Rate my college choices

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Hello everyone,</p>

<p>I am just another ordinary junior looking for advice to which college I should apply early decision, early action, or regularly. Also, I want to know which colleges are far reaches and which colleges I have a chance of getting in.</p>

<p>A little about me:</p>

<p>Ethnicity: Vietnamese
I am First Generation > Not even sure if it helps
Location: Boston, Massachusetts
Languages spoken: Vietnamese and English</p>

<p>My Cumulative GPA - 95% - which is 4.0 I believe
SATS: Math 770, Critical Reading 600, Writing 750
SATIIS: 650 Chem (really bad), will take Math I, Math II, Latin</p>

<p>Freshman courses:
Geometry Honors
English 9 Honors
Latin II honors GPA - 92.58% (i totally regret not trying)
Biology Honors
Freshman writing
Religion</p>

<p>Sophmore courses:
Algebra II Honors
English 10 Honors GPA - 96.5%
Latin III Honors
Chemistry Honors
Modern European History Honors
Religion</p>

<p>Junior courses:
Precal Honors
English 11 Honors
Latin IV AP Current GPA - 94.5% (will have 95% after year ends)
Physics Honors
U.S. History AP
Religion</p>

<p>Future Senior courses:
Calculus AB
English Language & Comp AP
Latin V Advanced Topics
Physics AP
Chemistry AP
Western Philosophy</p>

<p>EC:
Diversity Club
Latin Club
History Club
National Honor Society
Math Club
(will join more next year)</p>

<p>Sports:
Varsity Basketball Junior and Senior year</p>

<p>Summer Activities:
Last summer I tutored students for The SteppingStone Academy
This upcoming summer I will tutor for SteppingStone again
This upcoming summer I will volunteer at a hospital - if not a library atleast</p>

<p>My college list recommended by college councilor (though I will replace some):</p>

<p>*Amherst College
*Boston College
*Boston University
*Bowdoin College
*Brown University
*Carnegie Mellon University
Colby College
*Cornell University
*Harvard University
*Johns Hopkins University
Lehigh University
U. of Rochester
*Tufts University</p>

<p>Additional colleges I might apply/look at:
Northwestern Univ
Georgetown Univ
U. of Notre Dame
Washington in St. Louis </p>

<p>Possible Early Decision colleges:
Brown
Tufts
JHU</p>

<p>I plan on taking heavy math/science courses for premed purposes.</p>

<p>My friend, also a first generation Vietnamese from my school, had similar grades and the exact same courses as me is currently going to Harvard for premed, and also got into Bowdoin, Cornell, & BC (didn't tell me other colleges). All i know is he got rejected from Amherst, not sure about the other schools.</p>

<p>But anyway, I am unsure of what colleges I have a chance at. I should ask my college councilor, but i want to know some more input.</p>

<p>Also, I want to go to a college where i have a high chance to receive good grades if I try hard. I heard some colleges just set rules for the average GPA and fail even the kids who deserve good grades.</p>

<p>The other colleges will be the ones that i most likely will apply to, I might not apply to some.</p>

<p>Should I apply early decision for Brown? Or for Tufts? Perhaps even JHU.</p>

<p>As of now, I am MOST interested in Harvard (though it probably won't happen), Brown, and Tufts. The colleges I WILL apply to are * above. Please tell me if I have a chance and if the college is a reach.</p>

<p>Thanks for your time!</p>

2

<p>You need a safety school or two in there - both safe for admission and safe for affordability. All the schools on your list are either targets or reaches.</p>

3

<p>I think that I will get mostly full rides from financial aid, but yeah I should talk to my councilor about which school he intends to be safety for me. I think BU/BC are safety schools, considering that from my high school kids with 90% gpa all get into BC</p>

<p>Thanks for your advice,</p>

<p>Feel free to add more people</p>

4

<p>Apply ED to your one dream school above all others. If you don’t have one, apply EA or RD to a good mix of reach, match and safety schools you like.</p>

<p>To find match schools, google for schools’ Common Data Set sections C9 to C12 and compare your numbers to what you find there.</p>

5

<p>Did your friend really get in with a 600CR? Kind of hard to believe.</p>

6

<p>You’ve shared nothing with us about your preferences in a school, your interests, and your future plans. It is hard to evaluate the appropriateness of your list without knowing this. JHU is a very different school from Amherst–what makes you think both are right for you? Are you going to be able to apply to 13+ schools with as much effort as each application or supplement deserves? I suggest pairing down the list at least into single digits based on your reflections about which schools are right for you.

Perhaps your counselor or your school have a good enough relationship with BC in order to feel assured you’d be admitted, but from where I sit I don’t see any school on your list I’d feel confident enough about to call a “safety”, and the one closest to that level (I’d say BU) is not need-blind/full-need. Will you be able to afford it (or any) if you get minimal financial aid? I’d suggest you add at least one school where your CR score is in the upper range of their bracket and that you might be able to afford even without FA. That, to my mind, would be a safety. Suggestion: perhaps U Mass-Amherst?</p>

<p>Any school with an admission rate lower than 20% constitutes a reach for just about anyone. Thus all the Ivies, Amherst, and Bowdoin are reaches for you–and I think more could be added.</p>

<p>Some extra advice: don’t compare yourself to your friend–apparently there was something he had or did that Harvard et al liked. Do you have a good reason to think you have it, too?</p>

7

<p>Let me point out a few things beyond the obvious:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>When you say First Generation, does that mean you were born in Viet Nam? What about education? Are you the first in your family to go to college? If you are international that helps more than of Asian descent, and if you are the first generation to attend college, that is a new hot button for admissions people, especially if you have faced big life challenges in the process. Is money an issue?</p></li>
<li><p>No matter what you’ve heard about Early Decision, it does help tremendously. Some studies have shown it is worth as much as an additional 100 points on the SAT’s. Make sure you do an ED (that you would really like to go to—because it is a serious commitment). Don’t waste it on a “Hail Mary”: make it a realistic reach choice where maybe it could push you over the edge. </p></li>
<li><p>If you are really sure of medicine, consider a combined degree program. You will save a year or two of study, bypass the MCAT’s, and be assured of getting into med school (if you keep your undergrad grades up). Sometimes kids who go to super-competitive undergrad premed programs don’t do as well as they expect vs. their competition and end up having to attend not-so-great med schools. </p></li>
</ol>

<p>Some combined degree programs at elite schools include: Brown-Alpert S of Medicine, UC-San Diego-S of Medicine, GWU-S of Med & Health Sciences, Northwestern-Feinberg S of Medicine, U Rochester-S of Med & Dentistry, USC-Keck S of Medicine, Tufts-S of Medicine. There are many others through public institutions. If money is an issue at all, the public route is worth checking out.</p>

<ol>
<li>Steven Antonoff’s excellent book, The College Finder, lists these top choices for pre-med: Amherst, Bates, Brown, Bucknell, Carleton, U Chicago, Colgate, Emory, Franklin & Marshall, Grinnell, Hamilton, Hopkins, Knox, Muhlenberg, Northwestern, U Penn, Pomona, St Louis U (MO), St Olaf (MN), Stanford, Vanderbilt, Wash U in St Louis, William & Mary.</li>
</ol>

<p>Hope this is helpful.</p>