Coursework
GA Tech Dual Enrollment - A 1st Sem/ B 2nd Sem
AP Calculus BC - 5
AP Biology - 5
AP World History - 5
AP Computer Science A - 5
AP Research - 5
AP Seminar - 5
AP Physics C -3
AP Physics Enm - 4
APUSH - 4
AP Gov - 4
AP Spanish -4 (AP/IB/Dual Enrollment classes, AP/IB scores for high school; also include level of math and foreign language reached and any unusual academic electives; for transfers, describe your college courses and preparation for your intended major(s))
Awards
Robotics World Finalist
Congressional App Challenge Winner
State Science fair Winner 1st in Category (multiple award in Science Fair)
National Honor Society
PVSA
Extracurriculars
Paid intern at GT Lab
Research 3+ years at 3 labs
AI4 ALL
Volunteer work 400 + hours*(Include leadership, summer activities, competitions, volunteering, and work experience)*
Essays/LORs/Other very Strong
Cost Constraints / Budget No Restraints
Schools (List of colleges by your initial chance estimate; designate if applying ED/EA/RD; if a scholarship is necessary for affordability, indicate that you are aiming for a scholarship and use the scholarship chance to estimate it into the appropriate group below)
Safety : UGA
Likely : GA Tech, CMU,UIUC,VA Tech, Purdue
Reach: Princeton, Stanford, Brown, John Hopkins, UPenn
So I note all your Reaches are mid-size private research universities, and in fact I would personally classify the other institution like that on your list, CMU, as a reach as well.
But then all your other listed colleges are large public universities.
So I am personally wondering if you have considered other private research universities that are not so reachy as the ones you listed, but might share a lot of what you find appealing about the reachier such universities on your list.
Indeed, many independent colleges (so not part of large research universities), aka LACs, are quite good for undergrad Biology. So in our feederish HS, many of the kids who are interested in colleges like Princeton and Brown also look at various LACs. I am similarly wondering if you have considered looking at those.
Just to give you an idea of why I am asking, if you look at the per capita version of this Biology PhD feeders list, so the right column, you will see many LACs on that list:
They are also well-represented on this per capita list of feeders to top MD schools (the bottom version):
So it is worth at least thinking about such options, at least if you are also looking at other private colleges anyway.
Is she applying to biomedical engineering or biology? Both will be difficult at her reaches, and both are heavily dominated by females in the applicant pool at most of the schools listed. What subjects were her non-A grades in, and what years of HS did they occur?
CMU is definitely a reach. Purdue and seems like match to me, at best, not a likely. It is highly school dependent: for top20% (but not top 10%), Purdue is a match from the public magnets and the top privates in our area, top 5 or 10% with top rigor would make it a likely.
Georgia Tech in state helps a lot: is it truly a likely though (greater than 75% chance of admission)?
How many students get into ivies/ivy+ from your HS , unhooked(I do not see any hooks unless I missed it)? Is it more or less than 10% of the class? So much of this depends on the high school.
I agree with NUPM that finding schools that are similar in vibe to the reaches may make more sense, especially if flexible for Bio vs BME. For example, William&Mary could be a match (greater than 25% chance, less than 75%) , same with Wake Forest, Emory, Boston College.
Fine list but I’d say CMU is in the reach category - but I could see you getting into some reaches.
If these are all within budget (you can pay full, I get), congrats to you. Put another way, will your parents pay for other schools on your list over the UGA or Ga Tech cost when you’ll have free tuition.? If they’d take free UGA vs. full price Penn, then you can cull the list.
But the list, for admissions purposes, is fine. If you applied for bio (and not engineering, your list is a bit easier).
Congrats on your accomplishments. And best of luck.
In fact my S24 with a Bio interest applied to William & Mary and Wake Forest, along with Rochester and Pitt, for his less reachy US university options (the first two were classified as Targets, the second two as Likelies, given his numbers coming out of our HS). Pitt is probably unnecessary as long as the OP is happy with UGA, but I’d certainly recommend at least taking a look at those privates, along with the others you mentioned.
A couple other universities to potentially consider would be Case Western (very popular with premeds in particular, including because they often offer merit to high numbers kids), and WUSTL, where my S24 is actually going.
Congratulations to your daughter on her strong record!
Below are my guesses as to what your daughter’s chances might be at these schools, making the assumption that
means biology/biomedical sciences. If you mean biological engineering/biomedical engineering, then I think her chances of admission would be lower than what I’m posting here (as in most of the likely schools would drop to low or lower probability).
Extremely Likely (80-99+%)
Likely (60-79%)
Purdue
UGA
UIUC
Virginia Tech
Toss-Up (40-59%)
Lower Probability (20-39%)
Georgia Tech
Low Probability (less than 20%)
CMU
Princeton
Stanford
Brown
Johns Jopkins
UPenn
Would you like some assistance in finding likelier admit schools that bear a closer resemblance to the schools that I classified as low probability?
(Note, the schools in the low probability bucket are not because of anything deficient in your daughter’s very strong background, but because those schools receive far more applications from very strong candidates than they can accept, thus rejecting the vast majority of their strong applicants.)
In fact with the help of that breakdown, it really does stand out that Georgia Tech is rather lonely in that big range between Low Probability and Likely.
Now sometimes people love a Likely enough that makes sense. Particularly if you have some affordable in-state options you really like, in this case possibly Georgia and Georgia Tech, you can maybe just do a few reaches on top and have a nice short list.
So I don’t want to say this approach is necessarily wrong, but it does seem worth thinking about. Including because at least in my circles, the overlap between kids really wanting to go to one of, say, either Brown or Georgia Tech seems very limited. Not impossible, just not a common way of thinking about things in my experience.
William and Mary, Wake Forest and BC are not remotely close in admissions or otherwise to Emory. Emory is a Reach, especially for its most popular major. And OP is correct W&M is a likely, as in greater than 50% chance.
CMU is Reach as well, otherwise the list looks fine. However, I would reconsider applying to CMU for premed, it just isnt their forte. The same can be said for GT but its instate so it should stay.
Just for the record, I believe the W&M OOS acceptance rate was most recently around 28%, Wake was about 21%, BC 17%, Emory (main) 11%. This is a crude measure of selectivity, but for sure Emory is the most selective in this group.
So the quickest way I know to look at that is with 25/50/75 ranges for test scores, although that is imperfect in the test optional era.
Emory was 1470/1500/1540 for SAT, 32/33/34 for ACT. BC was 1430/NA/1510 and 33/NA/34, Wake 1410/1450/1500 and 32/33/34, and William & Mary 1365/1450/1510 and 32/33/34. I note the lower 25th SAT is consistent with William & Mary being in-state for Virginia students, with Virginia being mostly an SAT state.
Emory is therefore again highest by this measure, but as usual with such colleges there is quite a bit of overlap. Obviously there is more to admissions than just test scores, however.
Just anecdotally, at our feederish HS, a lot of kids who would apply to Emory would also apply to schools like Wake and William & Mary (and maybe BC, although I think that is maybe a bit more in a different part of the college family tree). And often it would not be quite clear why some of those kids would or would not get into Emory.
The OP has not indicated that this student is pre med. Hopefully @annie212 will come back to this thread and clarify. I agree with you that Georgia Tech and CMU probably aren’t the best choices for pre med because of the difficulty of maintaining a high GPA (and I would say the same for JHU). However, if this student is looking at biomedical engineering, all three of those schools are excellent options. I would also add that BME would be a very tough major for a pre med. At Georgia Tech the joke has always been that BME stands for “business major eventually”.
Just putting in my two cents generally as a Georgia resident and an Emory alum. I think the list as it stands is fine . UGA and Georgia Tech are excellent universities and tuition free thanks to the HOPE scholarship program. Many top students here will apply only to our in state publics and to some Ivy + types of reach schools. Whether additional “match” or lower reach schools are necessary is a very individual decision. Emory would be another reach school, although a more attainable reach than the Ivies or JHU. It would be questionable from a financial standpoint whether it would be a better choice for a pre med over UGA, and makes zero sense for BME because Emory’s program is a joint program with Georgia Tech.
I generally agree with @AustenNut’s assessment of chances, but would just add that the chance of admission at Georgia Tech is very high for students that have done their DE math program. Although not guaranteed, every student we know who did well in it (an A or B) was accepted at Tech.
In terms of UGA chances, it very well may be a safety for this student. Much of that is high school specific. Op says this student is “top quintile”. It would be useful to know how many students UGA accepts from their highschool and how this student stacks up against them. If the school uses Naviance or Scoir, it should give a pretty clear indication of chances. It might also be helpful to calculate a UGA GPA which uses grades in core courses only and then adds 1 point to AP and IB classes ( but no weight for DE or honors). A 3.9 unweighted with a bunch of AP classes should yield a weighted GPA much higher than 4.13.
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