What are my Chances? (Rising senior coming up with final list of schools and admissions strategy)

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hi all- I’ll start with the basics about myself:

SAT-1570 (800 math, 770 english, one sitting only if that makes a difference), 8/7/8 on essay
SAT II- math II- 800, bio- 800, spanish- 800
APs: Bio-5, Stats-5, Span-5, Eng lang-5, WHAP-5, APUSH-5 (this year taking calc bc, physics c: mechanics, eng lit, chem, ap gov)
GPA- 4.5ish in my school’s weighting system (4.0 unweighted)
rank- don’t know for sure but I’m fairly confident it will be 2 or 3 out of 250 (I’ve taken more electives that don’t provide a boost than some)

ECs/awards:
My main ec (it takes up a lot of time) is cross country/track. I was the captain of my indoor track team as a Jr and will be a captain all three seasons this year. I am a sub-4:30 miler (hopefully sub-4:20 this year) and will be in contention for all state in cross country. 11 varsity letters. (Hope to run in college- more on this later).

I attended the VA gov school for spanish. We take an aptitude test to get in (as well as some questions about us, etc.) and there was a 9% acceptance rate. It is 3 weeks of full immersion.

Academic team: fairly prominent member of A-team that has been very competitive in our region and other tournaments and likely will qualify for states this year (maybe too late for apps?). We missed by a few points last year, but did qualify for something called PACE nationals by winning a tournament with 32 teams (counting b and c teams from other schools, maybe 12 schools total).

-member of spanish national honor society chapter at my school (will try to become an officer)
-ap bio award from my school (given by teacher to single best student)
-bio honors award from my school (given by teacher to best male and female student per section)- I know this is worthless
-spanish award (given to best 2 students per level)

Volunteer with the VA DCR natural heritage program (~50 hours so far): counting tiger beetle populations, surveying duck blinds managed by the state to prevent over-hunting, etc. (I also hope to learn to help out one of the people who is in charge of repairing some of their machinery).

I speak Italian because I lived there for a year and my step dad is from Italy, so we speak it at home.

After that it’s pretty random stuff: I used to play jazz clarinet and sax, but quit any sort of performances bc I didn’t like the pressure and rigidity that we had to use to prepare pieces.

recs: my spanish teacher for 4 years who helped me get into gov school, my academic team coach for 3.5 years and calculus/physics teacher (who went to one of the ivies I’m applying to), my cross country coach (for an extra supplement).

essays: I’m not totally set on my approach to the personal/common app essay yet. I’m thinking about approaching it from either a running angle ( we have a great xc coach, but a different track coach who doesn’t know much about training and really puts up obstacles- a lot of my winter training is after practice, in the dark, with a headlamp) or struggling w/ language in Italian public schools and illustrating how that experience will make me a more successful student.

for my school specific essays- when it gives me a chance to talk about what i’m interested in and how i’m going to explore that at the school or something similar: I really want to study bioengineering (maybe immunoenigeering) as well as spanish and indigenous languages in south and central america, bc i want to practice frugal science and create cheaper, less infrastructure-dependent biotechnologies and also be the one to apply them in the field and educate/talk to the people I want to help (obviously anyone can use a translator, but I want to be the most direct possible link between very poor people with limited roads, water, or electricity and the labs at a world class university).

School list:
Princeton- EA
UVA- EA (princeton allows you to apply early action to one public)
Brown
Penn Engineering (bioengineering)
Duke Pratt School (biomedical engineering)
Swarthmore- can definitely run here
Harvard (my grandfather went here, but I don’t think it would really be a benefit as we are not really of the means of a typical legacy family)
UC Berkeley

I know I can run at Swarthmore and would be one of the best runners there. W/ the exception of the UVA and Cal I think I stand a decent chance of being able to walk on should I be admitted, but won’t receive an admissions boost.

*might not be able to walk on to these two

If you took the time to read this thank you. I feel a little lost at sea, so any advice is helpful.

Also: I think my biggest weaknesses are:
I’ve always felt generally interested in a lot of things, so I was late to the game with bioengineering (and perhaps my approach is uninteresting/unoriginal). Therefore, I haven’t found a way to demonstrate an ability to succeed at bioengineering yet (besides AP bio 5/award and, sat II bio 800).

For penn and duke- I will be talking calculus bc and physics this year, which means they won’t see a year end grade or ap score. Hopefully bc I’m applying RD there, my mid-year report will help that by showing my grades @ that point.

2

You’re certainly competitive, but your list is missing more safeties. You can’t count on any of the schools you have listed. You’d likely get into UVA, but I’d have more, just in case. The number 3 student in our high school was rejected from everywhere but UVA last year - very similar stats.

3

No no safeties except UVA? Kind of risky

4

First off congrats, your stats look great, and your list is excellent.

I would suggest visiting your top choices and compare. Remember, there are no bad choices, you are just choosing one with the best fit, and you will realize it when you see it.

For bioengineering, you should consider JHU as well, especially if you want to go into the medical field.

I would say besides UVA as a lock, you set yourself up really nice for any of those schools, but that only equates to 50% or so. You will need a nice essay to separate yourself.

Good luck to you.

5

Thanks for the responses so far. I see your point about safeties. If anyone has suggestions I could look into that would be great, bc I’ve found it becomes progressively harder to distinguish between schools based on online information as you step down from the most elite institutions. Basically here are my criteria: offers bioengineering, easier to get into (for a safety), open to double majoring/interdisciplinary work, probably less expensive than the best schools (less elite schools often have less generous financial aid, right?), a good running program that is accessible to me (ex: I’d add Stanford to my list, but I know I could never make the team).

6

I would argue that it is just as hard to distinguish at the very top as it is 20 or 30 places below. Rankings are mostly historic goodwill and nice buildings. UVa is a prime example. You have a very low chance at most of these schools except UVA (because you are instate). Not because you arent qualified but because there are just too many qualified and even exceptional kids for the available slots. Your stats while impressive are not more impressive than many of the chance me’s posted here. Perfect scores are just that --perfect scores. Other than your perfect scores there isnt much compelling to be honest. Your running is simply an EC. You might consider Case Western, RIT, Cornell, Rice, VA Tech as a true safety, Georgia Tech, Harvey Mudd…lots of great schools. You are stuck mentally with thinking you deserve the top schools–you even left off the lower Ivies. You could end up with great results or with nothing but UVA.

7

@Center would you recommend I scrap most of the top schools to be efficient in the app process then? Maybe- UVA, Cornell, VA Tech, William & Mary, Swarthmore, Harvey Mudd, Georgia Tech, and Berkeley as an example list of more realistic schools? I wouldn’t say I think I “deserve” top schools. I think I just underestimated the degree to which my ECs etc. are really middling, but after looking around on CC I see what you mean.

8

Looking at your list, chances are, you’re going to get a long list of rejections except UVA. There’s still a 25% chance you’ll still get rejected there too. I would add VTech just in case. If you do get into one of these other schools, you also need to find a way to pay for it. Prestigious schools don’t offer scholarships.

9

This is incorrect. The Princeton website states:

You may apply early to any public institution or service academy, as long as the decision is nonbinding.

The single-choice refers to Princeton – not the public schools.

Agree that you need safeties.

10

You are a competitive applicant. Your stats and ECs are great. Write amazing essays and you could get accepted to any of these schools

11

In addition to having great engineering programs, Harvey Mudd and JHU would have the advantage of D3 track. Also URochester and Case Western Reserve, both of which have top med schools and terrific bioengineering options.

Mudd also has the resources of all the other Claremont colleges, which means superb foreign language and linguistics programs as well as social sciences, including a number of faculty focused on Latin America. Also the Enviro Analysis concentration at Mudd (and the associated programs at Pomona and Pitzer) is another umbrella under which to pursue the kind of population-level interventions that interest you. There are 5C’s EA faculty (and Anthro faculty as well) specifically doing research on/in Latin America.

Pitt also has great bioengineering (another school with great collaborations with the med school) and an excellent honors college (pretty sure you’d get merit of of an already more-affordable sticker price, if that matters to you), plus indigenous languages https://lctl.pitt.edu/languages/quechua , but they’re D1. (Though maybe not one of the more competitive D1 teams?) Could be a great safety for you, especially since admissions are rolling.

I think you’ve got a shot at any/all of the schools on your list. You have diverse interests that probably can’t all be optimized at any one school, so I’d suggest looking deeper into the opportunities in all of your areas of interest, at all of the schools you’re interested in, and looking for which school brings it all together to the greatest extent possible. If that’s Princeton, then absolutely go for it; you have a reasonable chance from what I can see.

12

Harvard legacy-legacy is different from development ($$). At Harvard legacy is huge.

13

Harvard legacy is not what it used to be: I personally know a few current and recent students who have been rejected or been told they will not be supported. Highly qualified. I wouldnt bank on it.

14

Also would second taking a closer look at JHU. They have probably the best biomedical engineering program in the country right now. Rice has a great program too. For more of a match/safety - Purdue.