Premed/biology student hoping for T30 smaller school

Chance Me / Match Me!
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Hello all! Thanks so much for reading and helping me out with this. I’m looking for chancing and potential matches as an intended bio/premed major class of 2023 (rising senior). I just have no idea where to begin and I want to be realistic with my applications.

Demographics

  • US Domestic: US Citizen

  • State of residency: Indiana

  • Type of high school: Rural/small town public school

  • Gender/Race/Ethnicity: Caucasian female

  • Other special factors (first generation to college, legacy, athlete, etc.): athlete; recruited by several DIII and DII schools, as well as a handful of less competitive DI’s

Intended Major(s)

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 3.96 (1 A in gym bc I did a sport instead)
  • Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): 4.61 (AP courses are weighted such that a 4.0=5.0, honors are unweighted, dual credit are weighted half of APs I believe)
  • College GPA (for transfers): N/A
  • Class Rank: 1/187
  • ACT/SAT Scores: 34 ACT, 1530 SAT (plan to apply with SAT)

Coursework

  • AP Courses: 11 by the end of high school
    Sophomore year: APUSH
    Junior year: chemistry, calculus AB, English language, Econ, psychology
    Senior: statistics, physics 1, biology, English lit, US government
    My school currently offers 7 AP courses yearly
    I’ve gotten 5’s on all exams except chem which was a 4
    Foreign Language level: 3 years of Spanish
    Dual credit: several years of dual credit English/Spanish/Chemistry done at high school (we take an end of year exam to get credit with a community college)
    Level of math: Calculus AB, will complete AP stats this coming year

Awards
State-level essay contest winner
AP scholar w/ distinction
Science department award winner
Cross country all-state honorable mention
Cross country 3 years all-conference
XC/Track academic all state 3 years
Athletic mental attitude/MVP awards

Extracurriculars
(Include leadership, summer activities, competitions, volunteering, and work experience)

School Clubs:
NHS (elected treasurer for senior year)
Class officer (2 years as treasurer; class president junior and senior year)
Student government
Renaissance club (volunteering/service work within the school)
TASC committee (1 student per grade selected from each school in the county and given a budget to help allocate funds to grant applicants)

Athletics:
4 year varsity cross country and track, team captain for cross country sophomore and junior year

Outside school:
2 years volunteering with community outreach program (put on concerts/events downtown, etc) 100+ hours spent
Summer before senior year began as a lab assistant at a college about 30 min away (8-10 hrs per week) hope to continue a few hours weekly during the school year
Volunteering w/ special Olympics, bell-ringing, etc. (smaller commitments; total around 50 hrs yearly)
Summer job: outdoor work/landscaping for a neighbor

Essays/LORs/Other
(Optionally, guess how strong these are and include any other relevant information or circumstances.)
Essays: Work in progress but I’ve always enjoyed writing
LORs: Science teacher (I have 2 who would give good recs maybe 7/10); English teacher (good relationship, haven’t had since sophomore year 6/10); Coach (9/10 perhaps these mean less but I know it would be strong); Counselor (5/10, I haven’t been able to meet with her at all, she makes it clear that she barely knows who I am)

Cost Constraints / Budget
Definitely a concern; if I go to a private school I will need scholarships especially with future medical school debt

Schools
ED: unsure as of now but possibly Harvard just because I had a close cousin go and I loved visiting
EA: possibly Princeton or Macalester, UMich
RD: Wittenberg, CWRU, Kenyon, Cornell, DePauw, Hanover College, Indiana University, Purdue University, Bowdoin, Cincinnati, Notre Dame, Brown

I’d love suggestions as well. I know it’s a long list and I’d love to narrow it to schools I really am interested in. I’m looking for strong STEM/kinesiology programs, possibly in a smaller environment where I’d feel safe/comfortable being active outdoors.

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Both Harvard and Princeton have a restricted EA (not ED), where you agree not to apply ED anywhere or EA to other private schools in the US (check restrictions carefully on their web sites).

Have you run the net price calculator on the web site of each college of interest?

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I would look closely in-state. Purdue and Indiana University are two very good universities that you should seriously consider. With two strong safeties the next thing would be to investigate the fit for other schools – what schools would be a good fit for you? Of course this can be more difficult to determine compared to looking at rankings.

You are very wise to pay attention to your budget. You should try to avoid debt for your bachelor’s degree if you can. Saving $$ in the college fund for medical school (or whatever you do after getting a bachelor’s) is a good idea if you can do it.

Related to this, you should run the Net Price Calculator for the out of state and private universities that you are considering. You will need to get help from your parents to input information, and will want to show them the results. If your parents are divorced, separated, own a small business or rental property then the results might not be accurate. Otherwise at least in our experience they seem to be quite accurate (although not always encouraging in our case).

I think that you are competitive at any university. However, the majority of applicants to Harvard and Princeton have stats that are similar to yours (I can’t imagine many having stats that are any better).

Harvard and Princeton will get a higher percentage of their graduates into medical school compared to your in-state public universities. However, some of this (maybe all of this??) is due to caliber of the students who start at Harvard and Princeton in the first place. Your in-state public universities are very good and can help to prepare you very well for medical school.

Premed classes are going to be tough – probably tougher than anything that you have seen up to now. They will be full of very strong students and will have tough exams. However, you are going in very well prepared. If you attend an in-state public university your excellent performance in high school is going to help you two ways: You might have some chance for a merit based scholarship (save money for medical school!!!). Also, you will be going into these tough premed classes well prepared. Expect to need to keep studying very hard when you get to university.

I would also try to visit as many schools as you can. We started with schools that were nearby.

I think that you are going to do well. Congratulations on how well you have done up to now and best wishes.

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Congratulations on all of your accomplishments so far! You will be a strong applicant to any number of universities.

The first thing that you need to do is speak with your family and figure out what the budget is without anyone needing to take out loans. Also, you need to run the Net Price Calculator at some colleges to see what they expect your family to pay. You can try this at Harvard or Princeton, Purdue or IU, and then maybe Wittenberg or DePauw, or some similar combination of schools that are very generous at calculating a low family contribution (Harvard/Princeton), your in-state publics, and then some private schools that don’t meet full need. See what your family thinks of these price estimates. If the estimates look good, then you can look at any school where the NPC looks affordable. If your family is unwilling or unable to pay the estimated price, then you will need to find merit aid to meet your family’s budget.

Have you spoken with your school/counselor about who they intend to nominate for the Wells Scholarship at IU? It would seem you would be a very strong contender from your school, and might certainly make it into consideration for the Wells Scholarship which is a full ride to IU.

Once you get the budget, I’m sure you’ll be inundated with suggestions. :slight_smile:

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I’d just add make sure you know admission deadlines of each school. . You say RD to a lot of schools. IU, as one example, has an early action deadline of Nov 1.

You want to ensure you hit the EA deadline if any school that offers one (outside your ED, etc).

Next time I find out where the guy seeing me in the emergency room went to
Undergrad or med school will be the first. The goal is to get in…few do…and it can happen from any school.

Save your $$. If you have significant demonstrated need, Harvard is great. If it’s $85k a year it’s not.

Check out the McCullough Medical Scholars at Alabama or other schools might have similar. Arizona, Florida State, maybe Miami of Ohio. These can be ‘affordable’ to you if you decide that’s the proper route to take. Also since you mention Kenyon, checkout the Johnson Scholarship at Washington & Lee.

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UVA has a direct admit Kinesiology program. Many of those students are premed with great success. Not a “small school” but it’s definitely a safe place to enjoy being outside. Charlottesville is wonderful.

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Any chance you are a NM finalist?

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Thanks so much for the suggestions! I will definitely have to check into application restrictions more carefully.
I’ve run net price calculators on several places so far, and it seems that smaller private schools will be the most difficult financially. I’m sure this is to be expected. Any suggestions for further steps? I have a few meetings set up with financial aid officers and obviously I hope to get merit scholarships and apply for outside scholarships (the Lily scholarship here in Indiana).

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Possibly! It seems that I will be sort of right on the edge of the cutoff. It could go either way, but is likely.

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Thank you all for the suggestions! This gives me a lot to consider and is all very much appreciated.

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Have you taken a look at Dartmouth? They have a lot of students who do undergrad and med school there (a friend did that). It is a beautiful campus and the outdoors is your backyard. That being said, definitely run the price calculator because it is NOT cheap! Your application is impressive and it will serve you well to spend a lot less on undergrad and work hard to go to a top medical school. My college roommate did the opposite (went to Hopkins undergrad and a T30 med school) and she was in debt up to her eyeballs.

Best of luck!

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If you are looking for a smaller school, Davidson College can’t be beat when it comes to premed preparation. But honestly, admissions committees don’t care very much about the school you went to. They want to know what you did with the time you spent there.

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If you can share a budget number with us, that would be super helpful. Otherwise you may end up with a number of suggestions that are unaffordable for your family.

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Again thanks for the suggestions! I’ve never done this before, so I didn’t even think to include specific budget but I’m sure that was confusing. My family could probably afford to contribute somewhere in the 25 to 30 thousand range yearly but that may be on the high end. Beyond that, I would either have to earn scholarships or take out loans.

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Many colleges will first apply outside scholarships to the student contribution (student loan or expected work earnings), but then reduce their own need based grants.

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Ok…that is what they can afford to contribute. For some of your colleges on your list…they meet full need BUT the expectation from your family could be higher. Is it?

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This is very helpful. Given your superb stats it does seem likely to me that you will be able to stay at or below this number at some very good university, but it might not be one of the famous big name schools. Harvard and Princeton have good need based financial aid, but their understanding of “need” might or might not correspond to your family’s understanding of “need”.

If you are majoring in anything for which a master’s degree or MD or DVM or similar unfunded graduate program is likely, then you should definitely avoid or minimize loans for your bachelor’s degree. The maximum that you should consider spending is either what an in-state public university would cost, or whatever you can afford with only the federally subsidized loan amounts ($5,500 for the first year, for example). Even this much debt is iffy, is something you would need to deal with for a while after graduating, and is something I would only take on if necessary and/or maybe (or maybe not) for a school on the “Harvard / Princeton” level.

When your run the NPC, pay attention to whether the suggested likely financial aid includes loans. In many cases it will.

Do not apply ED anywhere unless both of the following is true: (i) It is your first choice; and (ii) The NPC shows that it will be affordable. Otherwise you will want to compare financial aid offers, particularly since your superb stats makes merit aid very likely at some schools. However, the top schools including Harvard and Princeton do not give any merit based financial aid.

It is reasonably likely that your superb grades in high school will mostly help you in terms of both allowing you to get merit aid at schools that provide this, and helping you to be very well prepared to do well at the tough premed classes that you will be taking when you get to university. Both of these are of course huge.

I might add that neither of my daughters were premed, but one was pre-vet (she is currently in a DVM program) and the other was a biology major interested in research (she is currently doing biotech research). Both took quite a few classes that overlapped with premed classes. Even though they were not premed, they still were taking many of the same classes. They did well, but I heard multiple stories about how tough the classes are. I also got to meet several of their friends who were premed. At a very good public university such as Purdue or IU there will be quite a few very impressive students such as yourself who will be working very hard and getting a very good education. You definitely would not be the only strong student. Premed classes will be full of very strong students.

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My D21 (premed/biochem) was looking for merit, strong prehealth advising, research and service opportunities and preferred a LAC or mid-size. Here are some schools to include in your research. These are a range of sizes and selectivity… remember if merit is the number one goal you may need to compromise on other preferences. Any school that requires merit to attend should be considered a reach regardless of admissions probability.

Washington & Lee - Johnson scholarship (full ride) and some targeted full tuition merit scholarships
Davidson - Belk scholarship and James B Duke (the Belk requires a nomination by your school, I believe)
Rhodes
CWRU
Duke - Robertson scholarship (requires a nomination) and others
UNC - Robertson scholarship (requires a nomination), Morehead-Cain and others
UVA - Jefferson scholarship

I would also include some of the auto-merit schools like Alabama, Miami-Ohio, etc. as suggested by others.

Your instate publics may end up being the best financial fit, but as long as you have those safeties there’s no reason not to try for these competitive scholarships. It’s a lot of work applying for merit and there are typically earlier deadlines so plan accordingly so you don’t burn out.

Good luck!

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Did you run the NPCs at Wittenberg and Hanover? Were those schools also out of budget for you?

@DramaMama2021 gave you a great list of schools of schools with very competitive academic full tuition or full ride scholarships.

Some other schools that I’d take a look at are below. Colleges that participate in the Colleges That Change Lives association are marked with a CTCL. These are programs where I think you stand a high likelihood of acceptance and of getting significant merit aid…hopefully enough to meet your budget number.

  • Birmingham-Southern (AL), CTCL
  • Ohio U.
  • Otterbein (OH)
  • U. of Alabama-Tuscaloosa
  • U. of Alabama-Birmingham (a big medical focus)
  • U. of Louisville
  • York (PA )

And…

  • Beloit (WI) -CTCL
  • Bradley (IL)
  • Centre (KY)
  • Kalamazoo (MI)-CTCL
  • Knox (IL)-CTCL
  • Lake Forest (IL)
  • Lawrence (WI)-CTCL
  • Miami (OH)
  • North Central (IL)
  • Ohio Northern
  • Ohio Wesleyan-CTCL
  • College of Wooster (OH)-CTCL
  • U. of Dayton (OH)
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Morehead-Cain is an exclusively UNC scholarship