Sophomore

Applying to College
1

Hello all!

I am currently a high school sophomore looking for some advice on what match/safety schools would be good for me. I am very interested in pursuing Bioengineering and going down a Pre-Med track and hopefully will end up getting accepted to an MSTP program in the future. I’ve listed my stats below:

PSAT: 1420 (740 Math, 680 EBRW)
GPA: 4.0 Unweighted, 4.65 Weighted
Class Rank: 1/~200 (Unofficial)

Demographics:
Middle Eastern male
Washington State resident

9th Grade Schedule:

Wind Ensemble
Honors English 9
Honors World History 1 and 2
Honors Chemistry
AP Calculus BC (5, AB subscore 5)
IB Spanish SL

10th Grade Schedule:

Jazz Band
Wind Ensemble
Honors English 10
Honors World History 3 (semester)
Leadership (semester)
AP Physics 1 (taking Phys C Mech test)
AP Computer Science Principles
AP Spanish Language
Taking Calculus 3, Differential Equations, Statistics and Health at a Community College

Extracurriculars:
iGEM (an international synthetic biology competition) bronze medal
JSA, President and Founder
Math Club, Vice President and Founder
Part of my school’s ASB (we don’t have official positions yet)
Got a scholarship to a programming academy in SF summer before 9th grade, have published an app to the iOS App Store

I am also planning on taking the Math Level 2 and Physics SAT II tests and the AMC 12 next year.

My reach schools will be MIT (dream school), Caltech, Stanford and Johns Hopkins for Bioengineering. I have identified UW Seattle as a match school, but I would be greatly appreciative of any suggestions on what additional safeties/match schools could be based off of my interests and stats.

2

Have you had the money conversation with your parents yet? If not, go do that. All of the colleges and universities have links on their websites to their Net Price Calculators. If your parents have never run one of these before, it might be wise for you to have their favorite adult beverages and a box of very high quality tissues handy. Tears are often involved.

Are you a US citizen or legal permanent resident? Your demographics don’t make that clear.

Every student needs at one dead-on true safety that meets these criteria:

  1. Guaranteed admission for stats.
  2. Guaranteed affordability without any aid other than federal aid as determined by the FAFSA, and/or automatic state aid, and/or institutional aid that is guaranteed for stats.
  3. Offers the projected major(s).
  4. The student would be happy to attend if all else goes wrong in the admission and aid cycle.

Lots of students are happy with their local community college as their true safety, and don’t need to look further than that. What do you know about your community college(s) and articulation agreements with your own home-state public Us?

3

Dear @happymomof1 ,

Thank you for the response! Sorry for not making it clear, but I am a US citizen. My parents have graciously offered to pay for wherever I am able to get into.

About my local community colleges, they only offer 2 year transfer programs for all engineering disciplines, so I guess that could be my safety and then transfer into UW.

4

@Arakhan81 - Thanks for clearing up your legal status. It’s good that your parents say they will pay for wherever you want to study, but do encourage them to check out the Net Price Calculators. The full cost without any financial aid for some colleges and universities now is $80,000 each year . Most families don’t have the resources for that. Some families do.

Get to know the community colleges in your area where you would have automatic admission and a 2 year transfer program for your major. Take a look at what they have to offer so that you can feel good about one of them being your true safety. Remember, that should be a place where you can be happy if all else goes wrong. Also, spend some time in the Financial Aid Forum here reading up on places that have automatic admission and good merit-based aid for stats (U of Alabama is one). Your profile is strong, so those places will give you more safety options when it is time for you to apply to college.

5

If you’re taking differential equations and Physics C as a sophomore, I’m afraid your local CC is not going to work, so your #1 task is going to be finding 2 affordable safeties.

Is there a 4-year local university that participates in Running Start with your high school? That may be a safety since it would know you’re capable of doing the work.
I think that Washington State would also be a reasonable safety, including Honors College.
Another good safety would be UBC: since they admit on stats only, your odds would be extremely good as long as your stats remain at this level. However international tuition&fees may be too much so really check with your parents.

How locked into bioengineering are you? Indeed the major is rather rare and competitive about everywhere. With the pandemic, it’s likely to become even more competitive. So finding a close-enough major might also offer more choices.

6

@MYOS1634 ,

Thank you for your advice! I have currently not checked out many state schools other than the UW Campuses (Seattle, Bothell, Tacoma), so I will be sure to looking into WSU.

I would love to be a bioengineer, but this would by no means be a dealbreaker for me. I would be more than happy to be a materials or chemical engineer, or biochemist, biophysics, etc. I know that at least some schools (namely UW Seattle), it is considerably easier to get in to the College of Arts and Sciences than the College of Engineering, soI’ll be sure to take that into account.

7

Do look into UBC. It’d be a prestigious “safety” if it’s affordable.