Hi! I’m a current senior at a public high school in Maryland and I’m trying to finalize my early application strategy and college list. I’m mainly interested in statistics/biostatistics and plan on the pre-med track.
I’d really appreciate thoughts on whether Yale REA makes sense for my profile, or whether I should consider Brown or Duke ED. I’d also love suggestions for other schools that might be a good fit.
Demographics
Female
Maryland public high school
U.S. citizen
No significant financial constraints
Intended Major / Interests
Statistics / Biostatistics
Pre-med
Academics
4.0 UW / 4.6 W GPA
School does not officially rank; likely around top 5
SAT: 1550
APs completed (all 5s)
AP Statistics
AP Biology
AP Physics 1
AP Chemistry
AP Calculus AB
AP English Language
Senior Year
AP Calculus BC
AP Physics 2
AP English Literature
AP Computer Science A (Java)
Awards / Honors
State Science Fair Finalist
British Biology Olympiad (BBO) — Gold Award
Additional school-level STEM/academic honors
Research
~1 year conducting research in a university research lab
Multiple research projects/manuscripts
Co-author on a published paper
Another first-author manuscript submitted
Attended a selective research summer program
Extracurriculars
Hospital volunteer
Other Volunteer work
Varsity athlete and team captain
Leadership positions/president roles in several school clubs
What I’m looking for
I’m pretty flexible about location and school size, and cost isn’t a major factor.
Questions
Is Yale SCEA realistic for my profile? And would I be a reasonable applicant for any of H/Y/P/S/M? Most of my stronger awards and ECs are STEM/research-focused, and I don’t have any major humanities awards. Would that be a concern for a school like Yale?
How would you think about Yale REA vs. Brown ED vs. Duke ED for someone with my interests and profile?
How would you compare Brown and Duke for statistics/biostatistics + pre-med?
Are there any other schools you think I should consider for?
Budget for a full 8 years of university, where the last 4 year are going to be expensive. You do not want to take the full cost of medical school as debt. Even half the cost of medical school as debt would be a LOT of debt and could take years if not decades to pay off.
It will be way easier to save money on the first four years of university rather than on the last 4 years. Your excellent stats are likely to help in this regard. See whether your parents are willing to take any money that you save for undergraduate and put it towards the cost of medical school.
Premed classes are going to be very demanding, even at a school that is a solid safety for you. You might think of the primary advantages of the hard work that you have put in throughout high school and your excellent results to be, in order: (1) You are likely to be well prepared for the tough premed classes (but you will still find them academically challenging); (2) You could at some schools get merit aid and thereby help you save money for medical school; (3) This might give you a wider choice of undergraduate universities to choose from; (4) Some highly ranked universities may be possible. Note the order here.
Your grades are excellent. Your SAT score is excellent. I like your research experience. This is very good for a high school student. I think that you are a competitive applicant anywhere. HYPSM are still reaches.
While these highly ranked universities may be looking for a well-rounded student body, that does not mean that any one student needs to be well-rounded or spread across many fields. Excellence at whatever is right for you is the correct approach for a student aiming to attend a highly ranked university. This looks like exactly what you have done.
I do not know if you are going to like this, but: UMD. Your in-state public flagship is an excellent university. It will prepare you very well to apply to medical school, or to apply to other graduate programs (such as a PhD in a biomedical field if you decide to go that route).
By the way, neither of my daughters was premed, but both had majors that overlapped a lot with premed classes (one is a veterinarian, the required pre-vet classes are the same exact classes as the required premed classes – the other is currently doing biomedical research in a PhD program). Both have reported that even at schools that are ranked a bit lower than UMD the premed classes are tough, and are full of very strong students. Again, your excellent results in high school will prepare you very well for these classes, but they will not be easy at any university ranked in the top 150 or probably even 250.
I am not a big fan of ED for a potential full-cost premed student unless your parents are fine with paying more than $800,000 and very likely closer to $900,000 over 8 years without any hardship or debt. There is something to be said for getting acceptances in hand and being able to compare offers before you make a commitment. This means that I like REA (or regular EA) better than ED.
In terms of Yale versus Brown versus Duke versus some other “top 20” university versus UMD, you will find excellent professors and very strong students at all of them. You will find tough classes at all of them. You will find excellent research opportunities at all of them. You might want to make sure that each has a hospital either on campus or nearby where you can shadow.
You also should try to visit a few schools and just see where you are the most comfortable. You will be working very hard in university, and it is preferable to do so in a location where you feel at home. I would not ED anywhere without visiting it first.
As to which has the most research specifically in biostatistics, I think that you might just need to see what you can find out individually about each school.
I didn’t see anything about advanced classes in History/Social Sciences or Non-Native Languages. Was that just an omission, or were they not available, or did you choose not to take them?
I also agree that any potential medical student needs a really good financial plan for all the way through med school, ideally one which will basically minimize your personal debt by the end of med school (eliminating it would be even better, but that isn’t always realistic).
A few families are wealthy enough to pay for both any college and any med school, which is great. But if that is not your family, you should work with them to discuss saving on undergrad costs so as to redirect family resources to possible med school costs.
Thanks! I just left those out for brevity. I’ve taken advanced history/social science courses and continued a non-native language through high school as well. I only listed my AP classes, so I didn’t mention those.
OK, well Yale doesn’t need STEM kids to be winning awards in those areas, they just want to see them challenging themselves in those areas in their classes as available at their high school.
So if you feel like you challenged yourself in all of English, History/Social Sciences, and Non-Native Languages as much as you reasonably could in terms of classes, then I would just go ahead and apply SCEA to Yale and see what happens.
And of course have a great list of carefully-chosen Likelies and Targets in case it doesn’t work out at Yale or other Reaches. In fact, consistent with another part of this conversation, in my circles it is quite common for aspiring premeds to end up choosing a Likely or Target offer over Reach offers, including if they get a nice merit award or it would otherwise be much more affordable.
Could you please list all of the courses you have taken in high school…not just the AP courses?
My opinion, you are a strong applicant. You have a chance at all of the colleges you listed. As you know, they have very low acceptance rates.
I agree with the poster above. I would strongly suggest you apply to UMD in their early action round. You will need to check, but I believe you can do this even IF you apply SCEA to Yale. @Mwfan1921 do you know?
Medical school is very costly. And will be moreso by the time you get there. Agree, you need a plan for funding that also should that become a reality.
I’m wondering where your list of colleges came from.
You’re right on target for colleges. You should definitely apply Yale REA if this is your number #1 choice; 11% EA admit rate versus 3% RD admit rate. Brown and Duke are also good “reach” options to consider for biostatistics. Harvard, Columbia, and Johns Hopkins are also other potential colleges to consider for statistics/biostatistics.
THIS. I don’t see any absolutely sure things on your current list. You certainly have the potential to get accepted to all of the schools you listed…but that might not happen. Please find a sure thing…just in case.
I’m about to link a very old thread. But I would strongly suggest you read all of it. Even though it’s older, the premise is the same…and college admissions have gotten more competitive in the last 20 years. Like you, this was a VERY strong student. No one expected him to be shut out everywhere he applied as a high school senior…but that is what happened. He was a NMF, class val, excellent LOR and ECs, top SAT score…an all around strong student. He did land on his feet after a well crafted gap year, but you don’t want to be this student. His senior year in high school was filled with disappointment after disappointment.
@BlueBudgie ok…so my suggestion is to apply to UMD in their early action round. And you can still apply SCEA to Yale. IMHO you have a decent chance to garner a decent merit award at UMD and this could be valuable if you want to conserve some money for possible medical school.
Remember, if you apply to Brown ED and are accepted, you will be attending Brown. OTOH, SCEA to Yale is not binding should you get accepted, so you could apply to other colleges in the RD round.
You might find that your perspective changes during your senior year of high school.
I note in my circles, high numbers premeds often apply to very good private research universities with affiliated research hospitals that also have robust merit programs. Rochester and Case Western are two very popular options like that.
Another idea is LACs with strong STEM departments and merit. LACs tend to do quite well in med school placement studies, and although I think a lot of that is self-selection (like, lots of people choose LACs already knowing they are likely to want further degrees), I don’t think it hurts to be in a generally supportive environment, to have few or no really large lecture classes, and to have a lot of undergrad research opportunities. Some possible examples with robust merit include Whitman, Ursinus, Hendrix, Rhodes, Allegheny College, Kalamazoo, Trinity (Texas), St Olaf, and Juniata. I note although this size of college is unlikely to have a preplanned Biostatistics major, I am confident it would be easy to put together an appropriate curriculum plan.
Here’s my early application strategy - I would find the other schools I’m interested in and even if privates that have an EA (like a Miami), I would apply to them EA.
I would not apply to anywhere ED in your case or Yale REA.
Why do I say this?
Because you are going to college, somewhere four years, day after day after day.
And so you need to be at a place where you want. Duke is different than Brown - so I don’t use ED as a game - but I only ED to a place that:
I can assuredly afford
that I know i want to 100% be - and I don’t think a ranking/pedigree impacts this once you step on campus.
It is not a game - and you are trying to use as such. And kids that say, but they take so many ED - but that includes athletes, invited people like Questbridge and more. And have you looked at how many RD they had to accept to fill the rest of the class because the yields are less.
And then you have the high end schools saying this like Brown -
“Please do not assume that your admission chances are improved by applying under the Early Decision plan. The Board of Admission makes the same decisions under Early Decision that it would under the Regular Decision plan.”
So I have zero interest in where your profile fits but more interest in where you fit. And you haven’t answered that - does one screamingly stand out that this is home!!!
And for that reason I would say none of these make sense for an early application for you.