Vanderbilt or Northwestern?

Hi everyone. I’m currently deciding on whether to apply ED to Vanderbilt or Northwestern. I know they are both big stretches but which one would I have a better shot at? I toured both and liked them a lot. Here are my stats.

SAT: N/A
SAT II: N/A
ACT: 33 (Math: 33, Reading: 33, Science: 30, English: 35)

  • RETAKEN. Hoping to get a 34-35.

GPA (Unweighted) - 3.56 (Weighted) - N/A (School doesn’t weight GPA)

  • Upward trend since freshman year
  • Approx. 3.86 junior year
    Class Rank: N/A
    Attending: Private School in NYC (One of the most competitive in the city)
    Courseload: Been on most rigorous schedule possible for my school. Mostly honors/advanced/accelerated courses as school doesn’t allow most APs until senior year.

Should be a National Hispanic Scholar (nhrp)

Senior Year Courses:
AP Calc 1 & 2
AP Chemistry
AP Biology
Advanced Math Course
Regular English Class
Chemistry Research Independent Study

Extracurriculars:

  1. TEACH Tutor - 11th-12th
  2. STEM club - 11th-12th
  3. Chem club - 10th-12th
  4. School JV and V soccer - 9th-12th
  5. Writer and contributor for Intersections (School math + science journal)
  6. Sabores Latinos (Latino affinity group) - 10th-12th

Volunteer:

  1. Brooklyn Community Bail Fund 11th
  2. Habitat for Humanity 9th

How I Spent my Summers:

  1. Language and service immersion trip to Costa Rica (2015)
  2. Job at a day care center (2016)
  3. Pre-med immersion trip to Nicaragua and volunteer work at BCBF (mentioned above) (2017)

Race: Multiracial (Filipino, Polish, Black, Mexican, Cherokee)
Sex: Male
First Generation College: No
Intended Major: Chemistry/Biochemistry
Hooks: URM, ideas?
Recommendations: Should be great (Chem and Pre-calc teachers)

Apply ED to whichever school you prefer.

@witurner
I would aim higher like HYPSC high for ED you have a great application thus far and URM (If these stats are true of course…?). Apply ED2 to Vandy.

@VANDEMORY1342 that is terrible advice all around. He shouldn’t apply to HYPSC just for the hell of it… He should apply to whichever school he likes best for ED. He has a good ACT score and being a URM is a good hook, but his uw GPA is still pretty low.

@witurner Northwestern and Vandy have vastly different social cultures. Visit both and see which one you fit better at.

Why should the OP, or anyone, apply to ED to a school s/he has not expressed interest in? Just because it is ranked slightly higher? This logic escapes me. OP has obviously done his/her homework. S/he has visited and likes these two excellent schools. OP, go with whichever school you prefer.

These are strong schools for your major, you’d have to weigh Evanston and Chicago vs Nashville, also I think Northwestern may be more diverse, and the culture differences of a midwest school vs. southeast school. Greek life is big in Vanderbilt, not sure if it’s as big at Northwestern. One thing to consider is that if you decide to change majors (which many do), where would that be easier, which school has more solid programs. I’d lean slightly to Northwestern, mainly because I know some people that went their undergrad, and they loved it.

HYPSC (is this Columbia, Cal Tech?) are SCEA or ED so if you apply to one of those schools, you can’t apply ED anywhere else, only EA to a public school. And only Cal Tech would I consider to have a better chemistry program.

@Dontskipthemoose Oh so, a 3.86 by his/her Junior year is low? …Unless I’m reading it incorrectly, OP’s app is great

@witurner Vandy isn’t that great at Chem/ bio chem it’s actually weaker than its’ peers in these subjects. So Northwestern ED os the best option imho if you actually like it there that much. I would add John’s Hopkins and Emory to your list if Biochem is truly your interest. And these schools are more similar to Northwestern than Vandy is.

The 3.86 was for just junior year, the overall weighted is 3.56.

@theloniusmonk Pretty sure HYPSC refers to Caltech. Usually it is just HYPSM but sometimes Caltech is included, @VANDEMORY1342 prob meant HYPSMC instead of HYPSC. Putting Columbia in the same breath as HYPSM is not and has never been a thing so I doubt it is Columbia.

@witurner Northwestern has a stronger brand, prestige , academic strength /quality than Vanderbilt but both schools are top obviously. I would say anyone has a better chance at Vanberbilt than Northwestern.

@VANDEMORY1342 as @theloniusmonk mentioned, 3.86 is for junior year alone. While an upward trend is good, a 3.56 overall GPA is pretty low even for Northwestern and Vanderbilt, let alone Ivies, Stanford, Caltech, MIT, Duke, etc.

Regardless, applying ED to Ivies and other schools for name’s sake is terrible advice anyways.

Thanks everyone. I’m considering Emory but I kinda knocked JHU off the list. Don’t like Baltimore all that much and along with great education, I would like to have a good college experience. Don’t really want to stay in the northeast and to be honest, Stanford would just be impossible for me to get into.

Northwestern would be a reach even with ED. But everyone has reaches anyway and there’s probably no better school than Northwestern in your case because:

  1. you already like it after your visit
  2. they have a top-10 (some argue it's top-5) chemistry program
  3. they really go out of their way to enroll more minorities. the latest figure for URM (black, hispanic, and American indian/Alaskan native) is 21%
  4. their ED rate is fairly high for a top school

@thelonliestmonk that was unweighted, the school doesn’t have weighted gpas