i’m a rising high school junior so this is a year early, but i’m really anxious anyway haha… oooof
here are my stats:
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4.0 UW GPA
asian female, upper middle class
VERY competitive school, white collar, new england
honors math (4.0), honors french (4.0)
taking ap calc bc, ap chem, and ap physics i junior year
taking java junior year, ap compsci senior year, ap physics c senior year
1480 PSAT 10, haven’t taken the SAT and haven’t gotten my scores back from the SATII chem… also gotta do the PSAT NMSQT … oof. planning to take the physics and math 2 sat as well.
won gold for 4 international piano competitions, silver for 1, performed at Carnegie on those 4 gold occasions
doing an independent research project on cosmology in school
self teaching python and swift
setting up programs at my local library for teaching kids programming, more specifically python
i wanna go into astrophysics! hell yeah dude
involved in the beach and ocean protection club, but not anything else… really need to get more involved haha
i don’t really mind any kind of school… just not schools in urban areas. i have bad navigation skills haha and cities are not for me!
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i really need more science/math ECs which is what i’m focusing on right now! i’m setting up more programs at the library and hoping to create clubs there, including an environmental club and astronomy club!
reach schools include mit, caltech, cornell, carnegie mellon, and brown… unrelated, but i really really love mit – everything about it. the hack culture, the nerd culture, the infinite corridor and the MIThenge event… but with an 8% acceptance rate, i realistically have a low chance of getting in, especially with my lack of science extracurriculars.
could you offer some safety schools to me? i was never exposed to any good safety schools since you know… asian parents shoot for the schools with only the lowest acceptance rates, haha… also, my expectations are too high. thank you in advance!
Congratulations on your hard work and success! Please don’t be anxious about college. Trust you’ll go to a great school. Enjoy high school as high school. It’s not pre-college but is a time for important growth, including learning who you are, what you like, who makes you better. And enjoy the gift of youth, you get it once.
Some GREAT lower reaches–Wellesley and Case Western Reserve University (CWRU “Crew”). Wellesley has a stunning campus in a nice suburban town outside Boston. Students socialize a lot at MIT and can take classes at MIT. I don’t know about astrophysics there–might not be a thing. Case is in a nice area of Cleveland, which is actually a fairly nice city; great STEM school, including astrophysics.
Universities of Illinois, Minnesota, and UCSB are also strong in astrophysics.
@TTG wellesley looks great! i’ll look into it and the other suggestions more! and did a quick google search, and they actually do offer astrophysics – thank you for the suggestions!
“just not schools in urban areas”
“i really really love mit”
?? The last time I was at MIT I recall there was a city somewhere nearby, although being on the river is sort of nice.
What is your budget?
For a safety, since you are from New England, I would say U.Mass Amherst, UVM, or since you have a 4.0 unweighted McGill. Obviously McGill is a bit higher ranked and much more famous outside of New England (especially outside of the US) but all are very good. McGill is just as urban as MIT, but has a better public transit in the off chance that “i have bad navigation skills” means that you don’t like to drive.
@DadTwoGirls yeah haha, it’s weird. i’m aware MIT is in the city, but i just love the campus and culture so much that i’m willing to sacrifice that. when i say bad navigational skills, i mean driving and walking around cities (nyc’s streets never cease to confuse me)
i have the privilege of saying i’m not too worried about budget.
@harvardandberkeley i live in new york but was born in california. oddly, i really don’t have a preference for where in the country! i just want to go wherever i can receive a good education.
thank you for your suggestions! i’ll hopefully narrow my preferences down… it’ll be easier to choose that way, probably
Caltech and Mudd are being far more suburban than MIT, and still have “hacker culture.” Both could be great fits for you. Wellesley doesn’t have the same kind of “nerd culture” in its own right, but it could be a win-win for you with its own very strong programs and the cross-registration at MIT, but based on a beautiful, non-urban campus.
I’m sure you know the top-tier U’s in this field already. It seems like the public flagships in that category could also be considered safeties for you. I guess Berkeley can’t quite be called a safety, but if you’re doing the UC application, Santa Barbara, which is also highly ranked in the field, probably can be for you, and Santa Cruz certainly could. Also note that Santa Barbara has the College for Creative Studies, which is a small, highly-competitive school-within-a-school, with a “grad school for undergrads” approach, and physics is one of the short list of majors offered. UMichigan is way up there in rankings as well, and is very strong in music too.
Speaking of which, if you are hoping to pursue music as well as astrophysics… private top-tier schools that also have conservatories: Hopkins, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, USC, U of Rochester… The Hopkins/Peabody option seems like a particularly good combination of strengths: http://physics-astronomy.jhu.edu/research-areas/astronomy-and-astrophysics/http://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/cdg/ Lawrence would be a safety academically but physics is its academic strength, and the integration between the conservatory and the college is unparalleled, which great ease of double-majoring. Rochester probably counts as a safety too, while sacrificing little in terms of depth and rigor.
Reed College is a highly rigorous LAC, excellent in physics, and a top producer of future PhD’s. Its culture isn’t quite “hacker” but definitely quirky/nerdy… and probably a safety for you too. (Like Rochester, the acceptance rate is a little low to call it a safety, but it’s hard to see you not getting in.)
I’m sure you’re going to have MANY great choices!!