Suggest some match/safety schools for a girl who dreams too big?

Chance Me / Match Me!
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<p>So college application time is looming and I'd like to know if I have any sort of chance at these schools or if I'm just kidding myself. I'm a bit insecure about my GPA and lack of awards. Also insecure about the fact that I haven't cured cancer... but hey, I have until November to find the cure, right? =P Anyway, I think my list is reach-heavy so I'd like some more suggestions for match/safety schools. I'd like to do pre-med, but I want a strong humanities program too and the flexibility to do both sciences and humanities intensely. Cities are nice too. =D Thanks for reading and I hope the format's not too much of an eyesore...</p>

<p>***General Stuff:
Gender: Female
Race: Asian
State: MA
Income: Upper-middle class</p>

<p>***Academics:
GPA: 8.69/9.0 (My school has a weird GPA system, so I'll post my classes/grades here too, not including electives. We're not allowed to take any honors classes besides math until sophomore year and no AP classes until junior year. And it's almost completely impossible to have a 9.0 GPA... it requires A's in all honors/AP classes and has only been done like, twice at my school. Oh, and we don't have A+'s. School is a fairly competitive public school.)</p>

<p>Freshman Year:
Honors Math: A-
Intro Physics: A
World History I: A
English: A-
French: A</p>

<p>Sophomore Year:
Honors Math: A-
Honors Chem: A
Honors World History II: A
Honors English: A-
Honors French: B+</p>

<p>Junior Year:
Honors Math: A
AP Biology: A
AP US History: A-
Honors English: B+
AP French: B
**Note: I had mono this year so I'll probably mention that so explain my kinda low grades</p>

<p>Senior Year (no grades yet, obviously =D):
AP Calc BC
AP Chem
AP Physics
Honors East Asian History
Honors Philosophy as Literature
Possibly AP Comp Gov as an independent study (but it'll be with a teacher in the school, so it'll show up on my transcript)</p>

<p>SAT I:
First time: 2270 (770CR/800M/700W)
Second time: 2340 (800CR/740M/800W)
Superscore: 2400</p>

<p>SAT II:
Math II: 800
US History: 780
Bio: 770
World History: 720
Math I: 740
(World history and Math I I took in 10th grade and I'm not sure if I'm even sending them in to places that allow score choice..)</p>

<p>***ECs:
Science Team- 3 years- I'm both overall President and Science Olympiad Captain for next year. (We participate in 7 competitions each year and each competition has its own captain in addition to an overarching president and VP for the entire team.) I was also a member of the 2009 Massachusetts Science Olympiad Team to Nationals.</p>

<p>Model UN- 4 years- I've gone to two Harvard Model UN conferences and, if we decide to have head delegates next year, I'll be one of them.</p>

<p>French Club- 4 years- Most likely Co-President next year (The club pretty much failed this past year so my friend and I are bringing it back from the dead. =D)</p>

<p>Piano- 13 years- Current student at the New England Conservatory Preparatory School- I plan on submitting a music supplement for this</p>

<p>***Work/Volunteer:
Street canvasser with MASSPIRG (I didn't last very long though, since I failed to meet their daily fundraising quota of $115... should I even bother putting this down?)</p>

<p>Research assistant in a Neurobiology lab at Harvard Medical last summer</p>

<p>Volunteer at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute last summer</p>

<p>Teacher assistant at my Chinese school (for 5th grade Chinese, middle school algebra, and watercolor for 8-10 year olds)- 2 and a half years</p>

<p>Service trip with my Chinese school to a small city in China. We fundraised money beforehand to provide as scholarships to underprivileged high school students and spent a week living at this school on the trip.</p>

<p>I'll be participating in my school's Big Brother, Big Sister program next year too.</p>

<p>***Other Random Summer Activities
Six-week classes in Cognitive Neuroscience and World History at Junction, a summer program that's part of MIT's ESP</p>

<p>Participated in CTY</p>

<p>***Awards:
National French Contest- two honorable mentions and one bronze</p>

<p>State Science Olympiad: 2nd in Ecology and 6th in Elevated Bridge</p>

<p>Also got a "commendation" for a school-wide essay contest... but I'm not sure if that's worth putting in.</p>

<p>**<em>Schools (I know I have a *lot</em> of schools, but I need help narrowing my list down/finding some schools that are less impossible to get into):
Columbia
UPenn
UChicago
MIT
Harvard
Yale
Brown
WashU
McGill
Carnegie-Mellon
BU
U of Rochester
Northwestern
NYU
Johns Hopkins</p>

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<p>Keep in mind that the Ivies, especially, Harvard, Yale & Princeton, and MIT are reaches for everyone, even with near perfect GPA/SAT’s. </p>

<p>WashU, CMU, Northwestern, JHU would be high matches.</p>

<p>McGill and U Roch would be matches and BU and NYU would be safeties in my opinion.</p>

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<p>Would you want to ED somewhere? If not, I think you have an EXCELLENT shot at ALL the schools you listed (of course, like tomofboston already mentioned, HYPM can be tricky - but, you could try EDing to one of them to increase your chances much more). You have great ECs, but you don’t have any leadership positions YET, although it seems you might have two next year. </p>

<p>Also, going to the Harvard Model UN Conference isn’t actually a big deal…any school can actually go, but, anyways, it does show that you might be interested in Harvard if you do choose to ED there. Actually, I really advise you to ED there. You are a STRONG applicant, and you’ve showed your comittment by being a research assisant there and by attending MUN conferences there… :)</p>

<p>EDIT:</p>

<p>What did you get on your AP exam? And I’m guessing you WONT need FA? Oh, and I just realized that you’re asian…that might hurt your chances a little, but don’t overthink it - you’re still a really strong applicant.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the replies. =)</p>

<p>I was planning on doing EA to UChicago and MIT… my family looks pretty wealthy on paper, but I still don’t want to get locked into a college and end up having my parents pay like, $60K a year…</p>

<p>And I’m a little weird in that I actually don’t love Harvard. Columbia’s really my top choice (but I can’t do ED there for the reason I listed above) and Harvard’s really only on my list because of my parents. =/ (I know, really typically asian but… haha)</p>

<p>I haven’t gotten my AP scores yet, since I’m waiting for them by mail, but I’m hoping for 5’s on US and Bio and, honestly, I would be happy with a 3 in French… (I was really sick the day of the test and I had a really bad teacher this year.)</p>

<p>And yeah, I realize the Ivies are reaches for everyone, which is why I’m asking for some more not-reach schools. =)</p>

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<p>True ^ I wouldn’t go to Harvard if I could either :slight_smile: :open_mouth: No Way!!! Columbia is also my top choice (well, I’m starting to love Brown a little more). But, yeah, it would be pretty smart to EA at both UofChicago and MIT, since they are both nonbinding and at the same time they both let you EA at other schools. But, if you’re planning on doing Pre-Med, I don’t know if MIT is much of a fit. They’re not really well-known for their medical program (another reason I brought up Harvard on my last post). If you’re looking for more non-reach schools, you could definitely get into Johns Hopkins RD. :)</p>

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<p>Yeah, I heard MIT’s pre-med program is crazy hard, but I have a friend who’s pre-med there and he doesn’t seem to think it’s too bad… The draw of MIT is really more the atmosphere and I love, love, love Cambridge. </p>

<p>Yay for Columbia-love! =D</p>

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<p>That’s funny, cause isn’t Harvard also in Cambridge? ^ ;)</p>

<p>YAY, Columbia FTW!!! :D</p>

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<p>Haha, yes, it is… and the funnier part is that I love Harvard Sq. too… I just have a weird bias against the actual college. Maybe it’s just cuz we’re a bit jaded against Harvard around here and it’s kind of considered to be pretentious and overrated. Plus, it’s hard to be impressed by a place when half of the adults you know work for it…</p>

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<p>:O half of the adults you know work for Harvard? That could help you :)</p>

<p>But I know what you mean. Harvard, I think, is really just overrated.</p>

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<p>Haha, I mean like, friends’ parents. Not exactly a hook. =P</p>

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<p>For what it’s worth, you have a perfect SAT and good grades. You are actually taking a couple of classes that look really interesting, like East Asian History and Philosophy as Literature. Unfortunately, you do seem to appear like a very typical Asian applicant - strong academics, especially in the math and sciences, with piano and science research. French Club does seem to be more unique.</p>

<p>More bad news - your SAT subject test scores are below what a decent portion of top school applicants will have. Also, you don’t have many awards, but they are at a decently high level of recognition, which is good.</p>

<p>You are certainly qualified for every school on your list, but be prepared for a lot of rejections - competition is fierce, and the top schools go by fit. You’re almost definitely in at McGill because it is almost entirely stats-based. NYU, BU, and Rochester are probable for you, too. The others, best of luck!</p>

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<p>Yeah, I know I come off as pretty typical asian… which is weird cuz, personality-wise, I’m actually pretty whitewashed. >.< But I figured I wouldn’t give up the activities I love just to seem more unique to adcoms… or do activities I don’t love as much just for college. =)</p>

<p>I thought schools only really looked at the highest SAT subject scores? I might be misinformed by this though… but I was really hoping they would just look at the Math II, US, and Bio score and not the Math I or WH score so much… Are a 780 and a 770 really considered subpar? The funny thing is that my percentiles for those two are higher than the percentile for the 800 in Math… haha.</p>

<p>And yeah, I know I’m going to get rejected a ton. Which is why I posted this thread for some safer school suggestions. =)</p>

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<p>Yeah, that’s because everyone and their mother gets an 800 on Math II. :stuck_out_tongue: Chances are that the schools will neglect the 740 and 720, but hey, I’m just saying that a lot of applicants squeezed out two or three 800s.</p>

<p>I can’t really suggest any safeties because I don’t know you. My best advice is to look at some state schools that are known for merit aid. Choose two or three that you would be happy at. UPitt gave my ex-girlfriend a near-full ride, and she was nowhere near you in terms of academics.</p>