Chance a Worried Student [VA Resident, 3.95 UW/4.0 UW UC, 1550 SAT, for Computational Biology, Biology, Data Science]

[Throwaway12930]

**Demographics**

US citizen, indian male

State/Location of residency: NOVA

Type of high school (or current college for transfers): Magnet, public, competitive, somewhat small

Other special factors: (first generation to college, legacy, recruitable athlete, etc.): none

Intended Major(s): comp bio, bioinformatics, biology, bioengineering

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

Unweighted HS GPA: 3.95 UW

Weighted HS GPA: 4.5 W (A+=98-100 +1.0 for AP, DE, IB, +0.5 for honors)

UC GPAs

unweighted: 4.0

Weighted: 4.27

Capped + Weighted: 4.17 (yeah i know its not great, but its because ive taken so many classes)

Class Rank: top 10%/380 (i think my exact rank is closer to about 20)

ACT/SAT Scores: 1550

10 APS (limited by some mandatory classes at school), 3 DEs, multivariable calculus

Coursework: AP World History, AP Stats, APUSH, AP Lang, AP Bio, AP Calc BC, AP Spanish, AP Chem, AP Physics C: Mech, AP US/Comp Gov, Multivariable calculus, a few other DE’s like DE Spanish, DE Research, DE English (5s and 4s on all APs)

Awards

• 2x First author pub in IEEE
• 3rd place at an international computational bio conference - was only highschooler there and developed an app for tracking the spread of antimicrobial resistance (all other presenters were graduate students)
• won a design/engineering comp (national) - developed and designed/built a bookcase made of upcycled materials, ended up being put to use in an elementary school!
• top 10% of entrants in Toshiba exploravision comp
• AP scholar with distinction
• National Merit Commended Student

Extracurriculars

• independent research (pub in IEEE, developed model for diagnosing AML)
  • Conference was peer-reviewed, double-blind, had about 4 reviews per paper, and was said to have about a 30% acceptance rate (which is pretty selective considering that these are for mainly professionals)
• intl research collaboration with students from an hs abroad (no pub but first exposure to research)
  • I had to submit a proposal to my school which was selected, with 4 other projects as well. A total of ten students got to participate.
• started an educational organization for comp bio with 100K+ students taught
  • The organization became part of CSForAll and also got some feedback from some University professors. We teach computational biology. We also launched a webinar series and got some PhDs from UC Berkeley and Columbia, and some PhD students at the University of Rochester to come speak.
• did state gov school (approx. 5% acceptance rate)
• internship with biotech startup backed by harvard’s innovation lab (developed early diagnosis ML model, got LOR)
  • I cold-emailed Harvard Business Students until I eventually got an internship, and it led to me being able to directly work on venture capital pitches, help create a machine learning model for their team, and worked with other engineers and clinicians to create a MVP for a product
• science olympiad president (3x medalist @ regionals, raised 1K for team)
  • Led my team to its first even trophy and won 6 medals at the regional level
• NHS officer (helped coordinate 3 community events)
• on school district advisory board and working with superintendent (work directly with them on communication policies, directly impacting 100K students)
  • I represent the school and was nominated by my principal. So far, my suggestions to streamline the communications system and develop a proper method of student accountability have been implemented in the school system.
• mentor at school for freshman where we help them transition to HS

Essays/LORs/Other

personal statement is on my journey away from focusing on competition and more on intellectual curiosity

• for some context, I had a former admissions officer from a t5 rate it and she said it was amazing, but that probably doesn’t mean much, also had a ton of feedback from some harvard and berkeley students and they liked it as well.

supps:

• wrote about how my struggle with chronic illness has motivated me to tackle this issue, and how I plan on using comp bio for that, wrote about experiences with cultural dissonance and my cultural background, wrote about experiences starting my org, had a few other major topics

piqs:

piq #5: wrote about struggle with chronic illness and how i overcame that

piq #6: wrote about comp bio and my interest in the field, talked about how my personal experiences at a bootcamp motivated me

piq #7: wrote about my org and the fulfillment i felt

piq #8: wrote about cross-cultural involvement

recs:

history - probably like a 7, was okay but tbh weren’t super close, but she did tell me she was going to write about specific details so we’ll see

math - closer to an 8, helped me get into gov school and have known her for long

internship - 10, very close, told me he wrote a 3 page rec. also he is an harvard alum but seriously doubt that would have any bearing on the harvard app specifically, right???

Interviews:
Harvard - 7/10: I thought it went well, but I realized that it wasn’t particularly special so its about here
Princeton - 9/10: Was amazing, talked until the zoom call ran out of time and she said she had to go. She told me to tell her how college application season goes and thinks I’m a great fit. Don’t have much hope though since someone else from my school already got in REA.

School List:

Ivies (except Columbia)

• Yale (applied data science, rest were all in life sciences)

Northwestern

Duke

Stanford

JHU (CS)

UCLA

UC Berkeley (Bioengineering)

Emory

Wash U STL.

Georgetown

Additional Comments and Notes:

I really like the UCs despite the cost because of its location and the strength of the programs. I absolutely love UCB, despite the reputation it gets from some as being cutthroat. I applied bioengineering bc they have a comp bio/quant bio concentration, and ik engineering is their most competitive but its also my favorite. I know that some of you may be thinking that the UCs don’t make sense for any out of state student, and you would be right, but its something that my parents personally don’t mind. Of course, they would rather send me to somewhere on the level of an ivy at that cost.
If anyone could comment on my UC app in particular, that would be super helpful!

Do I stand a chance at getting into ivies?

Current Results:

EA:

CWRU - Deferral

UNC (OOS) - Accepted

UVA (in state) - Accepted

Virginia Tech (in state) - Accepted

Rutgers (OOS) - Accepted

VCU + 64K - Accepted

GMU + 10K and chance for university scholars (full-tuition) - Accepted

[Zrt42]

@Throwaway12930

Do I stand a chance at getting into ivies?

Yes. You do have a chance for admission at the most highly selective schools.

All anyone can assess on this board is whether or not you are a legit contender. You are a legit contender.

Now for the bad news - most legit contenders are still rejected from the most selective universities. There just aren’t enough spots. You could get into 3 or 4. You could strike out and not get into any of them. I think you will get into at least 1, but I could be wrong. You are now at the mercy of the preferences, agendas, whims and biases of people you will never meet and who will never explain their decisions to you.

[DadTwoGirls]

@Throwaway12930

Do I stand a chance at getting into ivies?

Yes, you stand a chance.

However, you should figure that you are both an academically excellent student, and well qualified to attend a highly ranked university, and an average applicant to the top ranked schools in the US. You should figure that somewhere around about 80% to 85% of the applicants to these schools are like you academically qualified to attend. You know what the acceptance rates are.

@Zrt42

Now for the bad news - most legit contenders are still rejected from the most selective universities.

This is entirely correct.

However, if @Zrt42 is going to give you some bad news, I will give you some good news.

@Throwaway12930 I am just guessing that a graduate degree might be at least possible in the future. If you look at the graduate students at top universities in the US, you will find that they came from a very, very wide range of undergraduate schools. As an example, I got my master’s degree at Stanford. With one exception it was hard to find two students who had graduated from the same undergraduate university. The one exception was probably a coincidence, and is one of the schools that you have already been accepted to.

[tsbna44]

Yes you stand a chance and why worry ?

You’ve already received unbelievable acceptances.

If you strike out and not saying you will, you’ve gotten into schools others might take over every school you have remaining.

You’ve won already !!

Anything else is icing on the cake.

Congrats.

[Throwaway12930]

Thank you for your insights. I understand that I am an average applicant and that makes sense, but do other people getting into these schools from my school this year alone make it harder for me? Or is that just a myth?

[Throwaway12930]

Thank you!

[DadTwoGirls]

@Throwaway12930

but do other people getting into these schools from my school this year alone make it harder for me?

I do not think that it makes any difference at all whether other academically strong students from your high school apply to the same selective universities, nor whether other strong students from your high school have already been accepted to the same selective universities.

As one example, Stanford gets something like 55,000 applicants in a typical year. In an article in the alumni magazine a few years back they estimated that 80% of applicants are academically fully qualified to attend. This implies that something like 44,000 academically qualified applicants apply each year, competing for about 1,700 spots. Suppose that ten academically qualified students from your high school apply (which is probably a high number), this just represents 10 academically strong applicants of out 44,000. Those 10 applicants are not going to make a meaningful difference to your chances. They might accept none of you. They might accept 5 of you. You really just do not know.

In the same article they pointed out one example of how admissions might be hard to predict. Suppose that the tuba player from their marching band is graduating (“marching” is a loose term in Stanford’s case – I personally found their band’s form of “marching” to be amusing). Then they might accept two or three tuba players in the hope that one of them will join the band. In a different year where the tuba player in their band is a younger student and intends to stick with the band for another year, they might not specifically try to accept a couple of tuba players. You just do not know.

You have already been accepted to multiple very good universities. You can do well with a degree from any of the universities that you have already been accepted to. Depending upon how you do as an undergraduate student, you can be competitive for highly ranked graduate programs at top universities with a degree from any of the schools that you have already been accepted to.

In terms of the reach schools that you have also applied to, you are a very competitive applicant. I do not think that any of us can accurately predict whether you will get accepted to one of them, five of them, or none of them.

[Throwaway12930]

Great, thank you so much for your insights! Very few people have been able to provide such a honest yet comforting perspective.

[user282]

Your are clearly qualified to attend any of these reach schools. But that doesn’t mean you will get into all or any of them. Your application is similar to thousands of other applicants and these schools can’t take everyone. As a VA resident you should seriously consider UVA or VT just based on the price tag. These are great schools that won’t limit what you do afterwards in any way. Whatever advantage you think going to an Ivy will bring, it’s really not. You are already well positioned for success no matter which college you attend.