Stop comparing yourself to others. Be the best you can be for yourself.
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I don’t know if this has been mentioned up-thread, but a lot of colleges have “honors colleges” which you can apply for or be invited to apply to. Sometimes these don’t amount to much, but sometimes the students in the honors college have special dorms where they can live together, have special classes that they can take, and things like that. So one option is for you to look at schools with higher acceptance rates, but see if their honors college is something that would be appealing to you.
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My dad no, even tho hes the one who’s ironically so against sunys. He didn’t graduate college and thinks i push myself too much, but I disregard it.
My mom has pushed me a lot since I was little and basically my whole extended family had this idea that I was gonna go to Harvard and be a doctor because i liked playing with microscopes as a kid and was at the top of my (kindergarten) class. That I need to go beyond what everyone else is doing, or im doing it wrong. I think they saw their mistake reflect back in my bad mental health and not-so-nice nature, because they definitely backed off. But its a hard habit to personally break.
Please get help for everything you have posted here. Your mental health is far more important than college.
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Got it, I’ll research those courses
Your priority now should be your mental health.
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I take my meds, I have my mental health days, my birthday is coming up very soon so I will be happy then. I’ll definitely speak with a counselor but I don’t think im in danger or anything
Lets please get back to the OP’s original question about matching. We are not qualified here to speculate on anyone’s health, other than recommending professional assistant.
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She said it was unweighted. So 4.0 out of 4.0.
Create a list of likely and target schools. You may or may not get the test scores you desire, and that is ok.
I would include the SUNYs, as well as other schools mentioned such as Elon etc.
Once you have that list you can begin to add reaches, if you still want to. Reaches would be schools such as Wake Forest, etc.
Keep costs in mind, as medical school can cost $400,000, PA school can cost $150,000-200,000, grad school etc can be costly. Loans accrue interest fast.
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I thought that I would address this point.
There are quite a range of careers that are related to medicine, biotech, and generally helping to make people healthier. You have LOTS of time to figure out which path is right for you. Even after getting your bachelor’s degree, you will still have plenty of time to figure out what path is right for you.
One option is to get an MD. This is a long path that takes 8 years of university. It is expensive and academically demanding. It is the right path for many very strong students, but definitely not all. Most MD’s treat patients. A few get involved in research. Being a nurse or an optometrist or something else are also options.
As I mentioned above, I have a daughter working in biotech. She has worked on cancer research, and has also worked on potential treatments for a particular genetic related disease. She only has a bachelor’s degree. Of the people who she works with, some have bachelor’s degrees, some have master’s degrees, and some have PhD’s. They cooperate and work together as a team. Generally the people who are directing the research have PhD’s. This is a big part of why she is currently applying for PhD programs: She has noticed the research going in directions that she does not feel are the most likely to succeed, but with a bachelor’s degree does not have the authority to change this. However, from a financial perspective she is doing quite well with just a bachelor’s degree. Getting an advanced degree is more of an issue in terms of what work she will get to do, rather than an issue in terms of financially affording to live comfortably (which she can do right now with just a bachelor’s degree).
Occasionally you will see people using some sort of medical device. Someone has to design this stuff. Someone also designs the equipment that is used in hospitals (and there is a lot of it). There are careers in these areas as well.
You can be competitive by listening, going off quietly and doing your homework, and then acing exams. Then you get opportunities to help with research (possibly in a lab of some sort). The students who brag about how strong they are, are sometimes outclassed by the students who quietly study and then show up and get 80’s or 90’s on exams where the class average is in the 40’s or 50’s. Sometimes the quiet students will ask hard questions, which in some cases imply an understanding that goes beyond what most other students are struggling with. There will be research opportunities at a wide range of universities, which will again give opportunities to excel.
So, a daughter went off to a small university in Canada that most of us here in the US have never heard of. She quietly did really well on homework and exams. She was offered the opportunity to help with cancer research. She quietly went into the labs, grew human cancer cells, and experimented with specific potential chemical treatments. She applied for and won a contract from the local government to continue her cancer research over the summer. She continued her research over the summer, got paid, got academic credit, and gathered information for her honors thesis. This was all at a small university that you have probably never heard of. The university does not have any “prestige” in the US. The work that she did however did convince employers here in the US to offer her a job in biotech research, where she has done well. The actual work that she has done is likely to help her PhD applications, and will be more important (along with references, a statement of research interests, and to a lesser extent grades) than would be the “prestige” of whatever university she might have attended. Admittedly if she had attended MIT then she might have been able to get away with a GPA that is a bit lower than she might need applying from a far lesser known school, but that is not a problem when you have done well at the lesser known school.
There are opportunities like this at a very wide range of universities.
This is of course an entirely different issue. Hopefully some of the information we are giving you on this thread will at least be somewhat helpful to you.
The main thing that strikes me is that you are young, and that you are doing very well. I think that we are just trying to give you a perspective from the point of view of some people who have been doing some of this for longer, or whose family members have been doing this for longer.
One more thing that I might add: VERY smart students sometimes take a bit longer to find the path that is right for them. This is okay. You will figure it out over time.
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My daughter did not know what she wanted to do until she was 25. You are only 15. Try to relax and enjoy these years.
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Ill try, thanks. I do genuinely like studying and learning about biology/biomed. It’s actually what im doing right now. I cant wait for college, regardless of where i end up
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I feel for you. It sounds like you are under a lot of pressure and don’t want to let people down. You’re also likely naturally a competitive person. There’s nothing wrong with that. Some people “hate to lose” and that’s what motivates them to work hard. When I started university I was surrounded by competitive people for the first time in my life. A lot of them were like ducks to water, they had competed like crazy in high-school and were prepared to do the exact same thing in university to get into the grad or professional schools they wanted. I am sure most of them are still doing great. So I wouldn’t worry about being competitive; it’s possible to excel as a competitive person, and to do it over the long haul.
But ideally being competitive is a tool, a type of motivator, a way to get yourself to work hard when you don’t feel like it, and to look for new avenues if old approaches aren’t working. Don’t let it destroy your mental health by setting impossible standards, or creating distance from people who do better than you on some short-term measure. You’re in this for the long haul, and you will need friends, gratitude, and perspective to get through, as well as a love for what you’re doing.
Give yourself credit not only for your accomplishments but for your hard work. Ultimately sustained hard work yields results. And remember that as much as your parents or family expect for you based on your talents and hard work, the number one thing they want is your happiness. I bet when they see you stressing about your performance, they hate it. They think you’re amazing and they wish you knew it. The pressure you perceive is very likely them wanting to see you get the rewards they think you deserve, nothing else. I hope you get into an undergrad school that you are proud of and they are proud of too, and I expect you will.
But you can absolutely excel and get rewarded with an awesome grad/professional school admission from any good undergrad school. You’ll need letters to do that, so at the same time as you are striving for grades, check to see if your affiliative skills are keeping up with your academic skills. Can you connect with teachers and friends, can you be supportive, interested in others, use constructive criticism to improve, and contribute positive spirit to your endeavours? If yes, your everyday life will be better, and you can be confident as well that you have given yourself the best chance possible to get where you want to go. (And where you want to go is not a specific university — it is a certain kind of life as an adult.)
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Everyone says their little kid is going to Harvard….mine on scholarship. I tease her that not only did she not apply but they offer no merit scholarships. That’s just what parents joke about with five year olds.
Then you grow up. And mine purposely chose a non competitive safety and is kicking a$$. Get this out of your head. She chose the right school - both kids did - not the highest pedigree.
Read back your words and then the others who responded. Your reactions are not equaling what is said to you. At 15 this is way too much for you.
.Get off the CC. It’s not healthy for you to read about posters here. This is one scintilla of kids in society. Like UGA just had admissions decisions. I’ve read about the kids who got in but not anything about more than half that didn’t. You are reading about a teeny tiny fraction of the kids in society whose profiles come here. And who celebrate their successes but not the vast that have to go to plan B, C, or D.
And no, for bio - you’ll find the right school for you. Certainly most will have a solid bio dept as it’s very popular. Some may have wider curriculums and elective or sub major areas that interest you more than others.
Right now - get off the cc and be a kid. Don’t visit. Don’t look at colleges til Summer. Don’t think about it. You need a reset.
There’s lots of Ivy League failures and lots of non college millionaires.
The world isn’t so black and white.
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Actually…it’s fine to look at a variety of colleges during your junior year. Just stop thinking that only a prestige school will help you attain your goals…because that isn’t true.
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I know it is but this student, in my opinion, needs to step back and live life without thought of school.
Only reason I said that.
Too obsessed.
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I think it’s fine to visit schools if possible, given she is a junior. I agree that she should stay off the “chance me” threads because those can be stressful and intimidating.
OP- there are plenty of schools with biology majors. You are going to need experiences, which you can get by speaking with professors etc. My daughter literally knocked on doors and was invited to participate in research. You do not need “prestige” to have experiences.
My daughter had a summer research position at a well known hospital. There were many, many students in her program who attended “regular” state schools.
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You understand (as others here have mentioned) that premed is not a major and not something you drop out of? It is just a list of required courses you must take. You can major in anything offered and still take the MCAT. The MCAT is what ultimately matters - not your major. And again, “premed” is not a major.
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