Other special factors *(first generation to college, legacy, athlete, etc.): none
Intended Major(s) premed
**GPA, Rank, and Test Score: 4.0 UW, rank 5%, SAT 1550
Coursework AP physics, AP chemistry, APUSH, AP biology, pre calculus, AP English, many honors
Extracurriculars
Founder/president of American cancer society school chapter. Many found raising activities.
Nominated for HOBY seminar
Hospital volunteer> 100 hours
YMCA racial equity council
AI cancer use related research
Online internship for non profit organization
School paper editor
Duke and Emory are not “match” schools. Even your safety schools are “hard targets” at best in RD round. I’d recommend adding a few true safeties.
Duke and emory are definitely not matches, bro. Those would be reaches as well. I think you have a relative lack of medical experiences compared to other applicants, but you never really know. Good luck, bro, I hope that you’re happy with whatever happens!
I agree with others that there is no way Duke or Emory are targets. Duke’s RD decision rate may be 4% or lower. Since you are an NC resident, maybe UNC is safety school for you. However, I am not sure you can consider Wake a safety. They will look at your high stats and know that you are using them as a safety and will probably not attend if admitted. I think Wake could potentially waitlist plenty of high stat kids who fall into that category. They did that to a friend’s son a couple of years ago.
Have you taken a look at the scattergrams from your high school? That will give you a better idea of how your private high school places with places like Brown, Duke, Emory, etc.
Grades aren’t the only thing. They also look at holistic review. Overall you have a strong profile. But know that Brown PLME is one of the hardest programs to get into. Probably even harder than Harvard College. Know that your chances are low, even with a perfect application.
Scattergrams in Scoir or Naviance (at the HSs that even have/use them) are not as useful as they used to be (and they never really were that useful because you couldn’t tell which applicants were hooked).
The biggest reason they are even less reliable right now is the user can’t see whether students applied with or without test scores (obviously at colleges that currently, or did, allow test optional).
GPA only data can be helpful, but because many schools are holistic, it’s far from ideal. One can probably make a top level categorization of schools this way, but beyond that it’s less reliable.
An additional reason that scattergrams are less useful is that many schools don’t allow the user to look at one specific year…so everything for the last 3 to 6 years (whichever data set the school uses) is shown together. Even a 3 year picture can be quite misleading, considering the dramatic changes we have seen since 2019.
Congratulations on all that you have achieved. It is impossible to chance someone for such a competitive program but you are a competitive candidate.
I have gotten to know several PLME students and they are an extremely impressive cohort. A common thread seems to be that they all had hands on health care experience that they were able to describe and convey the significance of in their applications.
As an example one was an EMT who while in HS described his sense of helplessness (in spite of extensive training) when he found himself at his first multiple injury traffic accident. He described this experience as what drove him to commit to pursue a career in medicine and his determination to never feel helpless again.
Hopefully you were able to display similar determination and passion in your application. If so I think you have a good shot given the long odds. Good luck!!