What colleges should I apply to/look into further

College Search & Selection
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hi! i’m a rising senior, and i have a few colleges in mind, but i would really appreciate some input. i’m really nervous about getting into college (to the point where i’m considering not even applying to some schools just because i’m afraid of rejection). can you guys please look at my stats/interests and help me out a bit?

ACT (breakdown): 33 C (32E 34M 32R 32S) – first time i got a 30 C (35E, 31M, 26R, 28S)

SAT I (breakdown): 1330 but i am not going to report it (i did so bad because i never studied for it, and it was a grad requirement for my school)

SAT II: took them in june and haven’t received scores yet. probably didn’t do too hot, so im going to retake.

Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.9762 UW 5.0238 W

Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): our school doesn’t rank, but my counselor told me im in the top 10%

AP (place score in parenthesis): 5 APUSH, 3 AP CHEM (idk if i’m going to report), 4 AP CALC.

Senior Year Course Load: ap bio, ap stats, ap human geo, ap lang, multivariable calculus (ap but no test), weight training, and mandarin IV.

Awards/recognition: National honors society, Mu Alpha Theta, National Chinese Honors Society, will probably be an illinois state scholar

Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): i’m not really going to go into depth on here about my involvement in my extracurriculars, but i have definitely been committed.
Mu Alpha Theta (public relations director), RLC - rescuing leftover cuisine (director of community and partner outreach), TEDxYOUTH (executive producer), Chinese Honors Society (very heavily committed, will probably apply for a board position once the year starts), Red Cross, Key Club, Arabic class for 8ish years, Medical Club, Recycling Club, Girls in Engineering Math and Science (organized a STEM day for children at nearby elementary school), and I played lacrosse for 2 years (quit because I am not athletic at all, and I didn’t have a fun experience).

Job/Work Experience: i’ve been working at kumon (a math and reading center for kids) since the summer before my junior year. i plan on working there during my senior year too. i love my boss and have a great bond with the kids.

Volunteer/Community service: based on my most recent report card, i have 155 service hours, but i’ll definitely have way more service hours by the time i actually apply. i’ve been volunteering at a hospital, and have been volunteering there since summer going into junior year (because you had to be 16). this summer, i am actually doing a clinical there where i get to do hands on work in the pediatrics department. i’ve been working in the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) and i hold the babies, feed them, take care of them, interact with parents, etc. that is my major outside of school volunteer work. in school, i tutor monthly in math for mu alpha theta, volunteer at a chinese daycare with my chs (i love the kids there sooo much), recycle during my lunch periods, help out with blood drives and make letters for veterans through red cross, and do other really cool service projects for nhs but we don’t get service hours for them)!

Summer Activities: as mentioned above, volunteering has been a huge part of my summers. i took a precalculus class the summer going into junior year, and started my job at the kumon. this summer, i’ve been promoted to a clinical position at the hospital, am taking a psychology class at northwestern (had to apply through a selective program called college bridge), and am continuing to work at the kumon.

Intended Major: i plan to be a neuroscience and premed major
State (if domestic applicant): illinois

Country (if international applicant): usa

School Type: college prep, public

Ethnicity: asian

Gender: female

Income Bracket: 130-140k

Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): muslim female going into STEM?

im very interested in psychology and biology, so i need a school that will have a great neuroscience/premed major. i definitely want to stay east coast because i want to go to school somewhere where it’s not hot. i don’t want a small school, but i also don’t want the school to be crazy big. minimum is 5k and max is 20k. i want somewhere where you can have a good social life but also focus on academics.

i think my top contenders are johns hopkins, brown, cornell. im also thinking about northwestern, university of chicago, nyu, umich (ann arbor), u of i urbana champaign, columbia, upenn.

im very stressed out because i feel extremely inadequate, and i don’t want to apply to places and waste my time. do you guys think i have a shot of getting into the schools i listed. what’s my biggest weakness? what other schools should i apply to that fit my criteria? sorry for the length of the post!!

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oh i also forgot to mention that i’m leaning on applying ED to one of the schools on my list. right now, i’m heavily considering johns hopkins as my ED school, but idk. i’m visiting a bunch of schools at the end of july, so i’ll know if i like the school after i visit. i’m just a little offput by the environment of johns hopkins. i heard the people were extremely competitive (to the point where they’re kind of inconsiderate and condescending), people have no social lives, and all the other stereotypes. how true is that? also do i have a good shot at getting in ED? would it be a good school to prepare me for getting into med school?

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Someone with a near-perfect unweighted GPA and a 33 ACT score should not be stressed out about college admissions or feel inadequate. Elite schools are very nice, but remember that relative to all of the colleges in the country, they are a drop in the bucket. You would be a near-guaranteed admission at the vast, vast majority of colleges in the country.

Emory has a great neuroscience program - neuroscience and behavioral biology. It does get warm in Atlanta but during the school year, September and May are likely to be the only hot months. Duke also has an excellent undergrad neuroscience major.

Some more match-like places that might be good for you to consider are Boston College (the B.S. in psychology focuses on brain mechanisms and requires classes in psychology, biology, and chemistry), American University, University of Rochester (neuroscience and brain & cognitive sciences), Lehigh, Villanova.

If you are open to warm places, consider also University of Miami, Wake Forest (has a neuroscience minor), Tulane.

It’s more the north/south that determines heat. It gets very hot in Florida, whereas it doesn’t get quite so hot in Oregon or Chicago.

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@juillet thank you!! i looked into emory, boston university, and tulane from your suggestions and really liked them!!

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for real, you should not feel inadequate at all! You seem very dedicated and kind and intelligent!
I really want to go hold babies in the NICU now! :slight_smile:

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I recommend adding Temple as a safety, and applying early in order to get a rolling acceptance, although it is a little larger than you’d prefer. Pitt is also strong in your subjects, although it might not be as generous with merit aid as Temple. If you are interested in Tulane, consider applying early for non-binding Early Notification. I didn’t see what state you live in, but most public flagships have strong science programs. If your state flagship has rolling admissions, apply there as early as possible. Getting acceptances (probably accompanied by nice scholarship offers or Honors program admissions, in your case) will ease a lot of your anxiety, and it will then be a question of whether you get into some of the ultra-selective colleges you mentioned.

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@BriC08 aww thank u! also if your hospital offers that, def go do it!! such a rewarding experience :)))

@woogzmama hey thanks for all the info!! i’ve heard pitt was rly good for neuro, so thanks for reminding me!! i’ll also look into temple. yeah i’ll probably apply for tulane early, and the app is free, so there’s nothing to lose!!

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I was joking before. Looking from your list “johns hopkins, brown, cornell. im also thinking about northwestern, university of chicago, nyu, umich (ann arbor), u of i urbana champaign, columbia, upenn” your school choice spells certain death for pre-med.

John Hopkins, UMich, Penn, Cornell, UChicago are absolutely the worst schools for pre-med. There’s so much grade deflation. Don’t even bother applying if you want to go to med school.

If you wanted to get into top med schools, Brown, Rice, Stanford, Harvard, and liberal arts colleges probably give you the best chance because of the insane grade inflation. I saw that you didn’t want to go to small schools but places like Bowdoin, Amherst, etc produce so many Harvard/Stanford med school students because of the high grade avg (3.6+ probably)

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@ThrillCosby lol i knew you were joking, it’s all good. but yeah, i heard rumors that hopkins and other schools ruin your gpa. i’ll look into the schools u mentioned. i heard amherst has a great neuro program!!

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You shouldn’t apply ED unless you’re very excited to go there (which doesn’t seem to be the case with JHU). You also should make sure an ED school is affordable. Even among schools that meet full need, the amount you would need to pay can vary a lot. For incomes around 130-140,000, a school like Harvard might require 20,000 a year (or even less), while some schools might require 30,000 or 40,000 or even more depending on the school and your circumstances.

Amherst does seem worth exploring. My niece is a neuroscience major there, and it seems very unusual to me to have that specific major at such a small, very highly ranked school. And Amherst is one of about 15 or 20 schools that don’t include loans in financial aid packages. That isn’t necessarily good enough in itself (the school could always ask for a very high expected contribution without a loan) but it is a positive sign as far as affordability.

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Amherst does have a great neuro program - the first school in the nation to have one. But don’t kid yourself - it is a very difficult program. Financial aid at Amherst is among the best in the nation for lower income students, but they don’t give merit scholarships.

Here is a list of the top feeder colleges for medical school. And despite what @ThrillCosby said, UChicago, UPenn, Johns Hopkins and Cornell are all on the list, because their students do well at getting into medical schools despite their lack of grade inflation.

https://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/infographics/top-feeders-medical-school

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[quote]
@ThrillCosby I saw that you didn’t want to go to small schools but places like Bowdoin, Amherst, etc produce so many Harvard/Stanford med school students because of the high grade avg (3.6+ probably)[/.quote]

Um, no. There is no more grade inflation at small schools than there is at large ones. That varies from school to school and is especially prevalent at private schools with very high achieving students, mainly where there haven’t been moves to specifically try to limit the # of As etc in classes.

IDK what goes on at Bowdoin but Amherst has a very old and very strong pre-health advising and support system.

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@ThankYouforHelp I think you’re misunderstanding me. Yes, if you can get a 4.0 at UChicago, you’ll end up going to top medical schools. That’s like the top 1 percent of all the brilliant students there. Realize that medical schools care so much about GPA and the fact that you go to an institution with such high grade deflation really lowers your chances of actually going through the pre-med program. A much higher percentage of liberal art graduates actually go to medical school because of the GPA inflation and there’s a lot lower number of applicants from a small school. A few friends that I know of at a liberal arts school ended up at Harvard, stanford, UCSF, and the joint program with cornell, mit, and rockefeller. The people I knew at UC Berkeley and Cornell ended up switching out of pre-med and even if they have a high gpa, end up same schools as the liberal arts grads.

@OHMomof2 , compare the average GPA of Brown, Harvard, liberal arts schools to places like UC Berkeley, Cornell, John Hopkins, UChicago, Georgia tech, etc. You’ll see my point.

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^^
FYI
Using student-level data provided by Linkedin, we were able to identify the colleges and universities sending the highest percentage of graduates to a top-ranked medical program.

Amherst

Williams
Swarthmore
Pomona
Columbia
Cornell
Dartmouth
Duke
Harvard
John Hopkins
MIT
Princeton
Rice
Stanford
Berkeley
University of Pennsylvania
University of Chicago
Washington University
Yale

Source: College Transitions

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@ThrillCosby this is 12 years old but still sitting on their server, interesting nonetheless.

http://www3.amherst.edu/~sageorge/guide2d.html

Then this page deals with outcomes. Virtually everyone with a 3.1 science GPA/28MCAT, and some below, got into medical school. And Amherst doesn’t pick and choose who to recommend, out of 224 they recommended “with reservations” only 3.

…with impressive results.

http://www3.amherst.edu/~sageorge/outcomes.html