Hi, I’m a junior in high school and I’m a little worried about my college admission.
I want to focus on premed as undergraduate and then go to a med school and then be a pediatrcian.
However, I’m not sure a prestigious college will want me.
Here are some stats:
SAT: 1970 (700 CR ; 690 M; 590 R )
i took it again and am waiting for my score (comes out on the 11th D: )
Also, I take all honors/ AP classes except english
ACT : 32
GPA : 4.1
I volunteer at UPMC
This summer i’m going to india and volunteering at a non profit organization for homeless children and helping them there.
Also, I tutor young children.
i do two clubs (INTERACT and Right Start)
i’m also part of the National Honors Society
I sing and dance.
(i have performed for an indian organization in america several times)
I am on the tennis team too.
I want to apply to UCLA, NYU, Stanford, uPenn and Pitt
and i hope to get some sort of financial aid
I am a first generation student in america.
I am not an american citizen but I have a green card.
Run the net price calculators on each school’s website to see how much they will cost you and your parents each year. Talk to your parents about how much they’re willing to pay.
Your ACT score is equal to about a 2100 SAT score. I would have retaken the ACT rather than the SAT, but it’s done now.
Stanford and Penn are a reach for everyone. Without an outstanding extracurricular, they’re high reaches for you.
UCLA could be a low reach if you’re OOS it’s very competitive. NYU it also depends on which school you apply to as some are harder to get into than others. NYU is very expensive and notoriously bad with financial aid and you would probably got little to none in terms of merit aid you might want to reconsider that as an option.
What is your financial situation? Med school is expensive, and you need to minimize your undergrad debt. The good news is that you do not need to go to a “prestigious” school to go to med school. You need good grades, a high MCAT score, and some medical related volunteer experience.
Take UCLA off your list, as an out of state student you will most likely get no aid at all there. NYU is pretty stingy with aid as well, but run their net price calculator as well to see what your expected cost would be. Every college has one on their website, and it is important to run it to see what kind of need based aid you might get. Unfortunately, PA public universities are pretty expensive even for in-state.
Well, you should run the net price calculators at a few places. Do you have a copy of the Fiske Guide to Colleges to familiarize yourself with more schools? The primary question is whether you are eligible for enough need based aid to make the meets-need colleges affordable. If the calculators show that you won’t get enough need based aid, then you need to switch your hunt to schools with merit aid. I think Pitt is indeed one of those.
Have you looked at any smaller liberal arts colleges? They can be great preparation for med school, you don’t need to go to a large university. Your stats at this point don’t look sufficient for Stanford, or probably Penn. Maybe run the net price calculator at Barnard, Holy Cross, Hamilton – they are colleges that meet need where your stats are in the ballpark. Dickinson is a solid PA LAC that meets 96% of need, and they also give merit (but don’t know how much you need). I think Temple gives a lot of merit. If you need a lot of merit aid, University of Alabama is a place you should look.
There are more plenty more choices, but you need to get a better handle on your financial situation.
This online list can be useful for generating ideas, provided the schools seem suitable for you based on your broader criteria as well: “The Experts’ Choice: Colleges with Great Pre-med Programs.”
Ask you GC or look at the library for a copy of Fiske. It is okay if it is a few years old, the writeups are still quite accurate. Just don’t rely on the admissions requirements or test score ranges in Fiske, look those up online. I don’t know if you are familiar with the Common Data Set, but almost every school has them online (Google that phrase with the college name). There is tons of info in there about test score ranges and things like that.
@intparent ahhh okay i will do that! thank you
previously i have googled colleges, but my sat scores are usually lower than their 50 percentile, so i really dont know what will happen
Well, those colleges are then “reaches” unless you have a hook (under represented minority or recruited athlete, for example). Good that you are checking. You need to find more match and safety colleges. A safety is a college where your odds are very strong for getting in, you would want to attend it, and you know you can afford it. It can take more time to find your safeties, so don’t leave it for last. And you never know… one of my kids fell in love with her safety and decided to attend it, with great results. A lot of kids apply to a couple of safeties, 3-4 matches, and a couple of reaches.
@intparent i dont want to waste your time, but could you suggest a couple safeties?
I have thought about temple university, penn state, and lehigh university as my safeties so far
i’ll look for it! and thanks for the advice!