<p>Hi, I am beginning to fill out college applications and would like your opinion on which schools I would get into. I know that there are always special cases and there is never a certain answer. But any advice or opinion would be greatly appreciated. Please be completely honest. I am currently looking at A&M, University of Texas, University of Chicago, Northwestern, New York University, Boston University, and Seattle University.
University of Chicago and Northwestern are my reach schools and will apply to either one early-decision (if I have a chance.)
Major: biology
My info...
Asian female
currently a junior
attending public high school
weighted gpa: 4.0
unweighted gpa: 3.8 to 4.0 (not sure yet)
SAT score: 2010 (will take again in the fall)
Classes: 10 AP courses total throughout high school
Extra-curriculars: Student Council, Key Club, Leo Club, HOSA, National Honors Society, and Habitat for Humanity.
I am an officer of key club and HFH, and I have been active in all clubs. I have started and organized a fundraiser for a children's hospital and will organize another project for children's shelter.
I have volunteered at the hospital, at a camp for children with autism, at the library, and various other places. I am currently researching as an intern at a college. I received a scholarship to attend a science camp. </p>
<p>Again, what is your opinion on my chances of getting into these schools? Thank you.</p>
<p>If you can get your SAT up to 2200+ I would say Chicago and Northwestern which both rank in top 15 undergrad bio programs would be matches. You should apply to some other top 10 schools as well in my opinion such as Berkeley, Caltech, MIT, Harvard, Yale, Colorado.</p>
<p>I think you’ll probably get into A&M, NYU, University of Texas, Boston University, and Seattle University. As for the rest, try increasing your SAT scores by 200 points to make up for your lack of strong ECs and you’ll stand a good chance at UChicago and Northwestern. And yes, having low SAT II scores will decrease your chances. Good luck!</p>
<p>Thanks, I appreciate that people are willing to take time out and answer these questions. </p>
<p>I had another question though. Can anyone give me a list of universities with top biology programs? (I prefer a list of schools that have students with similar stats to mine…) Also, I just wanted to update some of my info. My grade average is a 94 (unweighted and weighted gpa is confusing). I’m in tennis, varsity orchestra, and I’m lt. gov of a club. Thanks again!</p>
<p>Biology rankings from Gourman Report
Caltech
MIT
Yale
Harvard
Wisconsin
UC San Diego
UC Berkeley
U Colorado
Columbia
Stanford
U Washington
U Chicago
Duke
Wash U St Louis
UCLA
U Michigan
Cornell
U Penn
Purdue
Indiana U
UNC Chapel Hill
U Utah
Johns Hopkins
Northwestern
Princeton
UC Irvine
Notre Dame
UC Santa Barbara
UVA
Brown
U Illinois Urbana Champaign
U Pittsburgh
Vanderbilt
U Oregon
SUNY Stony Brook
U Rochester
Tufts
U Minnesota
SUNY Buffalo
U Texas Austin
Florida State
Michigan State
USC
U Connecticut
UC Riverside
Rice
Iowa State
SUNY Albany
Case Western
Boston U
Ohio State
NYU
U Iowa
Penn State
Emory
Brandeis
U Kansas
Rutgers New Brunswick
Tulane
US Air Force Academy
U Missouri Columbia</p>
<p>2010 U.S. News Top Biology Programs (GRADUATE):</p>
<p>1 Stanford University Stanford, CA Enter your zip 4.9
2 Harvard University Boston, MA Enter your zip 4.8
2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA Enter your zip 4.8
2 University of California–Berkeley Berkeley, CA Enter your zip 4.8
5 California Institute of Technology Pasadena, CA Enter your zip 4.7
5 Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, MD Enter your zip 4.7
7 Princeton University Princeton, NJ Enter your zip 4.5
7 Scripps Research Institute La Jolla, CA Enter your zip 4.5
7 University of California–San Francisco San Francisco, CA Enter your zip 4.5
7 Yale University New Haven, CT Enter your zip 4.5
11 Cornell University Ithaca, NY</p>
<p>Basically, for biology i guess you can’t go any wrong with these 4 schools - Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Caltech, and MIT.</p>
<p>kwaldner - please provide a reference that the Gourman Report was updated in 2008. As far as I can see, it was published in 1993 with the last update in 1997. It is very heavily critisized as having very poor methodology, as much as anyone can tell since it was largely unexplained. The Gourman report is essentially worthless except as a list of schools. But then any undergraduate ranking system is essentially worthless.</p>
<p>
Well duh. Could you say something any more obvious? But how would you rate the OP’s chances for those schools with a 2010 SAT? Not very good I would think.</p>
<p>Applications - I strongly recommend you not worry about what universities have “top biology programs”. At the undergrad level it just doesn’t work that way. Most courses are quite similar between schools, and about 75% of your courses will be outside your major anyway. It is far better to find a school that matches you academically as well as in other factors such as size, location preference (weather, for example), sports scene if that is important to you, urban/suburban/rural, quality of campus, and any other factors that you can think might make being somewhere for 4 years the best they can be. Also finances, if they are an issue. Focusing on a specific subject and the quality of a school in that regard is for grad school.</p>
<p>For your current stats there are a number of excellent schools that have fine biology programs. However, your SAT scores make your chances at Northwestern and Chicago fairly low. It would be much easier of you could give some indication of your preferences on some of those factors I mention. Your list of schools in the first post makes it seem you have no strong preferences, but it really is to your advantage to consider at least a few factors that are important to you to help narrow it down.</p>
<p>assuming you did WELL on those ten AP exams, then why r u looking at schools like NYU. you could do better than that. just get that SAT up alittle and u could be a good candidate for berekely cornelll etc…</p>
<p>Does anyone recommend Boston College? I heard that it’s better in academics than BU but much harder to get into. Also, I read somewhere that they provide 100% of needed financial aid to those that qualify for it.</p>