Chance Me: Boston University for Psych / Pre-Med! [NJ resident, 3.9 GPA, rank 3/87, 1360 SAT]

Chance Me / Match Me
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Hello! I’m thinking of applying to BU (although my ultimate and extremely improbably reach is Brown)! Do you think I could get in?

I live in NJ, US and I attend a public high school as a junior. My parents always tell me not to worry about our cost constraints, so I have no idea what our budget actually is.

I intend to major in psych or medicine, and my GPA right now is 3.9 (not sure if this is weighted or not). I have the third-highest class rank, although I’m hoping to climb higher by next year, and I have a 1360 SAT score (although I am retaking it in August).

My classes (all of which I have at least 92 averages in) this year are:

  • French V Honors
  • At the Movies
  • Ceramics
  • AP Language and Composition
  • Human Anatomy and Physiology Honors
  • Pre-Calculus
  • Accounting 1-A
  • Media Production III
  • AP US History

Next year, I will be taking:

  • AP French
  • AP Literature and Composition
  • AP Biology
  • Calculus Honors
  • AP Statistics
  • AP Psychology

I have the President’s Award (100 hours of volunteering) for Taekwondo instructing, and I have a gold medal from the Boardbreaking section of the 2024 Governor’s Cup.

I have been inducted into the Theater Honors Society, National Honors Society, and am the Junior Class President. I have volunteered at my Taekwondo dojang as an instructor and at my school as a middle school student director and a middle school Student Ambassador for the Outreach Program. I have also worked as a day camp counselor for two years at my town’s camp. I am planning to volunteer at a hospital in either the Operating Room or the Emergency Department this summer, and I have attended summer programs at both Boston University and Brown University.

I am not sure what schools I am applying to yet, but here is my current list:

Likely: Rutgers (RD), University of Maryland (EA)
Toss-Up: Boston University (?), Brandeis, Clark University
Lower Probability: NYU,
Low Probability (REACH): Brown University, Yale, UPenn

Please let me know what my chances are of getting into any of these, specifically BU! Thank you!

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You can’t major in “medicine” as an undergrad. You can major in psychology and the also take the required courses for medical school applicants. You can do that at just about every four year college in this country. Why BU? You might get accepted and you might not. Admissions have become more competitive in recent years. So when the time comes, apply and see.

Your parents and you can run the net price calculators for all of these colleges to see what the possible net costs will be…and whether they are affordable.

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A couple of comments and a question…

BU should be considered “lower probability”, and UMD a “toss up” (if your SAT improves significantly).

Second: make sure you get a firm budget -or- a definitive confirmation from your parents that any school, up to $95k/year is affordable

Question: why aren’t you planning to apply EA to Rutgers? Only early applicants are considered for honors and merit scholarships.

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I’d say that BU belongs in the “lower probability” category with NYU, and Clark belongs in the Likely category. (Great place to apply, though, especially for psych.) And Brandeis can stay in “toss-up” but leans likely, I think.

I think BU is a reasonable place to apply, and I would not be surprised if you got in; they just reject enough qualified applicants that you can’t count on it.

BU does track demonstrated interest, so make sure to engage with them - sign up for emails and open everything they send, attend virtual info sessions, etc.

I double-majored in physical therapy and psych at BU, back in the day, and I had wonderful instructors and mentors in the psych department. (The only one of them who’s still alive is, oddly, the oldest one - Jean Berko Gleason, known for inventing the Wug Test, who is in her mid-90’s and still as sharp as ever - amazing person.)

If you love urban schools like BU and NYU, and can afford out-of-state publics like U of Maryland, how about applying to Pitt? Their admissions are rolling, so you can apply when the app opens on August 1st and have an acceptance in hand by October. An early acceptance can be a huge stress-reducer, and Pitt is one that could be a real contender for you, especially if you get merit and/or Honors College. There’s a reason we often see kids who are deciding between BU and Pitt; they share a lot of the same appealing attributes.

Agreed that you need to run Net Price Calculators and see what’s actually affordable. That isn’t a conversation you want to be having after you’re already accepted somewhere and attached to the idea of attending.

Your profile will give you a lot of good options! Start with a deeper dive on the finances - it’s great that your parents don’t want you to worry, but if you do go to med school, you’re going to need to make the available funds last, so proceeding as if money weren’t an issue isn’t usually the best approach. Good luck - you’ll get lots more good suggestions here if you want them!

ETA definitely apply EA to Rutgers… and if you happen to be female (I don’t think you specified?), check out the Douglass Residential College and associated Women In STEM programs.

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I think that BU is worth an application and is likely for admissions, but it is not a safety. Whether it is worth the cost for you is a completely different question.

You need to figure this out. Given that you are considering premed as an option, you need to budget for a full 8 years of university. By the time that you get there, medical school is likely to be well over $100,000 per year and might be close to $500,000 in total for four years. You do not want to take on this much debt. You would be better off if you do not even take on half of this as debt. If you are serious about medical school, then you need to find out what your budget is and find an undergraduate school for your first four years of university that fits that budget, preferably with no debt at all for your bachelor’s degree and some money left in the bank.

Four years at BU or Brown, plus four years of medical school, might very well cost $900,000 by the time that you finish. You do not want to borrow half of this. Even borrowing 1/4 of this is quite a bit of debt even for a doctor.

Your chances of ever getting to medical school will most likely be almost exactly the same regardless of whether you attend Rutgers or BU or Brown for your bachelor’s degree, and Rutgers is a very good university. Brown might get a higher percentage of its incoming freshmen into medical school, but a lot of this (some might speculate possibly all of this) is due to the high average abilities of the freshmen who show up at Brown in the first place. Premed classes are going to be academically very demanding at any of these schools and will be full of very strong students, most of whom will never make it to medical school (although in some cases this will be because they just decide that they want to do something else).

You also should figure out how your GPA is calculated. However if you are third in your high school and assuming a class of at least 100 students, then you are doing well.

The large majority of students who start university thinking ‘premed’ end up doing something else. If your particular form of something else includes a bachelor’s degree in psychology, then some form of graduate school is very likely. If you save college money for medical school, and instead go for some other graduate degree, then the money that you saved can still be very useful. As one example master’s degrees are typically not funded, and while PhD’s usually are fully funded, the stipend is minimal and having some additional help from parents can make the whole marathon more tolerable.

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Post-BA/BS professional degrees (including those in various health professions, not just MD or DO) tend to be expensive. Basically, any graduate school other than a funded PhD program should be assumed to be expensive.

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Rutgers is likely.

UMD is a target to slight reach. You’ll need to apply TO with that score as 1410 was the 25th percentile.

Brandeis and Clark are toss ups - but Brandeis goes up if you are full pay.

BU a reach - also need to go TO. Perhaps because you did a program there you’d get a lift - but it has an 11% acceptance rate and single digits if you don’t apply ED (hint, apply ED if you want a chance and money is no issue and it’s your pure #1).

Agree with your lower prob and low prob.

Only Rutgers is assured here but I imagine Brandeis and Clark could happen.

It’s odd to me you have a UMD and Rutgers but then a Clark.

If you want a big flagship like UMD, there are others that you’d get into.

On the flipside, if you want an LAC, there’s many you can get into.

While money may not matter, if you are going to med school, make sure they make that statement knowing you have another, at least, $400K for school after undergrad.

Good luck.

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This is helpful, thank you! What does “TO” mean?

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Thank you, this is very helpful! I honestly don’t know enough to say whether I’m applying EA or RD, so I may apply EA. I didn’t know that about Rutgers! Does that apply to all universities?

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Ever since the summer program I attended, I loved BU (except the freshman dorms…) and I think a city college would work for me. Where would you rank BU for me (likely, toss-up, unlikely)?

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Test Optional. But you have a retake coming up, so there’s no need to decide that yet. (It could be worth giving the ACT a shot too; some students find one test shows their strengths better than the other.)

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Not necessarily, but it does at a lot of schools, especially the public flagships.

You should apply EA wherever possible. Aside from merit and honors consideration, many schools fill a large portion of their freshman class in EA.

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Update: I have changed the schools I want to apply to:

Likely: Rutgers, UMass Amherst
Toss-Up: UMD, Brandeis
Lower Probability: Boston University, Northeastern, UMich, NYU
Low Probability: Brown University, Yale, Amherst College

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How likely is it for me to get into one of these lower to low probability schools with ED?

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Unlikely with that test score and no AP Calc etc.

But if you don’t - so what. That’s why you have others on the list. At least you tried.

But you are better with an Indiana or Penn State vs Michigan - because Michigan isn’t happening. IU would. Ohio State or Wisconsin could be a reach. You are studying psych - so the where isn’t going to matter. Not for that major.

Only Rutgers and maybe UMass are likely here.

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Please remember to apply early action to University of Maryland. They fill the majority of their freshman class in the early round.

The lower and low probability schools on your list have pretty low acceptance rates…it’s hard to predict who will and won’t get accepted…so apply and see.

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I find it difficult to evaluate your GPA. I see a GPA of 3.9, but am not clear on how it is calculated. Also, you say that your rank is third. I interpreted this to be that there are two students in your grade in high school that have a higher GPA, and everyone else has a lower GPA. This also leads to the question of how many students are in your grade (third out of 20 students is not quite the same as third out of 300 students). I was thinking of a normal sized high school, with a few hundred students. At least where we live, in the local public high school, a GPA of 3.9 would not put you third in the high school. To me this makes it a bit difficult to predict your chances because I guess I do not quite fully understand all of this. 1360 on the SAT is something that I know how to interpret.

Regardless I think that Brown, Yale, and Amherst college are unlikely. However, I agree with @tsbna44’s comment “so what?”. You can do very well with a bachelor’s degree from Rutgers or U.Mass. Since you are in-state for Rutgers, it is likely to be less expensive for you unless you qualify for a lot of need based aid, and this means that you might be able to save some college funds to help pay for medical school (or for some other graduate program).

I understand that Brown, Yale, and Amherst College get a higher percentage of their incoming freshmen into medical school. However a lot of this, and I would suspect possibly all of this, comes from the consistent academical ability, work habits, and determination of the students who get accepted to these schools. You will find quite a few equally strong and equally driven students at Rutgers and U.Mass. The strongest students will just not be quite so ubiquitous at these schools.

To me the most important issue is to make sure that you are applying to at least one solid safety that you can afford and that you would be happy to attend. I am hoping that Rutgers fits this description. I am not completely sure however whether either Rutgers or U.Mass are safeties. I think that both are likely, and both are very good universities for students who are majoring in psychology with a premed intention.

If you are going to add one or two schools to your list, I would add schools at the safety end of the scale.

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Thank you, this is very helpful! As for how many are in my class, I am third (hopefully higher next year) out of 87, so you’re correct in that it’s not the same as out of 300.

What safeties would you recommend?

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At least in my experience university admissions will evaluate your grades based on the high school that you attend. If you are 3rd out of 87 students, and in-state in New Jersey, then the first university that comes to mind as a probable safety is Rutgers. I have known quite a few Rutgers graduates, and they have all made the university look very good. However, your guidance counselor will most likely know better than I whether Rutgers will be a safety for you.

Otherwise there are several other very good public universities in New Jersey. Again your guidance counselor probably knows them better than I do. Some private schools such as Seton Hall are also quite good and very likely for you.