Chance Me for an Ivy League/"Elite" School

Chance Me / Match Me
1

Hi! I’m currently a sophomore in high school, and I’ve recently been thinking a lot about college. I’m interested in applying to a few Ivy Leagues come senior year, and though I know that being admitted into one of those schools is a long shot, I want to see if applying is an action worth pursuing. Also, just as a side note, I’m not limiting my college scope to just the Ivy Leagues; I’m interested in attending any college that is a good fit for me (if they accept me haha). I’m simply curious to see how my chances of attending an elite school stack up, so I’d be grateful for the feedback! :slight_smile:

About me:
I attend a competitive Texas public high school. My father is a Taiwanese immigrant, and I am biracial. I live in a moderate income family. My younger sister was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when she was young, and that has been an inspiration for me to pursue a career in the medical field. My two primary interests are biomedicine (endocrinology/neurology) and music.

Rank/GPA/Scores:
2/545 at a competitive Texas public high school
4.0 unweighted GPA
34 on my ACT, which I took early my sophomore year
Haven’t taken the new SAT yet, but received a 1490 on the PSAT/NMSQT, which is on a scale of 1520

Classes:
I’m taking all the AP/Honors classes that I can fit into my schedule. By senior year, I’ll be on track to have taken around 9-10 AP classes; I would take more, but I am a band student and band fills 2/8 available slots on my schedule.
I am applying to take a class that will allow me to conduct independent medical research under a mentor next year. I am hoping to study endocrinology.
I’ve taken many health related classes, including Medical Terminology and Anatomy & Physiology. I am on track to receive my CNA and work in a hospital rotation my senior year.

Extracurriculars:
Member of the Tri-Music Honor Society, which is an honor society for high school music students.
Member of the Health Occupation Students of America, a club for aspiring medical professionals. I am hoping to be a leader of the club next year.
Member of a junior women’s league in my local community, which empowers young women within the area to come together and volunteer to make the community a better place.
I am a member of my high school’s marching band, which is a high-level marching band that has qualified and competed at the Texas State UIL Marching Contest.
I play on a drumline of 14 people and am the only girl on the drumline. We are well known and consistently win best percussion at every competition. I will be a drumline captain next year as a junior.
I am a percussionist for our school’s top concert band, which has won national awards. Again, I am the only girl in the group.
Play piano.
Member of the National Honors Society.
Participate in multiple Christian clubs at my school, including Cru and FCA. I volunteer for my church and I am regularly involved with my church youth group.
Attended a summer camp for type 1 diabetics to better understand the disease and how kids my age live with it.
I am trying to start a service project that will help diabetic children in developing countries receive needed insulin and medical supplies.
I am looking to applying for an internship at a local Neurological Diseases Institute.
Will likely have 100+ service hours by graduation.

Awards:
INTERNATIONAL percussion award: My high school percussion group received international recognition from winning the Percussive Arts Society International Ensemble Competition and was given the honor of performing at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention in Indianapolis, Indiana. I performed on one of the winning ensembles at the convention.
Qualified to perform at the UIL State Solo & Ensemble Contest two years in a row for my marimba solos.
Received Outstanding Soloist at the UIL State Solo & Ensemble Contest last year, an honor in which only the top 2% of all state-qualifying performers receive.
Auditioned and qualified for my region’s All-Region band.
Received outstanding academic achievement awards in Honors Spanish 2 and AP Human Geography my freshman year. I also received the Outstanding Freshman academic achievement award at my school.
On track to qualify for National Merit and to be an AP Scholar.
Competed at the Texas UIL State Marching Contest and placed twelfth out of all two-hundred fifty-three high school bands (in our competition category) in the state.

(As you can see, I’m lacking in health/science awards, but I’m working on ways to fix that. I still have junior and part of senior year left) :slight_smile:

Thank you for reading! Let me know your thoughts; I’ll appreciate anything anyone has to say regarding my chances at an Ivy League or any other elite school (specifically Rice- I LOVED Rice when I visited, and it’s my dream school. If anyone has any info about Rice and my chances of admission there, I’d greatly appreciate it!).

2

I definitely think you could get into at least one top school. If you love Rice so much, I’d say you should apply ED there. Just keep up your grades, get good letters of recommendations from your teachers, and write excellent essays. Good luck!

3

Thank you so much!! I’m thinking about applying ED to Rice, though I’m not entirely sure yet since acceptance is binding and I don’t know if I’ll be able to afford tuition for four years as of right now. But regardless, thank you for the feedback- it means a lot!

4

No problem! If finances may be an issue, then ED may not be the best choice. However, you still have a pretty good shot at any top school RD. I was just accepted to my top choice Ivy the other day RD, and I definitely had a worse profile than you, so it’s possible. Just make sure the parts of your application other than your stats and ecs are top-notch.

5

Sounds good :slight_smile: Also, congrats on your admission to your top choice Ivy- that’s pretty amazing!

6

I just looked it up and Rice’s ED and RD rates are fairly similar so applying RD wouldn’t be too much of a disadvantage (21% vs 15% for Class of 2021). Rice also apparently does meet 100% of demonstrated need as calculated by them, so that may affect your decision too. Now, I’m not completely sure those two things are true, as I’ve never really considered Rice and don’t know much about it, but I suggest picking the decision plan that works best for you.

And thank you! :slight_smile: I’m super shocked but super excited!

7

@summerhazed Congrats on Penn! @disarchitecture I agree, Rice may be a good ED option. Your stats are great, and it would get your apps out of the way. We have a while to go, so do not worry about it for a while. :slight_smile:

8

Rice is excellent for both STEM/pre-med and music, but blending the two or finding music opportunities for non-majors may be more difficult there than at some other schools. U of Rochester, with it’s open curriculum, excellent STEM/pre-med and top-notch music thanks to Eastman, would be a great place for a more blended experience, and would be likely to give you nice merit aid. Hopkins is another pre-med leader with a top music conservatory, but I don’t know much about how readily one student can partake of both. Vanderbilt is another to look at - terrific for both music and pre-med. If you want to sustain a serious commitment to music while preparing for med school, it will be a challenge anywhere, but some schools will make it more difficult than others, so definitely look for examples of students who have done both, and learn more about how the different schools you consider may make it easier or harder to do.

9

You are a competitive applicant. Your stats and ECs are good. Get more leadership and awards in your ECs. Write great essays and you could get accepted to any of these schools

10

@aquapt Thank you for the feedback! I’m still considering whether I want to pursue music in college since I know that pre-med is EXTREMELY rigorous - especially in one of those top tier schools. It would be impossible to pursue both music and pre-med at Rice without double-majoring, since minoring in music isn’t an option there. I suppose I have a lot to think about going forward. Your advice is extremely helpful though, and I’ll definitely look into doing some research. Thanks again!!

11

@doorrealthe Thanks for the feedback! I’m definitely trying to look for more ways to lead within both my school and community, and I know that my awards apart from music are… lacking haha. But regardless, it’s good to hear that I need to improve in both of those areas - it’ll help me plan out this next year and a half going forward.

12

In most colleges, premed is not a major, it’s more of a career declaration. Therefore, you can major in any fields, even non science, and take the prerequisite premed courses and still apply to med school.

13

@noanswers Oh wow I didn’t realize that was the case for a majority of schools - thank you for telling me!

14

@noanswers is correct that pre-med is not a major. Furthermore, the med school admissions statistics for many non-traditional majors, including music, are better than for the over-popular premed majors like biology. It’s very true that you can be a premed music major, and you don’t need a STEM major at all, although you may be nearly done with a minor by the time you complete the prereqs for med school.

You are doing an amazing job of thinking ahead and preparing yourself as a candidate. The challenge in that is to keep in in perspective and stay true to yourself. Retain the ability to turn your inner college admissions officer off and do what you love because you love it. It really is okay, sometimes, to look at an opportunity and say, “Yeah, that would look nice on my applications, but I’m just not into it, so I’m going to pass and spend the time doing what I love.” Chase the leadership and awards and all that, to a point, but you don’t have to be all things to all people; being the best version of you is all that is necessary or even desirable.

All the schools I suggested before tend toward classical and/or jazz music training… if you really love the drumline thing and want that to be part of your college experience, you might want to look at honors programs at public flagships. Or… maybe USC hits your sweet spot. Sounds like you’re likely to get NMF, which can mean big merit money there. They have elite-level academics and music, plus… https://youtu.be/qGrJVI1xzEw

15

@aquapt You’re absolutely right in regards to being true to myself; it’s easy for me to get caught up in my college ambitions, and I often lose sight of what I truly want to do in sacrifice of trying to be the “perfect applicant”. Thanks for your encouragement and advice! As for USC, I’ll look into it- it seems that I’ve overlooked its merits, and it appears as if it’d be a great academic school to continue drumline.

16

The other private U’s I can think of that have all three - elite academics, elite music school, and marching band/drumline - are Northwestern: http://sites.northwestern.edu/northwesterndrumline/ and Vanderbilt: https://youtu.be/jsmuGchRI1I Notre Dame (USC’s sports rival) is also on an academic par with Vandy and Rice - doesn’t have a comparable music conservatory but does have marching band & drumline.

Also consider the honors programs/colleges at top publics with strong music programs - UMichigan comes to mind but that’s just one example. (Of course, your own flagship is another: UT Plan II is a fantastic honors program, and the music school and band program are great there as well, but I assume that’s already on your radar.)

Good luck!