<p>Thanks toughyear, schfinx, and dopp23 for clarifying. I think that makes sense for NU yield.
It’s a tough process, but in the end, hopefully everyone ends up where they need to be next year.</p>
<p>I got accepted :)</p>
<p>rgrbhups, congratulations! Well done!</p>
<p>To others,
Just talked to a friend of mine. He was an HPME interviewee who got into NW undergrad.
He just told me he got rejected by HPME.</p>
<p>can those who were accepted put up your stats, please? i’d like to know the full profile of an admitted applicant. thanks.</p>
<p>Decision: Accepted HPME</p>
<p>Objective:</p>
<pre><code>* SAT I (breakdown): 2300 (CR 740, M 800, W 760, Essay 12) one sitting
- ACT (breakdown): 35 (E 35, M 36, R 34, Sci 35, Essay 10, Eng&Writing 33) one sitting
- SAT II: Bio M 800, Chem 800, Physics 800, Math II 800, Chinese 800
- Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 4.0 (96.xx out of 100.00)
- Weighted GPA: 101.67 (out of 100.00)
- Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 2/837
- AP (place score in parentheses): Biology (5), BC Calc (5), AB subscore (5), APUSH (5), Eng Lang (5), World (5)
- IB (place score in parentheses): none
- Senior Year Course Load: AP Gov’t, AP Macroecon, AP Microecon, AP Eng Lit, AP Chemistry, AP Comp Sci A
- Number of other RD applicants in your school: I think like 5 or so, but they’re all rank 30 and below with lower objective stats.
- Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.):
</code></pre>
<p>Science Olympiad medals (9 regionals, 4 states), Rochester University Bausch & Lomb Honorary Science Award, NYC Metro Math Fair Bronze Medal, USABO semi-finalist, USNCO semi-finalist, 14th ranked fastest Rubik’s Speedcuber in New York State</p>
<p>Subjective:</p>
<pre><code>* Extracurriculars (place leadership in parentheses): Science Olympiad (Engineering & Biology Group Leader), Columbia University Medical Center research internship (helped publish a scientific paper), Rubik’s Cube Club at school (founder & president), Calculus Challenge Team (2nd in country last year), Calculus Tutoring (all tutees got a 5), Jazz Band (lead alto saxophone & president), Webmaster of SciOly and Sci Dept website.
- Job/Work Experience:
- Volunteer/Community service:
</code></pre>
<p>Columbia University internship for one year (Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics professional laboratory work)
Surgical Center (observed and helped with >200 surgeries)
Library
Senior Center</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Writing (Write a brief description and Rate Quality on 1-10 Scale; 10 as Best):</p>
<pre><code>* Essays (Include Subjects):
o Common App: Rubik’s cube & how it impacted my personality and way I approach and solve problems; original & creative; 10+
o How I Became Interested: Read a medical school professor’s paper, talked with students; 8
</code></pre>
<p>o Research Supplement: Short description of research with C. elegans and hypoxia, done in conjunction with a post-doc at Columbia University two years ago.
o Supplement 1 (Why Become a Doctor?): Establish intimate relations with patients and personalize care - contrary to what is being done now; 9
o Supplement 2 (Why BA/MD Program?): Consistency in a school for 8 years gives more opportunities for better research and innovation through labs
o Supplement 3 (Handling a Problem): Science Olympiad judge was being anal and wanted to give us lots of penalties; I stood up against her and got all of them reversed after polite but aggressive debating.
* Teacher Recommendation #1: 5 pages. SHE LOVES ME. from AP Bio teacher <3. basically tells almost everything about me through my activities (likes and dislikes, sense of humor, maturity (O_O), etc.) 10+
* Teacher Recommendation #2: 1 page. AP World teacher, like a mom to me. Rec is pretty run-of-the-mill, though. 7?
* Counselor Rec: Saw afterwards, sort of a laundry list. 5
* Additional Rec: Wrote it myself and got AP English teacher to sign it. Attests to outstanding writing talent and insight to reading literature (mostly true). 9
* Interview: They were alright…besides the one with Dr. Green -.- SHE IS SO AWESOME, THOUGH, despite her aggressive interviewing style.
* Art Supplement:</p>
<p>NO. there are more than enough people out there more talented than I am at violin, piano, and alto sax, combined. I am in jazz band though</p>
<p>Other</p>
<pre><code>* Date Submitted App: 3-4 days before deadline? O_O
- State (if domestic applicant): NY (NEW YORK CITY HOLLAHHH!)
- School Type: LARGE PUBLIC (4000+ students)
- Ethnicity: Asian (■■■)
- Gender: Male
- Income Bracket: not important here.
- Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.):
</code></pre>
<p>Rubik’s cube - 15 second solves; sent a video of a 13.76-sec solve on a CD with my counselor’s rec and transcript and such. Hope they had fun with it Great essay writing (?) I’ve been told I have a way with words, apparently HAHAHAS.</p>
<p>Reflection</p>
<pre><code>* Strengths: grades (spanish aside), rank, SAT IIs (I BEASTED ALL OF THEM YO!), Rubik’s cube! > MUAHAHAHA
- Weaknesses: Asian, public school isn’t magnet or specialized (quite the opposite actually…), but doesn’t downright suck, either. It’s pretty moderate in terms of grades and smartness of people in general.
- Why you think you were accepted/waitlisted/rejected: Rubik’s cube? O_O I don’t know how many applicants have sub-15 averages -shrugs- SAT II grades were definitely a plus (haven’t seen another CCer with 5 800s yet )
- What would you have done differently?:
</code></pre>
<p>not much, really. maybe I should’ve paid more attention in my Spanish classes so my grades wouldn’t have been too terrible there HAHAHAS. might’ve gotten valedictorian too LOL</p>
<p>Other Factors:
General Comments/Congratulations/Venting/Commiserations, etc:
I’m probably still going to Yale through EA but at least I have another option open.</p>
<p>^Still going to Yale through EA… wow.</p>
<p>Add another person waitlisted with an HPME interview to our list. I wasn’t too sad about the waitlist, just surprised that I’d be interviewed for the HPME in the first place. Eh, at least I got to see snow.</p>
<p>idaisyi - Yes, We feel your frustration. Being interviewed for HMPE one would assume the candidate would be NU accepted / acceptable. </p>
<p>D FINALLY rec’d email TODAY from Dr. Green rejecting D to HPME stating that the “NU admissions decisions are separate, blah blah blah” but what we want to write back to her is “gee thanks… we found out FRIDAY wait-listed to NU so it was assumed she didn’t make the HPME process, but thanks for the PROMPT notice anyway.” (with sarcasm). </p>
<p>inycepoo - if you are planning to go to Yale anyway, thanks for taking one of the HPME spots if you already had your mind made up to attend another institution. I hope you plan on letting NU know asap that you aren’t interested so others who were wait-listed will have a chance to take your spot.</p>
<p>I humbly request permission to be excused.</p>
<p>Actually, I don’t have my mind “set” on anything 100% just yet. Picking colleges doesn’t work that way (at least for me). If NU or any other institution offers up better FA than what Yale gave me, then I might either 1. jump ship (low chance) or 2. go bargain with Yale. However, in order to bargain, I need to get into other schools first. Am I “taking up space,” so to speak by doing that? No, I think not. I believe that if a college wants you, then they will accept you regardless of the competitiveness of other applicants. Furthermore, I highly doubt (emphasis) that my presence as an applicant has severely harmed in any way, shape, or form, any other applicant’s chances of being admitted. If you’re strong enough, you’ll get in. To say that those like me are taking up space is virtually the same as saying that any great applicant should not apply out to more than, say, 5 colleges at a time (CLEARLY not the trend nowadays). That is absurd. I’m not loaded, and therefore I need FA offers as much as I want admissions from prestigious universities. As self-interested as that may sound, I’m pretty sure anyone else in my position would do the same in a heartbeat. However, as you gallantly suggested, I hope very much that if and when I deny my offer of admission, a space will open up to another highly qualified applicant. Also, exactly when I make my decision to not matriculate (either today or May 1st) has no bearing on when the WL student gets his or her status overturned. The admissions office is going to wait until they have a definite yield percentage set in stone until they go to the WL, no? That’s the logical thing to do, at least.</p>
<p>for everyone who was interviewed for hpme and then waitlisted at northwestern: if any of you are still seriously interested in coming to northwestern, just show real interest and you have a great shot at getting off the waitlist</p>
<p>inycepoo… </p>
<p>“If NU or any other institution offers up better FA than what Yale gave me, then I might either 1. jump ship (low chance) or 2. go bargain with Yale.”</p>
<p>If coming to Northwestern is “jumping ship” to you, don’t come here. You probably won’t like it if that’s the attitude you come in with. Everyone here HIGHLY appreciates their acceptance here and many people turn down HYP for this opportunity.</p>
<p>^Well said</p>
<p>To those wondering why you could have been qualified to be interviewed for HPME, yet waitlisted at NU, remember that the two apps are not directly connected. Your HPME app sent to Feinberg determines if you will be called to an interview. Your NU undergrad app determines your acceptance to the university and the school of your choice. The two are separate processes until HPME office at Feinberg is ready to send acceptances letters for HPME. At that point they refer to the UG office to determine if any of the HPME candidates were waitlisted or not, and do not send an HPME acceptance to them. There is consternation on this topic every year, and hopefully future candidates can read this thread next year and so on.</p>
<p>^^wait, so you’re saying you can get into HPME but not into NU undergrad and will get rejected?
Are you sure about that, because that seems ridiculous</p>
<p>No, all I am saying is that the process your candidacy takes for the HPME and for NU’s undergrad admission are not connected until much later. You may be good enough to be interviewed, and may interview very well and think you aced it, yet you may be waitlisted or rejected by NU undergrad admissions. If that were to happen, HPME will not offer you a spot in their program.</p>
<p>
It’d be too early to do that. You guys got the invite in Jan/early Feb, if I am not mistaken. At that point, making any offers, even if preliminary, would be unfair to other non-HPME applicants when many of them are as strong as, if not stronger, than many HPME applicants. </p>
<p>
Actually, 150 out of over 800 is approximiately the same as ~5400 out of over 30,000 - the overall admit rate.</p>
<p>One more thing: HPMEs are not necessarily superstars at NU and often, they are not. One of my good friends was HPME and took MCAT just to see how he compared to others; he got a 36 without a lot of studying yet he managed to get just B+s in the orgo sequence. I also knew another HPME kid getting only Bs in the premed bio sequence. While HPMEs have higher average than the overall student body, the difference isn’t huge between the two admitted pools (~1530 vs ~1470). So while HPME interviewees definitely have higher chance of getting in than the non-HPME applicants on average, I wouldn’t necessarily call it a shocker when they don’t.</p>
<p>I have two thoughts on this:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Perhaps NU is looking for something differenct than HPME. The HPMEinterviewees had to be brilliant and passionate about the sciences, whereas possibly those that made it all the way were more well-rounded, which is what NU wants in thier students. </p></li>
<li><p>The students who did not make itas a finalist with the HPME interview, when thrown into the general pool, were thought to get into a chose a better college than NU, and were over-qualified.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>hey guys, I’m a canadian trying to get into Northwestern’s HPME. I have 2100 SAT, 92% average, and is currently in grade 11 in a good highschool. captain for 2 school sport teams, president for 1 school club. do you think i can get in?</p>
<p>thanks so much! :)</p>
<p>@kurtzuo, no.</p>
<p>is there something that i can do? lacking something?</p>