Hi I’d like to know what people think about my son’s college list.
Applying CA in state in chemistry or biochem
4.0 Unweighted
4.67 Weighted
6 Honors courses
4 completed AP courses (AP Bio, Chem, Psych, English Lang)
5 AP in progress (Envi Sci, Physics, Stats, Eng Lit, Econ)
Link Crew Leader 2 years
4 years of Soccer (3JV, 1 Var)
1 year of Golf (JV)
Worked in lab for 1 summer doing cancer research
EC Did community service and volunteer work but otherwise not particularly spectacular.
Applying to Columbia ED, NYU, USC, U Mich, UIUC, U Wash, all UC’s (except Merced and Riverside), SDSU, Cal Poly SLO, Santa Clara, Northeastern, BU, Oregon
If you have not taken any DE/College courses, your Capped weighted UC GPA should equal your CSU GPA.
SLO is the exception and uses 9th-11th grades in their GPA calculation so you need to recalculate including 9th grades and the Capped weighted GPA with 9th grades is your SLO GPA.
Yes, there are definitely students who are happy with their safety choice. And that’s important because sometimes that’s where you end up, either because of lack of acceptances or lack of affordability for other schools you were accepted to. If cost is not a barrier for you, that’s definitely great.
This should not be considered a safety school - but your chances are much higher ED/EA than RD. RD chances are significantly lower. (As I often point out to those who consider SCU an easy admit, my daughter - who was awarded a Regents Scholarship by UC Berkeley - was waitlisted by SCU in RD.)
If he’s not thrilled with Oregon, then yes. At least one safety he’d feel good about going to. Two would be even better so that he’s assured some choice, no matter what else happens.
This is NOT to say that I don’t think he’ll get in at the other schools on his list - there’s a good chance that he will get a few acceptances from his list - but you always need a solid safety net. Crazy things happen sometimes. If you have your safety net ready, then you’ve put yourself in the best possible position.
It’s not to say he’d be unhappy at Oregon but obviously he would prefer going to one of his targets or reach schools.
I guess what I’m really wanting to know is it likely he will get into one of his targets and/or reach schools. And if it’s iffy, maybe I should add another safety school…
I just wanted to make sure OP understood that they don’t “need” a test score, as it is not a requirement for admission. Plenty of kids apply to these universities as test optional and are admitted.
Understood that all of the schools that my son is applying to are test optional. The purpose of the post was to confirm that this is a reasonable list where he will have 4-5 schools to choose from his target or reach schools. I know it’s an imperfect science and there’s a lot of variables but as long as his list is in the “reasonable” range.
For UCB, the student has the option to apply for the College of Chemistry or College of Letters and Science.
In the College of Chemistry, the student would major in chemistry or chemical biology.
In the College of Letters and Science, the student would major in chemistry or molecular and cell biology (biochemistry and molecular biology or biological chemistry option).
The differences in course work are greater between chemical biology and molecular and cell biology than they are between the CoC and L&S chemistry majors.
I don’t think you can assure 4-5 from this list but I’d say at least 2+ and likely more - I’m confident on three.
And frankly, if you like every school on your list and it’s affordable, then you only need one.
If you ended up at one and you’d be disappointed - yes, then your list is not good.
I think your list is fine - but I’m assuming you’d love every school on your list. Otherwise, why else apply?
Good luck.
PS - if you wanted to expand your list, both UMN and Ohio State fit in with other schools on your list, are highly rated for chem - and would both be likely.
thanks for all the great responses. Not sure if I should be encouraged or discouraged. I guess the good news is that the list is reasonable but seems like the consensus maybe he will probably have 2 or 3 choices out of 18 or 19 schools. I was thinking that that was on the high end of schools that he should be applying to but now I’m considering throwing in a couple more…
IMHO he’ll have more than 2, and I’m not sure you need to add more if he would be happy at any of these schools. Is there a reason he did not take AP Calc? That may be a ding at the tippy top programs. Or did he take Honors Pre-Calc?
he had to drop down from pre calc with limits in his second semester junior year because he wasn’t confident that he would be able to get an A which put him off track for AP Calc. We felt that taking AP stats was actually a more useful class given his desire to enter into healthcare research.
Well, S25 is now plodding through AP Calc (which he was strongly encouraged to take by his college counselor) and is not even in sight of an A, so perhaps that was a good strategy!
