Hello,
I am a 10th grade girl who is still deciding her major (possibly pathology or somewhere in the biomedical field involving R&D) but is looking ahead towards what would be needed to get into fantastic colleges. I was once told that if you set your sights on a particular college and show you are passionate for that specific college, it would help in getting it. After some contemplation I realized that since I was little I have particularly admired, stanford, harvard, and yale and are all still in my options. I took all honors/AP courses with a decent GPA for a person who takes such as well as some after school activities and awards in the field of science. I am wondering what is needed to get into any of these schools and what I can focus on achieving in the next 2 years of my high school experience to increase my chances of being accepted? Any guidance would be helpful as I am sort of lost on what I need to do next as there are so many opportunities available to me, I would like to not overload myself with unnecessary ones.
Just do what you want to do. Don’t engage in any EC because you think that it will impress a college admissions committee.
You need a high GPA with the most difficult course schedule offered by your school & high standardized test scores (ACT, SAT, AP tests & SAT subject tests).
It sounds to me as if you’re focusing on the wrong goal. Your real goal is the end game of becoming a pathologist or going into research and development. The schools you mention, while fine schools, as undergraduate schools they may not be the best to get you to your final goal. I would focus on what you want to do and prepare yourself for college coursework. Involve yourself in things you enjoy and then apply to schools that you want to apply to including matches and safeties. Tell your story, be you and don’t try to create someone you think a college might want (good chance you’ll fail and be stressed doing it). If you select the schools you apply to well you will end up somewhere that will be the spring board to your future. Maybe that will be Stanford or Columbia but chances are that you will end up somewhere else. If you focus on the bigger goal it won’t matter.
@meghnasequera
You’re speaking of ‘interest’ when you say ‘show you are passionate about the college it helps in getting in’. What it means is filling out the ‘request info’ form on every website then clicking on the emails they send you. However it doesn’t matter as much for colleges like Stanford or Columbia, since they have sooooooo many applicants, nor for most state flagships. It matters for women’s colleges and LACs (because there ‘fit’ and ‘interest’ are very important) as well as private universities not ranked in the top 20.
What you should do to be the best possible applicant:
- make sure you have 4 units each of English and history/social science, math through precalculus or calculus, foreign language through level 4 or AP, one each of bio chem physics, a total of 6-8 APs by graduation (or equivalent: AICE, DE, IB…), and choose Jr/Sr year some classes of personal interest.
- prepare systematically and methodically for the sat (use Khan academy for instance) and/or the act. Plan to take subject tests in June junior year.
- focus on a couple ECs and focus on the impact you’re having through them in your community.
- look for safeties and matches you like. Get a Princeton review’s best colleges book and find 20 colleges you hadn’t heard of. Visit a variety of colleges near your home to get an idea of what a variety of schools look and feel like.
- once you have your twenty ‘previously unknown’ colleges, run the net price calculator on them as well as public universities in your state. Bring the results to your parents and start talking about the price range they can afford from income and savings. If they don’t have any college savings, can they set aside each month right now the amount they think they’ll be able to live without when you’re in college? This helps the family in adjusting and it helps you in understanding the sacrifices college means for your family, plus if course it creates a financial cushion since very few colleges ‘meet need’.