Hi! So I’m planning on applying to the following colleges. I’ve already applied to Stanford REA and UCB and UCLA and these are the colleges I’ll apply to in regular (in no order):
Yale
Brown
Columbia
Princeton
Boston University
University of Michigan
UChicago
Duke
Johns Hopkins
UPenn
This is my profile:
Demographics:
-Race: Asian (Pakistan) and US citizen
-School: Private
-Class size: 280
-Income: Not applying for aid/full pay
-Major: Biology or Bioengineering
-Minor: Literature or History
Stats:
-SAT 1540 (M 790 EBRW 750)
-Unweighted GPA: 4.0
-Rank: In top 2%
-O/A Level Grades: All A’s
EC’s:
-President of Drama Society; partook in multiple productions as lead role, director and producer
-Sec General of the largest student led non profit in the country
-Author of a 5300 word research paper on gene editing
-College Prefect (1 of 10) in my school
-Editor in Chief of school magazine for two years
-Founder member of the first high school literary festivals in the country; did this thrice.
Honors:
-Top in class 2021
-Regional Distinction in Bio-journalism Olympiad
-High Achiever in O-Level Honor
BU will protect their yield and may not think you see them as your top choice. They want kids who want to be at BU, not across the river at Harvard or MIT.
There are many similar tales of getting waitlisted and denied at all high reaches.
Your school counselor should have, and probably did tell you, to identify safeties. Add a couple schools you would be ok going to with 50% or higher admission rates that you can afford. You have missed the window for most state flagship merit rounds, but you are full pay so that does not matter.
Maybe UColorado - Boulder or UMiami (private). Look at other instate options - assuming California. I admit I do not fully understand how the instate admissions at UCLA or UCB works - if those are nearly automatic based on your stats then I guess you have some safeties, but I did not think that was the case.
It is a “list of good schools” not a “good list of schools” to apply to. For starters, you have Brown, which is known for its open curriculum, and Columbia, which is known for its Core requirements. The same student would not likely be happy with both extremes.
Also, these schools are extreme reaches for all students. They reject many more qualified applicants than they accept purely because of space limitations.
In terms of suggestions, what are you looking for?
BU’s acceptance rate last year was 18.3% (lower in RD) and they filled 53% of the class in ED rounds. Generally, an acceptance rate of less than 20% means the school is a reach for all unhooked applicants. Did you apply to College of Engineering or liberal Arts?
Are you a citizen living overseas? If not, what state do you live in?
For biomedical engineering, safeties would be Iowa State, Arizona State, Michigan State. U Colorado Boulder would be likely but you have missed the EA deadline. For Biology, these schools are safeties too, and posters can give you more safeties and targets if you further define what you want in a school…size, geography, vibe, etc.
ETA: For BU (and some of the other schools on your list) you would be considered ORM (overrepresented minority) which can decrease your probability of acceptance.
You would likely have gotten into BU ED but not necessarily RD. It is very difficult.
You seem to like urban - you can apply Case Western - also not easy. U Miami - likely. Or GW. U of Arizona would be a great school money wise for you and a safety - it’s semi urban and has a solid honors program. Pitt but you are a bit late - another solid performer you can still apply to but likely no merit which you don’t need. U of Florida - but too late there. Since you like urban - you should find an urban (SMU, etc.) 2nd tier private where you can still apply…or flagship, preferably from your state or a school like Arizona or Arkansas.
You may get in one or more off your list but it would not be surprising if you got into none.
honestly I’m fine with either considering they’re both great schools for science and humanities. For example, I am completely fine with going to a school that has a college of humanities and sciences (Columbia) or a school where I’m not restricted to a particular college, rather, have the liberty to choose the subjects I was initially interested in (Brown)
Firstly, thank you so much for taking out the time to help me with this. I’ve noted the colleges you mentioned and will research on them too. Also what do you mean by “unhooked.”?
Unhooked means you are not a recruited athlete, development case (meaning your parents can/will donate millions to the school), academic prodigy (IMO medalist etc), URM or legacy. All those factors provide a “tip” to students at ultra selective schools and increase their chance of admission – sometimes significantly (i.e. recruited athletes).
I’ll chime in with the rest in terms of your need to add a couple of match/safety schools to this list since you don’t have any. You sound like a fantastic student and you have strong ECs etc., however, super elite schools reject unhooked students with your profile by the droves every year. I do think you have a pretty good chance at BU, but it isn’t going to be a slam dunk because you are applying RD. Unless you are a Michigan resident (you didn’t say) the same applies to UMichigan - a decent chance there but far from assured admission. All the rest are super high reaches and leave you with the possibility of being shut out everywhere (unfortunately we see it here every year).
This is not a list. It’s randomly copied names of colleges from the top 25 in US News. There is no theme to this list. I can’t tell what sort of college you are interested in, other than “must be ranked very high.”
There is also a significant chance that you could be rejected by every single one of these.
This thread I’m linking is an older one…but you need to read it. It has the OPs posts, and responses from other posters. This student was VERY well qualified…and a NMF as well.
UCB and UCLA are Reach schools for all applicants regardless of being in-state or OOS. Stats are important but they use a holistic approach with 13 areas of application review criteria so definitely not a slam dunk. Also UC’s are test blind so the excellent SAT will not be considered. Too late to add any more safety UC’s since it is past the deadline.
@trexbay22: completely agree you need some safeties and matches.
@trexbay22 Take a look at McGill. It’s a top-notch school with an excellent international reputation and they like high-stat students like yourself. Don’t be fooled by their high admit rate — Canadian schools handle admissions differently than US schools and it is likely a place where you could be happy.(also look at university of Toronto and university of British Columbia). McGill could potentially be considered a safety for you.
The problem with BU (and other US schools where you will be well above their posted stats) is that they often think that a high-stats kid is using them as their safety (which is often true) and so they reject or waitlist their application because if the school says yes and the applicant says no, it drives the college’s stats down in terms of yield rate, which is important to them. The term people use for this is yield protection.
So for schools like that (including Case Western, which someone mentioned above) you need to convince them that you are seriously interested in them via your supplemental essays as well as visiting (if possible) and attending their online sessions. Open their emails shortly after they are sent and click their links and spend time on their websites (they track that). If your parents get emails from them, have them do the same.
Even with that, they may waitlist or reject you based on yield protection. So it’s important to find some options where you are almost guaranteed to be accepted and then it’s fine to apply to as many reach schools as you have the energy to write the supplementals for.
trexbay
That are at the first stage of college application: “grieving”. You have done exceptionally well in school, and are 99ile% in everything across the board. And then you come here and it feels like cold water is being poured on your dreams. It isn’t easy, and you must grieve the idea that you are a “likely” candidate for these schools. The reality is you might get into any one. But even that is far from a sure thing.
So best to move onto “acceptance”. Acceptance that these schools are a reach for anyone below the 99.99%ile and the 99.9%ile PLUS (also have a unique hook).
You will save yourself alot of angst, time and resources my listening to the experienced here as to what really are reach’s, safeties etc. and being very realistic. You will have to get there eventually. I would recommend you be a fast study for your own benefit.