Please Chance Me for JHU, Brown, Rice, WashU, UC Berkeley, UCLA?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hello! I know that this is simply “chances” and is pretty subjective, but I just want to know whether or not I have a shot for these colleges based on my stats and ecs. I feel like all of these schools are reaches…am I right?

Objective:
SAT I (breakdown): N/A
ACT (breakdown): 33 (33 M, 30 S, 33 E, 34 R, 11 W) Superscore: 34 (35 M, 31 S, 35 E, 34 R, 11 W)
SAT II: 800 Math II, 750 Chemistry
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.97
Weighted GPA: 4.36
UC GPA: 4.19
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): School shows only in deciles. Top 10%
AP:
-5’s: U.S. History, Calculus BC
-4’s: Chemistry, Environmental Science

Senior Year Course Load: AP Government (1st semester), AP Economics (2nd semester), AP Biology, AP Statistics, AP Spanish, one regular English class (was recommended for AP Lit but didn’t want to risk GPA)

Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): Well, I don’t have any major awards…
AP Scholar w/ Honor, President’s Volunteer Service Award, Regional Youth Executive Board Certificate of Recognition, Regional Top 5 FBLA award, Regional Youth Volunteer Instructor award

Subjective:
Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis):

  1. Red Cross Leadership Positions:
  • Vice President at school club
    -Two-year Youth Executive Board member at regional level
  • Founder/Advisor for middle school club
  • Regional Blood Council member (only high school student among adults)

What I do at Red Cross:

  • Organized largest regional youth committee and increased membership by 100%
  • In my junior year, I organized/taught over 30 classes at 20 different locations (preschools, day cares, elementary schools) around the Bay Area. Classes focused on disaster preparedness and basic first aid. In total, I’ve taught over 300 kids for past three years.
  • Certified my committee members to teach these classes (we have a total of 8 different classes)
  • Introduced and helped certify my members for a new national disaster prep program
  • Was recommended to become official CPR instructor for adults at the chapter (was teaching CPR to children since sophomore year). Currently in training for BLS as well.
  • Hosting ESL classes at various organizations
  • Executed regional drive that collected supplies for disaster kits and turned out to be very successful
  • I’m also one of the three youths in a medical team that goes to community events like Gilroy Garlic Festival to provide first aid
    ^I do more with this organization, but I don’t want to explain in full details as that might give my identity away :slight_smile: *
  1. Medical Reserves Corps Member
  • Similar to the medical team for Red Cross, I provide first aid assistance for local community events
  1. Tutor
  • Help run a student-run tutoring program
  • Teach math, english, chemistry
  1. Science Olympiad
  • Was one of two freshmen competing
  • Became competitions officer sophomore and junior year.
  • Won regional awards, but club did not advance to states.

Job/Work Experience:

  1. Internship at a non-profit organization: Conducted motivational-interviewing calls for Blue Shield of Califonia member referrals and encouraged them to enroll in a self-management workshop (which is hosted by this organization and Stanford). This was an unpaid internship.

Summer Activities: Internship, Volunteer

Essays (rating 1-10, details): Still working on apps, and I’m not sure how to rank my own essays

Recommendations (rating 1-10, details): Pretty close with all of my teachers. Unfortunately, I am not allowed to see their rec letters, so idk

Intended Major:
-Immunology/Pathogenesis at UC Berkeley
-Nursing at UCLA
-Debating between Public Health or Biology at JHU (if I choose Biology, will my chances of admittance be lower?)
-Public Health at Brown
-Biology at Rice, WashU (maybe public health)

  • Note: I’m thinking to apply for the Baylor Medical Scholars Program, but do I have a chance?

State (if domestic applicant): CA
School Type: Public, at least 500 in my class, located in Bay Area
Ethnicity: Asian
Gender: F
Income Bracket: Upper Middle Class (aka too high for financial aid)
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): First generation immigrant…but I don’t think that’s really a hook since I’m Asian

Reflection
Strengths: GPA, community service (~700 hours)
Weaknesses: No strong hooks, ACT
General Comments: Are these schools reaches for me? Or are they matches? Also, please share any information if you are a Baylor Medical Scholar at Rice or UCLA nursing student! I feel very hopeless, and deadlines are coming up soon. :frowning:

2

bump

3

anyone? :frowning:

4

You’re qualified for admission to the schools you’re applying to, so you have a chance. Unfortunately, everyone that applies to these schools is very qualified… The most unique thing about your profile is your internship with a non-profit, I would highlight that. Always focus on what makes you different. You’re right, being Asian isn’t going to help you sadly. Your ACT (33) is not a weakness, but it is average for the schools your applying to. It’s neither hurting or helping you get into schools like JHU. I can’t answer all of your questions like if biology major will hurt you, but I would say public health if my instincts mean anything.

5

@silas1829 Thanks for your input! Do you recommend that I take the ACT one more time since I’m applying RD for all schools? Every time I’ve taken the ACT, my score kept increasing, so I’m not sure if this will make any difference.

6

If it’s any help, JHU’s public health program is very highly ranked, so if you have an interest in it, I’d say go for that.

7

I think 33 clears the test score bar at every school except maybe Caltech – 33 is fine, as is GPA assuming it’s at least 3.85 unweighted. Top 10% is where you need to be for admission to these schools and their ilk.

As for chances, I do think first-gen is a bit of a hook, so:

Reach: Brown
Low reach: JHU, Rice, WUSTL
High match: Berkeley, UCLA

Make sure you add maybe another match and at least one safety. You should like, and be able to afford, all schools to which you apply.

8

@ninemuses Thanks for the info! Do you know how competitive it is to enter as a public health undergrad?

9

@prezbucky Thanks for your input :slight_smile:

10

Not sure but I’m fairly certain its a popular major.

11

Berkeley and UCLA are reaches for everyone. Not sure about UCLA nursing and how competitive it is vs. oather majors, but as a whole close to 100,000 students apply each year making it the most applied to school in the nation. You state you have no major awards. For UCB and UCLA you need them.

12

.

13

@preppedparent I know that UCLA nursing has a pretty low acceptance rate, and I’ve been trying to find stats in CC from previous nursing applicants who were accepted. Surprisingly, most seem to have been accepted with a lower ACT/GPA than mine, so I’m pretty confused whether nursing is a safe major or not.

14

Rice will be a reach for you. You’ll be able to write a good essay regarding your EC’s. Rice/Baylor is a very high reach for everyone. They take something like 10 students per year.

My only real concern for you is that your choice of major varies so much. Are you pre-med? I can’t tell if you are planning on a nursing career or an MD career.

15

For Fall 2015, UCLA had 2155 Freshman applications for Nursing, they accepted 50 with a 2.3% acceptance rate. Definitely not a safe major.

16

@ScienceGirlMom Yes, I’m planning to go on a pre-med track. I’m only applying to two schools as a nursing major. The rest are either biology or public health. I’m flip-flopping on my majors because my parents want me to apply to a couple of schools as a bio major.

17

@Gumbymom Do you know what the average ACT score applicants had? I can’t find any info on UCLA nursing anywhere, and the few stats I’ve seen on CC weren’t that great.

18

Check to be sure that nursing to medical school is a good track. I don’t know a lot about pre-med admissions, but it seems like I’ve read that you will still have a ton of pre-med work to do while completing a major in nursing. You can complete the pre-med classes with any major, but you may end up with more additional class requirements than you expected.

19

UCLA does not list admitted applicants GPA/Tests scores by Major only for all applicants. I would assume since the acceptance rate is 2.3%, you want stats around the 50th-75th percentile for the best chance.

20

@ScienceGirlMom I believe that UCLA nursing has a lot of overlapping classes with premed. But thank you for your advice! If you hadn’t mentioned it, I probably would have forgotten about that. :open_mouth: