Aw thank you for your kind words @1Tiger21! I’ve been working really hard on my essays so hopefully those will appeal to the admissions committees. How does your son like Princeton? When we visited I was taken aback by how gorgeous the campus was, but admittedly at the same time a bit intimidated by the sense of elitism and prestige. Is he happy there? I’ve been hesitant about becoming a Tiger since I’m not sure if I could find a place to belong in such a prestigious community and school.
Pitt,
Northeastern, BU, etc for the Boston schools. Cold but great city.
UVA but competitive. UNC, milder side of four seasons
URochester might be worth a look.
Are there any schools currently on my list that I should remove? This could be because they’re simply out of reach, not a good fit, or any other reason there might be.
@rosered55 @circuitrider @lookingforward I replied to your posts before but didn’t tag you guys so I don’t know if you guys saw. Sorry I’m still trying to figure out College Confidential. Thanks for helping me out!
The private schools on your list will require both parents’ finances for financial aid. Check their web sites for any special instructions on using their net price calculators. If no special instructions, be sure to include both of their finances when running the net price calculators. Show the results to both of your parents to make sure that they are able to keep any promises they made with respect to funding your college costs. I.e. make sure that he knows the actual amount in question before you apply to any colleges, so that he will not be shocked by seeing amounts that he cannot afford to pay as promised.
The UCs and CSUs will only require the finances of the parent you live with. Among highly selective private schools with good financial aid, Chicago and usually Vanderbilt do not require the non-custodial parent, but others do.
As far as retaking standardized tests, the SAT subject tests seem to be the most worthwhile ones if you do choose to retake any, since your SAT and ACT scores are closer to the top end than your SAT subject test scores.
NESCAC works nicely as a pithily worded suggestion for you (reply #2):
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Beautiful, in cases dazzling, campuses and settings.
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Undergraduate-focused.
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Biology programs that would offer you an incredible three dozen or more courses from which to choose.
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Excellent pre-med support.
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Student profiles that extend into the top 1%, so you’d study with some similarly accomplished classmates.
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Similarities across the group as well as differences between the individual colleges that would offer you a variety of top-quality options.
Think Colby, Wesleyan, Hamilton, Bowdoin, Amherst, Williams et al for an range of excellent potential choices.
Did not initially notice pre-med in the original post.
- Pre-med does not require any specific undergraduate major, although about half of applicants and matriculants to medical school were biology majors. Biology is convenient in terms of fulfilling pre-med course requirements, but those who do not go to medical school find a relatively poor major-specific job market.
- Medical school is expensive, so saving money as an undergraduate may be a higher priority. Ask your father whether he will contribute leftover money to medical school costs if your undergraduate college is significantly under the budget he is willing to contribute.
- Half or fewer pre-meds who apply to medical school get admitted to even one, and many frosh pre-meds drop the idea before even applying (due to grades or MCAT score too low, or changed interests).
- The medical school application process involves interviews. If you intend to apply to UC medical schools for somewhat lower tuition as a California resident, it may be inconvenient and expensive to do interviews while attending a far away undergraduate school. However, UC medical schools are highly competitive, so that must be weighed against attending an undergraduate school that is more convenient to a larger number of other medical schools that you may apply to and interview at.
@merc81 Thanks for the elaboration on NESCAC! I looked up the schools after the first recommendation and you’re definitely right, they’re perfect! Do you know which of these schools would fall into the safety, target, and reach school categories for me? Comparing my scores to their average scores I seem to mostly stack up competitively but nowadays you need a lot more than good scores to get in.
Among the UCs, if you value attending one that also has a medical school, you may want to add UCR to your list.
Schools with acceptance rates of ~25% or less might be regarded as reaches irrespective, as you noted, of standardized scoring ranges. However, if you were to submit well-crafted applications, I’d think that colleges with rates of 20-25% would make reasonable, fairly predictable matches for you.
You may also want to consider Swarthmore and Haverford.
@ucbalumnus You hit on a lot of the things that I’ve been concerned about in that one post! I’ve actually recently been reconsidering majoring in biology, partly because it is so impacted and also partly because I’ve been rethinking my future career path. I’ve always known that I want to do something in science so my mind automatically went to doctor. Although I love my experience at UCI and in the hospital, I’ve also discovered passions in MUN and speech and debate. With advice from my teachers and doctors, I’m considering maybe doing law with a specialization in medical and scientific cases. I purposefully made the Future Medical Leaders of America to be broad instead of just for doctors for others like me who still aren’t completely set on what they want to do. Then again, I’m still only a senior in college and there’s a world of opportunity out there. That’s why I’d like to go to a college that doesn’t require me to declare a major right away, giving me time to explore classes first.
If I do decide upon the medical route, my dad will continue to support me financially. I’d like to get a variety of experiences by going to two different unique schools for undergrad and grad. For now I think that I’m still going to apply with a stated interest of majoring in biology, simply since my activities are so heavily focused in that premed direction.
@MyDogsNameIsFat, I think you will be a person of interest at many selective schools. I’m not sure how the colleges’ net price calculators deal with divorced parents with different income levels. I’d suggest you run a handful of NPCs (found on the colleges’ websites) and then call the financial aid departments to find out more details. Start with Yale and 3 or 4 of your other favorites. To me, this would be much higher priority than re-taking the SATI or ACT.
Are you of ethnic Vietnamese heritage? This could give you a major demographic bonus, especially at some of the remotely located LACs, both NESCAC members and similar. Schools that are located in rural environments and/or don’t have big name recognition may still consider Asians unrepresented minorities.
The most selective NESCAC schools are (I think) Williams, Amherst, Bowdoin, Middlebury The least selective are Trinity and Conn College. The others are in the middle.
If you like the sound of the small Liberal Arts College experience, then you should also look at the midwestern schools, Carleton, Grinnell, Macalester and Kenyon where your Asian heritage (I’m making a assumption, here. Sorry if I’m incorrect.) would give you a serious advantage. You would most likely be eligible for merit aid from Mt. Holyoke and Smith.
The important thing to know about small LACs is that each has a distinct character, personality and culture, and fit is important both in choosing the right schools and in getting admitted. The traits that they share are small classes and plenty of personal attention and nurturing. Many have classically beautiful campuses. As mentioned, academically rigorous LACs do well at getting their students into medical school and other professional and graduate school admissions.
I can attest that Williams fulfills everything on your wishlist: “A place with actual seasons, preferable college town feel, small class sizes, access to good outside internships and opportunities, strong alumni system, relatively safe area.” Excellent sciences too. Williams is the school I’m the most familiar with, but I’m sure many other LACs would fill the bill as well.
Note, however, that science majors tend to require taking the sequenced prerequisites starting from the first term in college. So you need to plan your first year course work so that you will be ready to declare any major you may be interested in.
Note also that some courses may have separate (often easier or less mathematically intensive) versions for biology majors. These may include physics, chemistry, or math courses. If you are considering a major in the latter subjects, you may have to take the more difficult versions suitable for those majors.
Law school admission is very GPA and LSAT focused, and law school ranking is a major factor in your law job prospects.
@mydognameisfat,
The NESCAC colleges that you may want to research further are Amherst and Middlebury. Amherst is located in a wonderful college town. The vibrant college town of Northampton (Smith College) is a short distance away. Amherst’s spectacular new science center will open in the summer of '18. Amherst is also part of the Five College Consortium. The consortium is composed of Amherst College, Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Middlebury is also located in a quintessential college town. The views in every direction from almost anywhere on campus are breathtaking. Middlebury’s science center is state-of-the art.
Vassar, although not in the NESCAC athletic league, recently completed a $120million science center and has excellent pre-med advising and support. Vassar accepts a significantly greater percentage of males than females, thus it may be considered close to a match.
Of interest: Using student-level data provided by Linkedin, the listed colleges and universities send the highest percentage of graduates to a top-ranked medical program.
Amherst
Williams
Swarthmore
Pomona
Columbia
Cornell
Dartmouth
Duke
Harvard
John Hopkins
MIT
Princeton
Rice
Stanford
Berkeley
University of Pennsylvania
University of Chicago
Washington University
Yale
Source: College Transitions
@ucbalumnus I will definitely take that advice into consideration. One of the nurses I was talking to at the hospital told me about how her niece went to medical school at Harvard only to change her mind DURING her senior year to pursue law. I definitely don’t want something like that to happen to me (or my parents who will have to pay for that), so I’ll be discussing this at length with my school’s college and career counselors.
@momrath Yes, I am in fact Vietnamese! In case you couldn’t tell by my extracurricular activity, I am a big advocate by embracing Vietnamese culture in my community. I live in a heavily Vietnamese area and had always considered my heritage to be a negative in the college admissions process due to affirmative action and such, so hearing you say that my roots could actually be an advantage was really nice! I’ll definitely look more into Williams, thank you so much!!!
@CrewDad Thanks for that information! Do you know if that list is in any sort of particular order, i.e. most to least graduates sent to medical school or some other ordering?
@MyDogsNameIsFat, There’s no way to quantify how much your Vietnamese heritage will help (or hurt) you in admissions. My guess is that small liberal arts colleges, especially those that are located in rural locations, get fewer Southeast Asian applicants than similar schools in urban environments or Ivy League / big name schools. Take advantage of this diversity factor and point of differentiation in your essays, recommendations and profile.
This is an example of the kind of medical school advising that is offered at many LACs. Of course, med school admissions is highly grade and score driven and there’s no guarantee of admission no matter where you do your undergrad, but selective LACs are well known to Med School admissions committees.
https://careers.williams.edu/healthstem/
https://careers.williams.edu/healthstem/pre-health/
If you’re looking for slightly less competitive schools, but still very highly ranked (since you seem to be going to the cream of the crop), check out schools in the Boston area! There’s plenty that are wonderful, ranging from MIT (v. hard) to Boston College. Tufts, Northeastern, and Boston University are good safeties for you, I think. Also, WashU, though not on the East Coast, has a nice balance of the seasons and is a great school.
This also holds true for southern LACs, several of which are criminally ignored on CC. Davidson certainly springs to mind, as it is extremely strong in the life sciences, offers terrific financial and merit aid (it was the second college to go loan-free for all students), and has a smaller Asian enrollment (5.4%) than the top northeastern LACs like Amherst (14%), Williams (13%), and Swarthmore (16%).
You won’t get as much snow as elsewhere in the country, of course, but you’ll still experience all four seasons. (Note that many parts of the Midwest and northeast aren’t getting much snow these days either!) The NC mountains get snow and are about a 1.5 to 2 hour drive from Davidson.