Am I Spread Too Thin?

Chance Me / Match Me
1

Greetings lads,
In the coming week I have off as a result of Florida’s sporadic doomsday weather, I am hard at work revising and finalizing my common application. As context, I am a White, unhooked, male attending the top independent day school in my county and am #3 in my class. Last year, the entirety of the top 7 students received t20 offers. I am personally motivated to study biophysics and economics, with hopes of earning an MBA in the future and exploring career options in managing Biotech development in the immunotherapeutic treatment of Alzheimer’s. My extracurricular profile is quite diverse and I am wondering if it conveys an unintended sense of well-roundedness. Every activity I’ve participated in has come solely from enjoyment, and I’d appreciate any tips to ensure that this message is evident. Here goes:
SAT: 1560 (790M, 770R/W)
ACT: (35 E, 35M, 36R, 35S)
SAT II: 800 BioM, 790 Math II, 790 Chem
APs : 5 - Bio, Chem, APUSH, Euro

My school list is as follows:
Reach:
Princeton (First Choice, likely SCEA), Penn, Harvard, Brown, Stanford, MIT, Vandy (Wouldn’t attend without significant merit aid
Match:
Boston University, Northeastern, USC, UNC-CH, Georgia Tech,
Safety:
UCF, UPitt, UF (In-State/Exceptional record with school)

2

I am not from your area, but UF looks like a probable safety and a very strong school. This is a great place to start.

I think that you are competitive pretty much anywhere. One thing I can think to ask is whether you have run the NPCs, and if you and your parents are okay with the results for the schools on your list.

The other thing that comes to mind is that I see 15 schools on your list. That is a lot. Is U.Pitt affordable? If not you have two other solid safeties. One daughter got into both BU and NE with stats that were not that much worse than yours. However both would have been full pay and didn’t seem worth it compared to her safeties. I am not sure they are worth it compared to UF at in-state prices either. You might want to do the same thinking for the various schools on your list. I don’t know if I would take on debt for your various reaches, but most of them I probably would pay more for if I could do it without debt.

3

Thanks for the feedback! All the matches will be at very most 50% of sticker price (NMF) which is affordable without debt. All the reaches I am considering appear to be affordable via the CollegeBoard NPC, so I am fairly confident that I will have several financially sound options.