I am a Black female who is currently a sophomore that attends a competitive large public high school. I am first generation and my parents are from a different country.
At the moment I have:
GPA: unweighted- 4.19 weighted-3.82
I am taking all honors classes this year including Chemistry H and Physics H and an engineering class at my high school.
Next year I will be taking 4 AP’s.
I am on debate team, newspaper club, track, XC, math team, and will be holding leadership positions on these teams next year.
I plan to find a summer internship over this summer before junior year. (Any ideas)
If I am striving to get into UC Berkeley, Yale, Stanford, UMich, Vanderbilt and study possible biomedical engineering. What do I need to improve on? How can I improve? What would my chances be at the moment?
I am very new to looking for colleges considering that I am first generation and it would be great if you could give me some advice/tips!
The thing with ivies is that it is pretty hard to predict your chances especially when you don’t have your SAT scores. Since, You are a sophomore, you still have time to make your application impressive! Good Luck!
Btw, try throwing in some matches and Safeties, just in case if something happens!
Before making any college list, figure out how much your parents are willing to pay/year for your college education, if you will need and/or eligible for need-based financial aid or merit aid.
What is your home state? Your GPA is solid, but what about test scores? First generation can help in college admissions but very dependent upon each type of school.
It is easy to pick Reach schools, but please work on your college list from the bottom up. Find 1-2 safety schools (stats above the 75th percentile, affordable and you are willing to attend), 3-4 solid Match schools and then add your Reach schools.
Do EC’s that interest you, take a rigorous HS schedule in comparison with your fellow students and prepare for the ACT/SAT.
I think if you are looking to pursue a degree in biomedical engineering, especially at such high caliber schools, I suggest you start finding research opportunities outside of school to work on projects with university faculty. This will certainly boost your profile. Definitely study hard for the SAT/ACT and try to ace it on your first try because some colleges (Stanford is one of them, I think) require you to send all your test scores from all the dates you took the test. At the moment, it is hard to tell what your chances would be since you have not taken any AP classes yet, but I think as of now, you are definitely on track for getting in. Would you chance me back? http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1995754-chance-me-low-gpa-rank-cornell-rice-wash-u-ucla-etc.html#latest