Where do I belong? College Search!!

Colleges and Universities A-Z Cornell University
1

<p>Hello everyone,</p>

<p>First of all I would like to thank you in advance for coming to my thread and taking time to read and provide advice. This is beyond helpful and I am very grateful for this community.</p>

<p>In short, I am a rising high school senior, beginning to look into colleges. I am interested in majoring in most definitely sciences. Most likely biology, chemistry, biomedical engineering, neuroscience, psychology, or the like. As of now, like many other young inexperienced people, I see medical school in my future, so I would like to keep that in mind during my college search. However, it is also very important for me to go to an university with a wide variety of colleges, just in case I discover my passion for another subject. However, I am focusing on sciences because I am almost 100% sure that I will NOT major in literature, history, agriculture, etc etc.</p>

<p>Some colleges that come to mind, but PLEASE feel free to add to this list as well as rank (safety, match, low reach, high reach), it is very important for me to go to a school that has a good pre-med/bio/chem/engineering(kinda) ranked program. ALSO please include any schools that may be "matches" but where I will have a good chance in earning a full merit scholarship!</p>

<p>UNC Chapel Hill (possibly merit scholarship?)
Georgia Tech (awesome BME)
Vanderbilt
University of Southern California
Cornell
Emory
Duke
Dartmouth
University of Chicago
John Hopkins <-- ehh heard the student life is bad? please feel free to comment on this!
Stanford (UTMOST DREAM SCHOOL.... possible? eh most likely not )</p>

<hr>

<p>My Stats:</p>

<p>GPA Weighted: 3.94
GPA Unweighted: 3.63</p>

<p>SAT I (Super Score)- 2020
780 Math
640 Reading
600 Writing
8 Essay</p>

<p>ACT- 33
32 Writing
33 Math
33 Reading
34 Science
7 Essay</p>

<p>SAT II-
740 Math 2
740 Biology E
750 Chinese</p>

<p>Course Schedule-</p>

<p>Middle School
Honors Algebra I
Honors Geometry
Honors Spanish I</p>

<p>Freshman
Honors Algebra II
Honors Biology
Honors Language Arts
Honors Spanish II
American Gov/Health
Band</p>

<p>Sophomore
Honors Pre-Calculus
Honors Chemistry
Honors Language Arts
Honors Spanish III
AP World History (5)
Band</p>

<p>Junior
AP Calculus AB (first semester had a 79 unweighted and 86 weighted, worried about this)
AP Biology
AP Lang
On-level Physics
On-level US History
Band</p>

<p>Senior
AP Stat
AP Chemistry
AP Lit
AP Micro/Macro
PE/Internship
Band</p>

<p>ECs-</p>

<p>Club (# of years in by graduation)</p>

<p>Student Council Representative (4)
Beta Club (4)
Marching Band (received varsity letter) (4)
Tutors in Action (2)
Winterguard (1)
Science Olympiad (1)
Pep Band (1)
Medical Society (1)</p>

<p>-regular volunteer at local library
-peer education at a local AIDs center
-part time job as of summer 2011</p>

2

<p>Reach-Match-Safety are really subjective. But it looks like your list has a good start. There’s a range of schools there, though I don’t see any real safety schools.</p>

<p>Essentially, with your grades, your application will probably be competitive at many of the top schools, given the <20% admit rates, not a lock anywhere. My advice, cast a wide net and apply to a number of places. Cornell should definitely be one of them.</p>

<p>Things to talk to your Guidance Counselor about – Your ACTs are a bit better than your SAT, and more balanced. It might make sense to only submit these (the down side is that they don’t see your math 780. That’s why I say talk to a guidance counselor.)</p>

<p>You seem to be geographically neutral – i.e., east coast and west coast schools.</p>

<p>With my D’s application process, we found that the schools that offered partial merit scholarships were generally at least a level below the really elite schools (like Cornell), which doesn’t say that they aren’t excellent. Full Merit Scholarships are somewhat harder, and may require dropping down more in the school’s reputation. Good luck!!!</p>

<p>The scuttlebutt is that the following are relatively generous with merit money, and have good reputations and/or good science departments: Tulane, Maryland, Northeastern, Purdue, Delaware. (I’m sure there are many more).</p>

<p>As far as ‘match’ to “high match”, Consider Michigan, Northwestern, Wash U St Louis (not much of a chance of merit money at these), maybe Illinois, U Tex Austin, Rice. I think we have most of the usual suspects here.</p>

3

<p>ok i think u have an excellent chance at gtech, usc, and vanderbuilt.</p>

<p>BUT you do have a good ACT score, so u should apply to uchicago and cornell (u have a decent chance)</p>

<p>but the rest, i think they’re slightly tough reaches</p>

<p>chance me too! <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/cornell-university/1174744-chance-me-please.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/cornell-university/1174744-chance-me-please.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

4

<p>Thanks so much guys! At where I am now, Duke is probably my ideal school, I really want to apply ED to increase my chances, but I am in need of FA so I might just watch and see to compare…</p>

5

<p>Duke is obviously a great school. Good luck.</p>

<p>The problem with ED (and I’d say the same thing if you said you were applying to Cornell ED) is that you can’t ‘package shop’. Which basically means, it’s great for affluent students (who don’t need FA), but not so great if where you go depends on how much money you get.</p>

6

<p>Yup, my exact problem here. :/</p>