<p>First, I agree that you should not apply to too many reaches. I am just suggesting that you could apply to one or two reaches that you don’t think you could get in. You know, it is like buying lottery tickets, you never know what would happen. JHU, NYU, and WUSTL are reaches for you. You could pick two of them or you could pick Brown and one of these three schools. As long as your have safety and match schools that you like, you would be OK with two reaches.</p>
<p>JHU pre-med is brutal. The competition is fierce. If you are not good enough, as seemed by the pre-med committee, you would not get a good recommendation. Thereby your med school dream is doomed. I like a more nurtured system. Nevertheless you should investigate and make a decision yourself.</p>
<p>You should take a look at Haverford, Occidental, Pomona, Swarthmore, Macalester, Reed, Trinity (CT). Also Barnard, Bryn Mawr, and Wellesley if you are female.</p>
<p>“My safety is Northeastern University – is this more of a match or safety?
I was originally considering JHU, Brown, NYU, WUSTL, UCLA. Should I be shooting lower or higher, or this is about right?”</p>
<p>It’s easier than you think to figure out all this. Get a copy of the US News&World report rankings. Here’s what you can discover at a glance (I’ll do three using the 2009 book):</p>
<p>JHU–SAT reading&math mean: 1395; 82% in top 10% of their class.
Brown–SAT mean: 1430; 92% in top 10% of their class.
UCLA–SAT mean: 1310; 97% in top 10% of their class.</p>
<p>You may have good SAT scores; you’ll know more when you have your final results in hand. But with a 3.3 GPA, no admission officer will believe you’re in the top 10% of your class, even if your school doesn’t rank its students. This is why you need to cross UCLA off your list, despite the fact it has the lowest SAT mean. Each school admits according to a distinctive set of beliefs; UCLA and Berkeley both admit students who are the top achievers in their respective schools.</p>
<p>There do exist great schools that admit according to different criteria. Look for schools with SAT means that match yours but that admit a lower percentage of students that were ranked in the top 10% of their class. I think USC could be a match for you, as one poster noted. Safeties are schools you are confident of getting into; perhaps BU is a safety.
just my two cents. I’ve never posted outside the MIT forum before; however, something about your post reminded me of my son (probably the gaming reference).
Here’s another bit of advice: Don’t look for prestige. Look for a school where you will really thrive.
Good luck!</p>
<p>CalAlum - Thanks for all the excellent advice! :O</p>
<p>
I think my school just has horrible grade deflation or something because while the school doesn’t rank, it still reports the deciles? Granted, I’m probably right on the border between the first and second decile, though… :D. Like… all B’s are basically 3.0 and then all A’s are 4.0, but it’s pretty hard to get an A (the average final grade for some of my honor classes in 9th grade were… failing or borderline a C :(.). Or would admission officers just not see that? It seems a bit weird otherwise. </p>
<p>
Is this only grade-wise? :(. Is it possible that awards (math, science, etc) could maybe make up for that? Or is it just… set in stone that grades far outweigh everything?</p>
<p>You’ve really had the best advice regarding admissions so far – thank you very much! :D. </p>
<p>pointoforder – Ha, yeah, my dad wants me to go to Wellesley :P. Thanks for the recommendations! =)</p>
<p>I think Pintoforder’s list is a good place to start, although Pomona would be a reach. According to the school’s common data set, GPA is very important, and the mean SAT scores of its students is quite high; Claremont McKenna, which is also in the Claremont College consortium, has similar SAT statistics but in its common data set CMC states that GPA is given less weight than standardized test scores and leadership ability. This is what I meant by saying that different colleges admit according to slightly different criteria.</p>
<p>Twomules is right, that some colleges won’t look at freshman year. For example, the UC system doesn’t consider freshman year and will allow you to re-weight your GPA according to a specific UC method. You can google “University of California admissions” to get to this website. Nevertheless, the mean weighted gpa of students admitted to UCLA is something like 4.15 or thereabouts.</p>
<p>In addition to Claremont McKenna, I suggest you consider Whitman College, in eastern Washington.</p>