5 kids, and my parents can’t pay 60k a year for all of us. So my college list will all need to be schools which are somewhat realistic, give me the best BME education, but would give me scholarships. So yes, please help!

2

Can you provide some info on your family’s financial situation?

3

@CHD2013 Unfortunately, I don’t know too much about my family’s financial situation. My father is the only one who works (at an engineering firm and as an adjunct professor at Columbia University). We do live in a fairly rich area, and would consider ourselves upper middle class. My father has done the financial aid calculators, and has told me that I would need extra financial support for many colleges…

4

Well it will be hard to help evaluate the aid you could get based on need then. The other possible type of aid is merit. Of the schools on your list, I don’t think the following (there may be others too) provide merit aid:

Tufts, Northwestern, Cornell, Duke and UPenn

5

@CHD2013 Of those, which ones do I have the highest chance to get into? I was already aware that those don’t provide great merit scholarships. However, because of their high rankings and biomedical programs (esp in case of Duke + Penn), I want to apply to 2 or 3 just in case I happen to get a decent financial aid package + outside scholarships…

6

A couple of things
I assume that you have done your homework and all of these schools have the program that you seek

Now get out in the world. What schools have you visited? where did you like the vibe? whre do you want to be geographically?and dont say it doensnt matter because it does - these schools differ strongly in personality, size, location
that will narrow your list quickly -

you credentials are very strong but you still should cut the list down to about 10 schools
2-3 reaches - high flying places
3-4 targets
1-2 likely
1-2 safeties

BUT most critical you need to run the net price calculators with real numbers - they are accurate if the REAL numbers are put in - here is a sample one
https://netpricecalculator.sfs.wustl.edu/survey.aspx

good luck and have fun