D is junior. Got class rank as 45 out of 796, had taken some classes that she explored her interests in even tho they were 4’s so her rank suffered. Has Unweighted GPA of 3.95 with weighted at 4.59. She has a SAT score of 2370 and got a 1500/1520 on her PSAT so am hoping she can be national merit semi finalist. She has already taken 2 AP classes Comp Sci and World Historywith a 5 in both. Has 5 AP’s current year and plans to take another 5 in her senior year. We are in TX and UT and AM will be safeties as we think she will still be in top 7%. She is interested in colleges in NE interested in Biomed or similar programs. Can folks suggest reaches with both small and large schools that she can aim for. Budget is around 125-150K so am hoping for some aid. She has 2 B’s and may end up with 1 more because she has struggled with APUSH this year but all others are A’s.EC’s are not that great, debating between taking an AP course in the spring to get her GPA up even more or doing summer program, keen to go into a research summer program. Thank You for the suggestions in colleges as well as thoughts on summer program
Your d sounds competitive for a lot of fine NE colleges. You should run their NPCs to see if you can afford them. Some that get mentioned a lot for their bio and biomed programs are:
Brown
Johns Hopkins
Tufts
Wesleyan (LAC)
Haverford (LAC)
Smith (all women)
Hamilton (LAC)
Barnard (all women)
Tell us a bit more about what you are looking for.
Agreed, we need more info. Virtually every top school is going to have an excellent Bio program, and with those stats, there’s literally nowhere that’s entirely off the table. Oh, and she’s a mortal lock for NMS with that PSAT score.
Any EC interests that stand out? That’s probably going to make more difference than anything else with regards to admissions at the reachiest reaches, since her stats handily clear the necessary bar everywhere.
Also, what about finances? Do you need a generous need or merit aid package, or are you in a position to pay $60K+/year?
The OP gave total $ available, up to $150K, so $37,500 per year. Sounds like they will need to look for significant merit. My D2 with similar test scores got merit at Mount Holyoke that brought her cost down to just over $40K per year.
Bah. Timed out while editing, since I didn’t read the OP’s original post clearly enough the first time. Here’s what I SHOULD have said:
Agreed, we need more info. Virtually every top school is going to have an excellent Bio program, and with those stats, there’s literally nowhere that’s entirely off the table (though weak ECs may be an issue at the very most selective schools). And when you say Biomed, do you mean Bio, with the intention of possibly being pre-med, or Biomedical engineering, which is a whole different story, and would rule out schools with no engineering program?
Any other interests she’d like to see represented well at her school?
With regards to the budget, unfortunately at any given school, it doesn’t matter what you think you can pay, it’s what THEY think you can pay, so the question is will your income make you full-pay at a lot of places (in which case you need subtantial merit aid) or will you qualify for need-based aid and will be hunting for a nice generous package? If it’s the former, that will shape your search substantially, because very few highly selective schools in the Northeast offer any merit aid at all. As @circuitrider said, you should spend a little time with some of the schools’ NPC’s to see where you stand.
The EC’s are a problem which is why we are thinking of going to a summer program. She has the regular ones member of clubs like Mu Alpha Theta, interact, NHS, NSHS and volunteering at church , habitat for humanity and so on but when she was just beginning our younger d had a medical situation which lasted for next 3 years meant we had to pull older d out of all EC’s like MST etc. We are hoping to send her into a summer program for research or to a Girls Who Code program as an alternate to see if that will give some strength to her EC.Bio is her fav subject and is leaning to it but tech is the alternate and by having her do Girls Who code she can get an idea of if that is something she would want to consider but for now we are focusing on her bio side and unless she really falls in love with tech after girls who code that is where she wants to go. In terms of finances we could go to the 60K a year would be a reach , doable with some difficulty but 40K a year is more the one we would prefer which is why would prefer some aid.
Boston University and Northeastern will likely give her merit.
Maybe consider summer programs at colleges she might be interested in or at least in this region - check out for example, Brown Precollege, Cornell, Columbia, Stony Brook, RPI, Boston College, There are a number of programs at universities that combine computer programming & bio applications - have you been able to explore some of those?
No unfortunately not aware of those, for now we are looking at a one in houston hospital at their research lab, another one called Welch summer research and Girls Who Code as the alternate. If she cannot get into any we are going to try and see if we can get her into following a college professor in his lab over summer, are hoping we can make one of those happen. Open to any suggestions for ideas especially for any rigorous or hard to get into ones that will add to her EC
In addition to the suggestions so far, consider MIT, NYU, Columbia.
Peruse this thread for summer program ideas.
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/summer-programs/
Many deadlines are within the next couple of days if they haven’t passed already.
@TryntoFigureOut As your daughter is interested in biology and coding – regarding universities to consider & their programs — you might look for programs in “Computational Biology” – e.g.: http://www.colorado.edu/cs/researchtopics/computational-biology
and "Bioinformatics: https://www.cs.umn.edu/research/research_areas/bioinformatics-and-computational-biology
Carnegie Mellon" explains:
Making sense of these advances in biomedical science and of the knowledge explosion in domains such as genetics, drug design, neuroscience, and environmental health requires both a sophisticated understanding of biological questions and powerful analytical tools to solve them. The integrated discipline of computational biology/bioinformatics represents the application of modern computer science, statistics, and mathematics to exploring biological and biomedical problems.http://www.cmu.edu/ms-compbio/index.html
If you google you’ll likely find some good possibilities that combine bio & Cs & of course nanotechnology is a very interesting field that can have some overlap.
I hope this helps you - sometimes it can be a challenge to know how to find some things. My son is interested in “Internet of Things” programs - sort of human/computer interactions & EE - not so easy to find either!!
Are you making progress on summer programs?
We have done numerous college visits to NE engineering programs, many with strong biomedical programs. I’d suggest Carnegie Mellon (though not exactly Northeast, very strong school in a great location), Bucknell (great program, location not so great), Syracuse, RPI, WPI, Tufts, Villanova, John Hopkins, and Northeastern.
URochester has strong biomedical and does merit aid (not sure how much, but I’d imagine quite a bit with those stats).
Your daughter has competitive scores, GPA and number of AP classes to be competitive at any school. A summer program may help her clarify her interests, but it doesn’t count for anything in terms of impressing admissions. Admissions know some kids can afford these programs and others cant. Short term ECs don’t impress either. I would recommend not overloading on APs next year as she’s proven she can handle that work load. Exploring her interests through a summer program, or even create her own internship with someone in a field who could mentor her, or somehow connected to her ongoing EC. If she was involved in caring for her sister, or impacted by that, perhaps doing something meaningful related to that experience - it will help tie together the past 4 years. Admissions prefer substance, connection, longevity over resume padding. She has plenty of other ECs. But doing something meaningful and connected to her communities (family, church, town) will be more rewarding and have more of a story to tell than anything you can write a check for.
Not in the northeast - but check our Rhodes College - beautiful, well respected and great opportunities for students - they would have generous aid for your daughter.
Thank You all for the responses. Much appreciated. Will look at the various options mentioned and hopefully narrow them down.
@CA1543 : We are making some progress on summer programs. She is applying for Girls Who Code and plans to apply to a local hospital that has a research oriented summer program. Is also looking at trying to see if she can get into following a professor over the summer and looking at a couple of other research oriented programs from the summer program list on CC.
Try Bates in Lewiston, ME! Mount Holyoke, Dartmouth, Amherst, Franklin and Marshall, and I agree with many others that have been suggested.
@rayrick Premed is out. She does not plan to go the Doctor route. It is more Bio and the various options in related fields with research being the foremost one she likes currently. I am hoping she can get into the Hospital program or to follow a professor in their research lab over summer to get her an idea of how life in that sphere is.
Has “biomedical” been defined in terms of your daughter’s interests? “Biomedical science” has aspects of being a graduate pursuit. “Biology” is of course a classic undergraduate field which would be excellent preparation for this. “Biomedical engineering” is often begun as an undergraduate course of study.