I’ll be honest with you, I know my chances are not great to start with, I’m on here way too early for my own good but I just want to get some insight from people on here as my mom isn’t around much due to work, plus she doesn’t know much about private college admissions.
Demographics:
Race/Ethnicity: Black-Latino (Indigenous) and Native American (not ‘accepted’ into any tribe)
Current year: 9th (rising sophomore)
Type of School: Title 1 Public High School in ““Upstate NY””
Intended major: Not sure–but definitely something in the Biology/Chemistry/Neuroscience realm
Hooks: First Generation, URM, LGBTQ, (very) Low Income.
Projected GPA: 95/100
Classes: Took no advanced class in 9th grade besides college PLTW Engineering (I just arrived in my new district and only those who attended the middle school were placed in honors/were accelerated this year). 10th Grade I will be taking Honors English, Global 10, and Chemistry and possible Physics as well if I decide to take out my lunch (everyone suggests I don’t do this as the work load between Honors/Regents Physics, Honors/Regents Chem, and Regents Alg2 may be too much, should I?), alongside college level PLTW Biomedical Sciences. My school has no APs and SUPA (our equivalent of APs) are 11th grade and accelerated 10th grade only.
Extracurriculars:
Clubs (Science Club, Key Club, Quiz Bowl, LGBTQ+ Club)
Student Council
HOSA Chapter Founder & President (starting next year)
Newspaper Found & Lead Editor (starting next year)
BME/Oncology Research at Harvard Medical School.
Home responsibilities (Taking care of multiple foster brothers/sisters when mom is working,)
Tutor for other kids in my grade + my own mom (she’s going back to college this year and her knowledge on ‘core’ topics isn’t very spot on as she immediately came to the U.S for work, I’ve been helping her out)
Schools I’m interested in:
Stanford
Harvard
Duke
Brown
Columbia (NY bias)
JHU
Caltech
Bowdoin
Swarthmore
^^^For obvious reasons, this list will shrink down as I get older, and I’m aiming for a lot of public schools with higher acceptance rates as these all have high tuition and I don’t want to be stuck if I can’t afford them, I just want general thoughts on my stats and advice on how and where to move forward.
A few comments:
– It is great that you are taking school seriously but IMO it is WAY too early to be looking at any specific colleges. You have just one year of grades, no standardized tests, and your ECs are are not yet set (in terms of gaining any leadership positions etc.).
– The colleges on your list are ALL hyper-competive – likely all have acceptance rates in the single digits (some under 5%). They are reaches for any unhooked candidate.
– Your list is pretty much a laundry list of top tier schools. It is easy to come up with that list. As you go on in your HS career consider what you really want in a school and create a list that has reach, match, and safety schools. For example if you love the open curriculum at Brown you likely won’t love the large core curriculum at Columbia; If you like the urban vibe of Columbia you may not like Bowdoin etc. Look past the names.
For now you should focus on:
–Working hard, learning, and doing as well as you can in the most challenging curriculum you can manage.
–When the time comes study for standardized tests.
–Continue your involvement in activities you care about and work towards making meaningful contributions to those activities.
–Enjoying spending time with your family and friends.
When the time comes (junior year) asses your academic stats (including GPA, standardized tests, course rigor) as well as your financial needs and apply to a wide range of reach, match, and safety schools that appear affordable (you will have to run a net price calculator for each school you consider) and that you would be happy to attend. You need to expand your horizons and recognize that there are many wonderful schools out there where you can have a great 4 year experience and get where you want to go in life.
Continue to work hard and stay involved – good things will happen.
This might be one of the first things that I noticed. You are very young. You have quite a bit of time to think about this.
Stanford and many (or perhaps most) of the schools on your list are need blind for admissions for US citizens (and permanent residents). Thus your need for aid will not impact your chances of admissions. Being URM will help your chances. Even with this, all of the schools on your list are reaches for nearly every strong student.
One thing that can be a challenge is to determine what level of academic rigor is comfortable for you. AP and honors classes are tougher than regular classes. Some of the top universities (Caltech and MIT particularly come to mind) are academically very challenging. It is hard for any particular student to know whether this is a good fit for them until they try it. I think that all strong students just have to figure this out over time.
I got my master’s degree at Stanford. By the time that I got there, I had two years of work experience (after getting my bachelor’s degree) and I was very much ready to work as hard as was needed at Stanford. This did include doing quite a bit of homework over the weekend in addition to week nights. I still remember very well spending 6 hours on a Saturday solving one problem (out of 5, for the homework of one class out of 5) and loving it. Not everyone loves spending Saturday 11am through 5pm doing homework. Again, we each need to figure out what is right for us. Personally I loved the time that I was there.
In terms of extracurricular activities, and in terms of which classes to take, I am a fan of figuring out what is right for you, doing what is right for you, and doing it very well. What is right for you, what is right for me, and what is right for someone else might be three entirely different things. The “applying sideways” blog on the MIT admissions web site seems to recommend this same “do what is right for you” approach, and I believe that this applies for other top schools in addition to MIT.
And taking care of foster siblings is an EC. This shows responsibility and the ability to put in the effort and do what needs to be done which are valuable skills when you get to university.
To me it sounds like you are doing very well. Take this one day at a time, keep ahead in your work, and you should do well. You are however young and it is hard to chance you for top schools until you have results from the next two years of high school.
Also, if you can then take some time to think about what you want in a university. The highest rated universities and LACs do differ in some significant ways.
So your mother/father are not members of a recognized US tribe?
Without a tribal affiliation, or recognition by tribal elders, it doesn’t really count except in your heart. I know in my family history, we were not registered, and so our children were not eligible to register for NA, but our family (grandfather) was recognized by tribal elders, we knew some of the traditions, but we didn’t really participate in the tribal events (1 x per year), being so far from the area. Even so, we could have appealed and petitioned, but our father didn’t feel that would be right.
FWIW, LGBTQ isn’t considered a hook.
Even for “hooked” candidates, those schools are reaches.
You need a very high GPA. You need extremely high test scores (these will come later). You need to have a budget if some of these schools wont meet your need, especially the public schools that are Out of State (OOS) because non-resident students who don’t pay taxes to those states, will have to pay full OOS fees.
You need to take a foreign language as well as history courses.
If you front load Science and Math, you will lack admission entry requirements for most colleges and universities.
It’s unclear what math you have completed, but you shouldn’t consider taking Physics until you’ve completed Algebra. I believe you mentioned taking Algebra 2 next year. Physics should come AFTER that.
And I know several kids who struggled with taking both Alg2 and Physics at the same time. I guess it depends on the student and the quality of the teaching. OP seems to want to add Physics in place of lunch, which I don’t think is a good idea.
I wouldn’t double up on a science if it means losing your lunch period or a foreign language. Most top schools would like at least 3 years of foreign language.
My kids are math kids and even my slacker didn’t struggle. When my 2 oldest were in HS they never had a lunch due to choir (traditional 8 periods), but it was changed to block scheduling for the younger 3 so they got to go out for lunch after labs, worked so much better.
My school’s sort of weird in this way, they make you take both during the same year even if your schedule isn’t adjusted, I’m accelerated in math so I’d be taking alg2 sophomore year regardless and I thought it’d make sense to add physics in there too.
It’s still unclear: they make you take what together? And have you completed Geometry? If you’re planning to go into STEM, top school applicants have completed Calculus (or beyond) in high school so make sure you’re on track for that. I’m not saying it is required, but you should take the highest level rigor possible to have a shot at these schools.