What colleges should I consider?

College Search & Selection
1

Hi all,
I’m currently a junior at a relatively well- ranked high school in California (top 100 nationally.)
I am just beginning “the college search” and really have no idea where to begin.
I want to major in international relations while taking pre-med requisite courses and hopefully do undergrad science research. :slight_smile: (just to keep options for grad school & beyond open)

Standardized test scores :
ACT 32
SAT 1340 (770 writing, 670 mathmatics)
AP World (soph year) :4
AP Chem (soph year) : 3
SAT Chem (retaking as it is easier to study/retake than the AP test) : 650
I didn’t study much for any of these tests (horrible test taker- im that person that panics and stares at the wall for half the time lol, but I created and am following through wtih a much better study plan for all of my AP tests this time around!)
i’ve taken most of the AP courses that my school has offered, and have gotten a pretty even mix of A’s and B’s throughout my high school career. My grades are on a slight upward trend as the courses have gotten harder, but my GPA is still relatively low.
UW GPA: 3.45
W GPA: 3.8
I might be able to raise it a little, especially the weighted, by the end of this quarter.

Courses:
Freshman year:
Speech and Debate
Spanish 2
Spanish 3
Geometry Honors
Art
English Honors
Biology
Dance P.E

Soph year:
Chem
AP Chem
AP World
Alg.2 Honors
Trig Honors
Spanish 4
English Honors
Research Internship (not in school)

Junior year:
research internship
AP Bio
AP U.S.
Spanish 5
AP Spanish
Pre Calc Honors
AP Lang
Anatomy Honors

Senior year (projected classes)
AP Gov/Econ
AP Lit
AP Comp. Sci A
AP Calc AB
AP Statistics
AP Pychology
AP Physics 1
AP Physics 2

Other accomplishments/awards:
varsity cross country and track all 4 years
lifeguard/taught swim lessons at local boys and girls club since frosh year
EMT certified
organized free science confernece 2 years in a row
wrote/editor in chief for school’s award winning science magazine
finalist in MIT think competition
awards in regional/state science olympiad
placed at regional science fairs and intel
did / published research, interned for local university
volunteered as a junior counselor–> counselor at girl scout camp a few weeks each summer for past 6 years
volunteered regularly at local food bank
i have legacy at cornell (several generations) if that helps?? haha.

My main goal in life is to be an orthopedic surgeon and then do doctors without borders.
I am passionate about languages (speak english , spanish, farsi, currently working on french and russian.)
and lately the more “sciency” stuff has started to feel like a chore (im sure all things do after a while, but)
I really love learning about the world, and politics, and culture, so I feel that international relations would be a good back up plan to med school. All of the science research I’ve done so far has been a wonderful experience, but in some ways its taught me that i don’t really want to pursue that pHD (maybe this will change…) although I definetely want to participate in this in some sort of way as an undergraduate.
this is really long whoops.

finnancial aid is important to me- would rather not get in huge debt as an undergrad!
considering some ivies, but dont really feel i have a shot. (cornell and yale perhaps, just to throw my name in the hat)
more thinking virginia tech ( I want to go east or west coast, maybe boston area, but def not southern/western/texas)
ucsd, I’m not really sure what else is out there that would accept me + is a good school + affordable

thank you so much!
-a typically panicked-reagarding-college junior
(sorry for the spelling and grammatical errors :)) )

2

I’m a senior struggling to decide between colleges now (admissions process went pretty well for me) so I’m fresh off the block. I don’t have advice for everything you mentioned but I’ll give it a shot.
I definitely agree that it is best not to go into huge debt for undergrad, especially if you’re fairly confident that you want to go to med school (if you’re thinking of orthopedic surgery, you’ll definitely need to go to med school). As far as this goes, my advice would be to look into schools that offer full ride or full tuition scholarships and apply to a lot of these schools. I applied to 20+ schools, which was really time consuming and pretty costly so I probably wouldn’t recommend applying to as many schools as I did, but at the same time, I received a full tuition scholarship using this “casting a wide net” strategy. Check out these websites for colleges that offer huge scholarships but keep in mind that certain ones will be much easier to get than others (i.e. Alabama’s full ride will be much easier to get than Duke’s full ride):
http://blog.prepscholar.com/colleges-with-full-ride-scholarships
http://thecollegematchmaker.com/111-ridiculously-awesome-full-tuition-schoarships/
I’d definitely apply to Cornell, I don’t know how much they take legacy into consideration but I know it’s a definite advantage at most schools.
At this point in the game, and throughout the whole college search process, keep an open mind! Personally, I never would have thought I’d be considering one of the two colleges I’m deciding between but I kept an open mind and was blown away.
Your profile/stats are definitely impressive-don’t rule yourself out from anything right away.
Hope this helped-if you have any more questions about the college search or senior year feel free to message me and I’d be happy to help!

3

Typo?

Some colleges that appear here may be both open to you and appealing to you:

http://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/lists/list/the-experts-choice-colleges-with-great-pre-med-programs/199/

Bates, for example, might suit your criteria.

4

Congratulations on your success and achievements in high school! That’s great you are EMT certified.

Certainly apply to any schools where you aspire if that works financially. Your record will make you a credible, qualified applicant. Just understand, though, that the competition at the most competitive schools is really incredible today. Acceptance rates range from something like 4% to something like 10%. AND these numbers can overstate the odds for an “unhooked” student. There is just a mania–like the tulip mania or a stock market bubble–for the top 20 schools or so. The competitiveness has cascaded downtime ranking lists, making some other schools much more competitive today. It’s just the reality.

The good news? Many, many, many schools are terrific, with amazing students, faculty, staff, and facilities. I’ve visited about 60 over the last 7-8 years and researched many of them pretty well. There really are lots of schools where a student can get an education every bit as good as an Ivy-type school. It really is HOW you go, more than WHERE you go. You are bright and you will do great. Embrace learning, work well with others, get to know your professors, have fun, treat everyone with kindness and respect.

Some schools: Tufts is top tier in both areas where you express an interest, though it is also very competitive. Would you consider a women’s school. If so Wellesley is a fantastic school, unbelievable campus, students often have close connection with Harvard/MIT. Boston College is a beautiful campus in the near-in Boston suburbs. Northeastern and BU are in the city and more urban, but very “hot” schools. I’m not sure about financial aid at these though.

In Worcester, which is, believe it or not, the 3rd or 4th largest city in New England, Holy Cross offers as quality of a liberal arts education as anywhere. I love Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). It’s not well known out west but has a high USNWR national universities ranking. Check out earnings for graduates; school’s students have some of the highest starting salaries of anywhere. One of the most hands-on engineering/science schools. Most freshman complete a team project with themes like Feeding the World, Water for the World, Sheltering the World, or something to that effect. 7-week terms, 3 classes per term. Campus is very nice and it’s in a nice part of the city with parkland around. City is completely rebuilding the nearby downtown and there has been a lot of development around the campus. Downtown Boston is about an hour train ride away. They offer a pretty good amount of aid. (Pronounced Wus-ter, or Wus-ta for locals)

Case Western is in a nice part of Cleveland, but definitely not CA weather. Universities Hospital and med school is practically on campus; major research university; gives pretty generous merit aid, typically 25-40% of total cost in merit aid, not sure about need-based. Virginia Tech is terrific for science/engineering. Probably little aid OOS.

Schools with particularly good aid include Denison and Miami of Ohio, maybe Dickinson in PA as well. Miami offers a great chart that shows the range of merit aid you could expect. Here’s a link. Note that it super-scores for admission and aid, so you can see that if you could even bump up your ACT super-score to 33 you would be on the top line, half to full tuition. I’ve never visited but hear from friends campus is beautiful.

http://miamioh.edu/admission/merit-grid/

On test-taking, I know it’s a matter of easier said than done, but just prepare the best you can and tell yourself I’m just going to take the test and not worry about the results. I’ll see how it turns out. Good luck!

5

FYI: For some reason the population of Worcester has always been a surprise. FYI at the US Census Bureau quick facts website following website: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045215/2582000,13321,2567000.

Worcester (pop. 184,815) has over 5,000 more than #2 Providence, over 30,000 more than #3 Springfield, and over 60,000 more than #4 Hartford. The activity level is largely dependent on the culture of the city, When I visited Memphis TN (population over 650,00) I was stunned to find downtown completely closed up after 6PM. You could still get a fine BBQ rib down by the river, but everything else was closed up. Worcester is NOT Boston, but it always has something going on. I used to go to Boston about six times a year for the Boston Symphony, plays and fraternity parties, but there are plenty of activities on and around the WPI campus. New England has smaller cities, but social/cultural activity is very alive compared to many parts of the country. It is alive, but WPI does not rate as a “party” school.