Chance and Match Me: HS Junior to Cornell, Boston U, Vanderbilt for Biology

What do you plan to do with a degree in biology? Are you considering being premed? If so, have you thought about how to budget for a full 8 years? If you are premed, then by the time that you get to medical school it is likely to cost at least $100,000 per year. Even for a newly graduated doctor, having as little debt as possible is helpful (I have a daughter who is not quite half way through a DVM program, which is just as expensive and is an area where minimizing debt is even more important).

Your guidance counselor might know better than us what your chances are at top schools. Most of us here on CC have experience with relatively normal public high schools, even if some of us come from places with highly competitive suburban high schools. That said…

To me these make Cornell look like a high reach, even with your being legacy and coming from an elite private school.

The exception might be if you are recruitable for a sport. If you are, then your GPA is probably high enough for the top schools.

That being said, I think that your chances are probably quite good at Rutgers. It is common for biology majors to consider some form of graduate school, and Rutgers will simultaneously give you a great education, set you up for admissions to very good graduate programs, and save you a bundle of money that might be put towards some form of graduate program.

Students will frequently under-appreciate their in-state options. As one example I know someone from Vermont whose daughter did not want to go to UVM, but instead went to U.Mass Amherst. I also know someone from Massachusetts whose daughter (same age) did not want to go to U.Mass Amherst, but instead went to UVM. Both sets of parents “only” paid an extra $80,000 because both daughters were academically strong enough to get good merit aid at the out of state university. Of course they could have saved that $80,000 in-state and ended up in the exact same place where both daughters are right now (and both are doing very well right now).

I think that you have a good range of universities that you are applying to, and I think that within this range you will get some very good acceptances. It is hard to say whether or not any of these acceptances will be from your reach schools. However, that is okay since your safety and match schools are also very good.

I am not personally a fan of ED. If you do not apply ED, then you do lower your chances to get into your #1 preference, but you also get to compare offers from multiple schools before deciding where to go.

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