<p>Man, we were so dumb, and we did so many things wrong. When we were filling out the teacher part of DS’s National Merit Scholarship application, we explained that we did not assign conventional grades but that DS was doing A-level work (which is true). But then, when they asked for his GPA, we gave it as 4.0, but we checked off the “weighted” box, because we didn’t have Clue One. (We should have asked someone…duhhh.) I hope the National Merit people will notice that DS has taken a <em>very</em> rigorous high school course load (including Latin IV and Greek III) and will accordingly excuse our clueless checking of the “weighted” box. Obviously, when you are home-schooling and not assigning official grades, the whole weighted/unweighted thing is meaningless, anyway.</p>
<p>I guess we were so busy educating our kids we forgot to look into all the Various Ways to Game the System – er, I mean, to Make One’s Kids Look Better to College Adcomms. :D</p>
<p>You’re probably getting the impression that JHU’s really good for bio from its medical school, which is often ranked #1 in the research rankings, but that doesn’t necessarily make its bio programs the best/most competitive also. I got into JHU in hs with an intended biology major but I don’t think it was particularly harder for me to get in over someone who indicated a non-bio major.</p>
<p>I’m actually getting the impression that JHU is really good for bio… mostly from this forum. (I really don’t pay attention to med school rankings.) Who knows where people here got it from, though.</p>
<p>As for the other place I’m getting it- I go to a science and tech magnet program in Maryland. Essentially, every serious bio person I’ve asked has had a list that looks like this:
UMD or UMBC or both (cost, frequent full-rides)
JHU.
I think there was one exception. She was applying to BS/MD programs.</p>
<p>For the super-serious bio people, the ones who have NIH internships, I think it looks like this:
JHU ED.
Why me?!? (UMD/UMBC/both.)</p>
<p>For the rest of the school, I think I have heard JHU mentioned exactly once, and that was from a friend who isn’t sure about what science she wants to do. The rest of the magnet program, plus the intelligent people outside of it (and this is not a particularly small number of people, all told), is like… eh. JHU? Why?</p>
<p>And it’s not like our college lists tend to stay in-state, either. Most people do end up going to UMD, but that’s because they have a convenient habit of throwing money at us.</p>
<p>If you got into JHU with bio, more power to you. But I think it is harder to get in with a bio major, because so many more people apply and say they want to do bio or something related to it than anything else. That’s where all the hype is, that’s where the applicants flood in, and that’s where the competition is toughest. If you tell them you want to do bio, you’d better back it up.</p>
<p>If you go to a science high school in Maryland, then I can see why you would be exposed to a lot of JHU hype. I went to a science/medical magnet high school as well, and people (usually freshman and sophs) would name JHU along with Harvard. JHU is fantastic for medicine because in addition to their medical school you’ve got the NIH there, but when I asked two researchers (I was interested in a research career at the time) about going to JHU for undergrad, they weren’t as impressed with the JHU name and both said they thought JHU was too graduate school-focused to go there for undergrad. </p>
<p>However, I think most schools, including JHU, realize that many of their science major-indicating admits will retreat to other disciplines. A significant portion of the people I know who were intent on a bio/chem/other science major going into college are no longer majoring in a science. My impression from applying to colleges is that indicating a popular major like bio won’t hurt you, but indicating a rarer major and showing a passion for it backed up in ECs and essays will help you.</p>