Top LACs-Pomona, Amherst, Bowdoin,Carleton, Claremont Mckenna ect 4.0uwGPA, 1380 SAT (Hope to raise)

Chance Me / Match Me!
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Hello! For this post I want to see what my chances are for Top LAC colleges. I am interested in the Claremont colleges as well as schools across the country. Amherst, Bowdoin, bates, Carleton all come to mind. PLEASE feel free to suggest LAC that seem fit as well as chance me for these.

I want to major in Psychology or Neuroscience as a pre-med student.

here are my stats

I go to an IB Public school of about 2100
GPA(w): 4.3ish
GPA(uw): 4.0
Rank: 8/500 (I can choose to submit my unweighted transcript which displays a rank of 1)
SAT: (out of 1600) I got 1380 In June. It’s not good enough for a lot of the colleges I am looking into that meet full need. I am retaking again in October and I hope to do better, but honestly I don’t know if I can make it to my target of 1500. I plan to take the SAT subject tests Chemistry and Math 2 in November.

Classes
Freshman, this is a typical schedule for my school there isn’t really opportunities to take advanced classes.-
Journalism, Theater, Algebra 2, Drawing 1, English 9 honors (only class freshman can take honors), World history, PE/health , Japanese 1, and Biology

Sophomore. Same as freshman year, no opportunities for advanced classes. The only reason I could take IB precalc was because I was a year ahead in math.-
Theater 2, IB precalc (math SL), Chem, Japanese 2, Japanese 3, Anatomy (honors), US History, English 10 honors

Junior (entered IB Diploma year 1)-
IB calc SL, IB Chem 1 SL, IB Japanese 4 SL, IB psych HL, IB history of the Americas HL, IB junior English HL, IB Theory of Knowledge, Health 2/PE (required)

Senior (projected)-
IB Calc 2 (taking the HL class but already tested SL, don’t plan to test HL), IB Psychology 2 HL, IB Chem 2 (taking HL class but testing SL), IB Modern world history HL, IB senior English HL, IB Japanese 5 SL, Anatomy 2 (honors),Government/econ

EC:
Sparrow club: junior & senior year president, sophomore year fundraising chair. Raised $15,000 (fundraising club for a different sick child each year. This year the girl we are fundraising for has a rare cancer called rhabdomyosarcoma: the same cancer that killed my mother.
Japanese national Honor Society: Vice president senior year, member since sophomore year. 80+ hours
Library council: can’t serve president two terms in a row, terms are half a year. I have been alternating president and vice president since sophomore year. Currently president
Key club: Sparrow chair Junior year and (connect sparrow and key club while also doing normal duties) Sparrow chair and divisional assistant senior year. 140+ hours
Science National Honor Society- I am currently helping found a Chapter at my school.
NHS: 70+ hours
Communications Intern for an online Company
Tennis: JV 9th-11th, Varsity 12th
Misc volunteering: homeless shelter, food bank, meals on wheels (weekly in summer)
Summer: worked at a hotel to help with bills

Race: white
Gender:female
Hooks: first gen, low-socio economic status(if that is a hook? at least at need-blind) , mom died when I was 9

If you want to suggest more colleges to me, please visit this post -http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1909567-4-0-ib-student-with-1380-sat-hope-to-raise-interested-in-mostly-lac-forming-list-help-needed.html#latest
for more information for what I want in a college

Thank you!

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Pre-med at an LAC? Not really their cup of tea, but…

GPA is great. SAT not so much. Your score puts you out of reach for the school’s you have listed (with maybe the exception of Bates).

While being first gen will help, your ECs aren’t outstanding. From what I can tell, you don’t do anything outside of school except possibly tennis which is very ordinary.

Writing great essays will be your saving grace for these LACs.

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Thank you for your input. @ap012199

You don’t have to go to a research university to do research :slight_smile:

But how is being president of 2 clubs, VP of another, officer of 2 others, and commited member of 1 more with a job and communication internship nothing outside of school? These commitments cause me to be very busy on top of full IB so I have to politely say I am not someone who does nothing outside of school.

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@ap012199 also this is a slightly older post that I accidently bummed, I have other schools on my list that are matches/safeties and research univerities; I am in the process of narrowing it down.

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Yes, but you have no ECs independent of school besides that internship and job (was it paid?). I’m guessing that these are mostly summer affairs too. Other applicants will have outside-of-school ECs like research papers/ published articles, year-round-jobs, playing musical instruments, sports, and having other hobbies and unique attributes. I’m not saying that they’re bad – you definitely meet the leadership requirement. There’s just nothing that would ultimately separate you from the rest of the “maybe pile” into the “yes pile.” That’s where your essay comes in.

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Oh ok

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@ap012199 The Hotel job was also durring the school year but not currently. The internship was exclusively Durring the school year. Both were paid.

Yeah that is one thing I regret about high school. I thought I was doing the best I could by doing do many clubs and leadership. My crappy public high school and High school drop out family did not tell us anything about research and the like. I applied to a couple things got denied and thought I didn’t have another chance. I want to go to my past self and slap me haha.

Feels crappy knowing that I was trying my best and could have done more but didnt. I don’t have an excuse.

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Well, actually, you do. Chances are that since you come from such a low income family, you wouldn’t have been able to pay for things like playing on a soccer league or hiring a tutor for the SAT. And the best thing of all is that colleges will understand. Plus, the research thing is more applicable at schools like the ivies and MIT; less applicants will be submitting research who want to attend a small LAC. Hope this brightens up your perspective :slight_smile:

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@ap012199 Thank you :slight_smile:

There are kids out there who have low income, research, awards, and high SAT that intimidate me so much.

It is always annoying for me when people from high income non first Generation complain about some leniency students like myself may have at some schools. But I truly was not exposed to as much opportunities. My school doesn’t even have any science clubs/competions/fairs. I want to make it easier for students at my school in the future so I am helping to start a Science National Honor society here so we can connect students to research and internships and start a science Olympian team and also expose them to awards and competions they can apply for (I didn’t even know they existed! Really disappointed in my school for not showing studentsome what they can do). I just hope colleges don’t see this as a vain attempt to pad my app since I am starting it as a rising senior.

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I agree with most everything @ap012199 has said except the suggestion that top LAC’s aren’t good for pre-meds. @otisp has experience with this. Here’s the Pomona pre-health website: https://www.pomona.edu/administration/pre-health. You will have smaller classes and really get to know your professors, which is great for LOR’s for med school. That’s a strength of all the LAC’s you mentioned. What’s really important is coming out of college with as little debt as possible, especially if you’re going to med school. In your other thread you said you were applying through Questbridge which is great if you can be matched.

As for your chances, as @ap012199 said, your GPA is great but your SAT is comparatively weak and your EC’s not bad but sort of generic. Also being a white female makes things tougher. See this thread about gender imbalances at top LAC’s: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1904947-gender-imbalances-in-admissions-at-top-30-usnwr-lacs-p1.html. But admissions are holistic so being first generation and low income will cause the admissions officers to look at your application in context and not expect you to be able to do everything a wealthy prep school kid with tons of resources and advisors can do. Write good essays! And best wishes with QB.

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@BeaconInferno Your SAT is low only for the top 20 or 30 top LACs. You will possibly (likely?) have a superscore of over 1400 when you retake. Put that together with your GPA and you can get great aid at the LACs ranked approx 50 to 100. You could get financial or merit aid. Colleges don’t ‘stack’ this aid but they’d prefer to give merit, as getting applicants who over over the 75% SAT/ACT range helps the school profile, i.e, attracts smarter students.

I agree with Corinthian about LACs being great for premed. And you don’t have to go to Williams or Carleton. A degree from a Beloit or Kalamazoo, schools unknown to most of the general public, will be well-known by professional schools.

Also, many of the top 100 LACs are test-optional. (See the links below). That means for a school like Bowdoin you wouldn’t have to submit a ‘low’ 1380. But at many of these schools, a 1380 or 1400 would be a boon.

Your main hook could be geographical. Also, your personal story (sorry for your loss) will help for holistic admissions. I would not recommend early decision, even if you have a favorite, as you will need to look at fin aid packages. Consider applying to a range of schools: for example, Bowdoin, Bates, Dickinson, Kalamazoo, Lewis and Clark. Also consider the women’s colleges. Mount Holyoke and Bryn Mawr especially for sciences. These 2 have relatively high admit rates, due to self-selection. Application fees for these 2 and many other LCs are free for anyone, and other app fees can be waived for financial circumstances.

The truth is the higher ranked schools will be the most expensive, but schools like Knox or Lawrence can nearly as good as the top tier for preparing you for grad/professional school. It is impressive you are looking toward elite schools, when most grads just look toward the big publics. At a LAC you will have much smaller classes, which will be very helpful for those intro science courses you will need for premed.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/07/27/a-list-of-180-ranked-schools-that-dont-require-act-or-sat-scores-for-admissions/

http://www.fairtest.org/list-test-optional-top-100