Chance me for Barnard as ED decisions come out in two weeks (co of 2025) [OR resident, 3.889 GPA, 34 ACT (35 super), cognitive science]

Chance Me / Match Me
1

alternate title: I can’t stop thinking about barnard ED decisions and genuinely don’t know how to feel :smiley:

Demographics

  • US domestic (US citizen)
  • Portland, Oregon
  • Competitive, public, large high school (600+ in co 2025)
  • Genderqueer female (important for supps)

Intended Major(s): CogSci w/Neuro as a second option

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 3.889
  • Weighted HS GPA: 4.2
  • Class Rank: not ranked, top 20%?
  • ACT: 34 highest composite, 35 superscore

Courseload
APs: 11/18 total, 3 for senior year

  • AP Biology: 5
  • AP Chemistry: 5
  • AP Psychology: 5
  • AP Computer Science Principles: 4
  • AP Calc BC: 4, AB subscore is also 4
  • AP Lang: 2 (not submitted)
  • AP Literature: 4
  • AP Stats is planned for senior year
  • AP World and AP Physics C - not taking the test, just the class

Dual Credit/Dual Enrollment Classes: 14 semesters (not sure abt this because my school is rlly unclear about dual credit/dual enrollment)

Extracurriculars

  • 2 internships at medical research university (OHSU)
  • 1st internship is at psychiatry lab analyzing maternal circuitry in response to infant cues, student researcher, presented findings at weekly conference board meetings (2 years, year-round)
  • 2nd internship is at bio/behavioral lab studying the effects of sleep in cardiovascular, metabolic, and mental health, research aide/shadow at this lab, (senior year only, school-year only)
  • part-time job at daycare as a teacher’s assistant,tasked with working closely with children on the autism spectrum, (2 years, year-round) (connected this with my 1st internship in supplementals)
  • independent researcher, created a literature review of the neurobiology of childhood trauma and explored novel biological models of childhood trauma subtypes (3 years, year-round)
  • 1st place in Mental Health Promotion (MHP) event and 2nd place in Health Informatics contest at state level for HOSA-FHP, created mini non-profit for (MHP) to support childhood trauma prevention (3 years, school-year)
  • president of HS art therapy club, researched and connected members with mental health care volunteer opportunities, created mentor program where high-schoolers teach middle school kids about mental health care and mindfulness through arts and crafts activities (1 year, school-year)
  • board member for Science Bowl club + varsity competitor + Science Bowl school-wide tournament champion (2 years, school-yr)
  • volunteer coordinator for HS chapter of disabilities volunteer non-profit organization, and student ambassador of non-profit, 60 volunteer hours (2 years, year-round)
  • competitive dancer and student choreographer at local dance studio (4 years, year-round)
  • student advisor and app reviewer for teen mental health app in development (2 years)
  • self-taught data analysis with Python and worked with AP CSP teacher outside of class to improve my skills

Essays/LORs/Other

  • professor i did infant cues research with at medical research uni
  • AP Bio/Human Anatomy teacher (had two classes with this teacher)
  • AP CSP teacher
  • my dance teacher (close relationship, but we’ll see how this goes)
  • 1st supplement: used madonna as a metaphor for why I want to attend Barnard (idk if this will work)
  • 2nd supplement: connected my part-time job to my internship as to why I want to pursue the career I’m pursuing
  • 3rd supplement: talked about challenging the gender binary as a genderqueer female and connected it with being raised feminist by my mother
  • honestly idk about my common app essay
2

Go take a walk, bake brownies, write poetry, play a game of hopscotch with the 6 year old kid next door. Worrying about something out of your control is a waste of energy!

5 Likes
3

Patience, Young Grasshopper. You’ll find out soon enough.

In the meanwhile, hopefully your finalizing your RD applications and applying to some colleges with a higher acceptance rate.

Good luck.

4 Likes
4

If they don’t rank, they don’t rank.

If they rank or choose a decile and you are not top 10%, well 98% were just to put in context.

All you can do is be patient.

You’ll get in or another school will get very lucky.

2 Likes
5

Very impressive, and based on your academic interests, Barnard sounds like a good match.

I think you have done everything that/more than you could possibly do. Your application checks off all the necessary boxes to be given serious consideration – so realistically your odds are probably around 10%, meaning as good as those of all the other equally exceptional young women, who also are applying to Barnard this year.

Unfortunately, with highly selective colleges and their limited available space, the end-result is often not really indicative of anything specific in your own application, but rather comes down who else had applied and what class a college is trying to shape (geographically, social/economic backgrounds, etc.)

2 Likes
6

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. If you’d like to reply, please flag the thread for moderator attention.