College advice, chance me, match me, 4.00 GPA medical hopeful [MD resident, no parent contribution]

Chance Me / Match Me
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Demographics

  • US Citizen
  • State/Location of residency: Maryland
  • Type of high school (or current college for transfers): Public
  • Other special factors: STEM Magnet Program

Cost Constraints / Budget
From talking with my parents, I gathered they don’t want to help me pay for college. As a junior, I’m not exactly sure what this means for me (can I even go to college this way?)

Intended Major(s)

Biology, Pre-Med, Neuroscience, or similar

Not entirely decided, but I’m firmly set on studying medicine

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • 4.00 at the moment
  • 4.95 (honors and ap classes are 5.00 for A’s, 4.00 for B’s, etc.)
  • Class Rank: N/A
  • ACT/SAT Scores: I haven’t taken the SAT yet

List your HS coursework

(Indicate advanced level, such as AP, IB, AICE, A-level, or college, courses as well as specifics in each subject)

  • English: Honors English 9, Honors English 10, AP Lang (current)
  • Math: Precalculus, Calculus, Multavariable Calculus and math electives (current)
  • Science: Physics, Chemistry, Biology, electives like Cell Phys, Neuro (all classes from my program)
  • History and social studies: APUSH, AP GOV, AP WORLD (current)
  • Language other than English: Spanish 4
  • Visual or performing arts: Orchestra
  • Other academic courses: N/A

Awards

First place for a college women’s math competition

AIME 2x qualifier

AMC 10a distinction

(I’m hopeful for national merit scholarship, ap scholar awards, and maybe HOSA)

Extracurriculars

Swim coaching (200+ hours), math competition non-profit, tutoring for non-profits, health awareness non-profit, hospital volunteer, senior center volunteer, county orchestra, year-round competitive swim, expected research internship this coming summer

Essays/LORs/Other
Question: any tips to get stronger letters of rec for prospective teachers? I maintain a strong relationship with my math teacher of two years, but I want to also receive one from a biology teacher

Schools
I would appreciate any suggestions for schools in the sections I don’t have a lot of,

  • Assured (100% chance of admission and affordability): Community colleges near me
  • Extremely Likely: UMBC
  • Likely: UMD, Rochester (but I want to apply for BSMD program), GW university (but I think theres a BSMD there?)
  • Low Probability: Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, Johns Hopkins, Brown, Caltech, UC berkley, UCLA

In general, when looking at my extracurriculars I feel like nothing really stands out. I would really appreciate any tips!!

Looking at the profiles of other alumni of my high school that got into Ivies has made me discouraged at the “ordinaryness” of what I do. How can I get more high-level leadership positions and awards?

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With zero parental support? Hard to say. They will need to fill out the FAFSA and that will determine what colleges expect them to pay and what need-based financial aid you might qualify for. If they are high income, you will not qualify for need-based aid, regardless of their unwillingness to help. It is assumed they will help if they can.

That means you will basically need a full ride merit based scholarships. If you get national merit finalist, that may open some full-ride options.

If not, you may need to start at a community college and transfer.

Drop the UCs. There is no way you will be able to afford those without significant parent assistance. As an out of state student, you will be full pay at around $80K/year.

Also the Ivies don’t offer merit, so unless you are extremely low income and eligible for significant need-based aid, they won’t be possible. If you are extremely low income, you could run the NPCs and see what they give you. Actually, you should run the NPC at all of the colleges on your list. Again, you will need to provide your parent’s income - regardless of their willingness to help, that will be factored into what you are expected to pay.

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My parents are on the upper end of middle class income. This means if I can’t get a full ride to a school, I won’t be able to go to any schools besides community colleges?

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If you do not qualify for need based aid and your parents will not provide financial support, then you will need a full ride merit scholarship. If you get national merit, take a look at Alabama and Tulsa. I believe they offer full rides if you make finalist. Run the NPCs at the schools on your list and you will get a better idea of where you stand, but many of those schools do not offer merit aid, so may not be possible for you without any parental assistance.

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I am not sure what you are looking for here. There are no free schools in US unless you are from low income family (or willing to go to schools like Alabama and even that may not be totally free.)
Suggestions that you probably will not like (and Blair and Poolesville HS magnets hate) - do as much as possible dual inrolvement at Montgomery College. Take AP classes instead of magnet ones. You can get credit for AP classes but not for magnet ones in college.

If your parents will totally refuse to pay do MC→UMD route (first 2 years at MC will not be expensive and you will qualify for 50% scholarship as graduate of public MCPS). But be careful, medical schools do not like APs and science classes taken as AP or in community colleges.

Even instate UMD is about $30k with living on campus.

I live in MC with kids who attended STEM magnets, MC, and transferred a lot of credits, and one in BS/DO program. You can pm me.

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Correct.

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If schools don’t have a full ride merit, no need to apply.

Apply W&L because they have the Johnson Scholarship. 10% get. Apply to Providence. They have the Roddy for pre med. Apply SMU - they have the presidential. How about service academies ?

Apply Troy if you get a strong ACT/SAT. Could be auto full ride.

Or go to a CC - and transfer

Med school costs too. So how do you pay for that? But that’s years away.

The undergrad name will matter little.

The Scholars PLUS Award at Troy.

33-36 ACT/1450-1600 RSAT and a 3.7 GPA
Tuition, full housing and meal plan
APPLY THROUGH THE TROY SCHOLARSHIP PORTAL

The Scholars Award

30-32 ACT/1360-1440 RSAT and a 3.7 GPA
Tuition and basic housing

Good luck.

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If parents are unwilling to help financially, medical school is unlikely anyway, unfortunately (especially with the new caps on student loans).

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Agree. But a student first has to get BS. And there are no free BS/MD. In fact most BSMD are very expensive.

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Unfortunately beeing in STEM magnet from MD is a huge disadvantage. You will be compared to your magnet classmates not to general population. All your magnet friends will be applying to the same top schools and each school will take only few of them. We have been there… Like every single will apply to UMich and UMich will accept 1 and put 49 of your classmates on waitlist…Because of the above, 50% will end up in UMD. This has been the case for magnet kids year after year.

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This is true. But given the OP’s financial situation, it doesn’t make sense to apply to most highly selective schools anyway as they won’t offer the level of merit-based aid they need. They need, imo, a different strategy entirely - applying to lower-ranked schools with generous merit aid that might really like to attract a student like this. If national merit works out, even better - probably a few more doors will open. But again, this won’t be at the highly selective schools that most of their classmates will be applying to.

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Means that you need a full ride or close to that to attend college. Either that means a big merit scholarship, typically at a less selective college where you would be a top student, or your parents have low income and assets and cooperate on financial aid forms and you get into colleges with good need based financial aid (mostly highly selective privates; in-state publics may work in some states).

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Agree with every word. But OP is prestige hungry like all STEM magnet kids from our area.

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Unless OP’s parents change their minds, unfortunately, this just isn’t going to happen. Maybe if they get more information about the realities of college financial aid, they will reconsider their position.

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Most, but not all.

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Thanks all for advice! After realizing I had a big understanding gap with my chances were without any financial support, I had another talk and we agreed that we would have another discussion about finance closer to my ED decisions, when they will decide how they will or will not help me. All your help has been really helpful, and I will most likely follow your advice if their decision stays the same, but for now I stay optimistic that it won’t. Thanks again!

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OP, before jumping straight to the community college to transfer route, I’d look for as many possible full-rides with LACs and universities known to be generous (yes, most won’t be top-tier but you might get some excellent mentoring at a middle of the road LAC, as academia anywhere is so competitive these days that a professor at any college should be well qualified. Suggesting this because, once you have a high school diploma you will be ineligible for the big scholarships for freshmen if you enroll in so much as a single cc course. The cc-UMD or UMBC might be your best path but you don’t want to cut out other possibilities prematurely. And yes, apply for that Johnson Scholarship at W&L. Maybe look into the auto-admits and scholarships at U Alabama Huntsville as well as U Alabama flagship?

@MYOS1634 Can you jump in here?

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Generally, colleges prefer to see one letter of rec from a STEM teacher and one from a humanities/languages/social sciences one.

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Perhaps the first question is whether your parents would be willing to cover the cost of an in-state public university. While this might be the first question, you might not get the answer to this for quite a while (see more below). The first good news is that you have very good in-state public universities, and your great GPA should help you get accepted to them.

Perhaps the second good news is that there are a huge number of universities that are very good for premed students. This includes your in-state public universities. You do not need to attend a famous and highly ranked university to do very well, nor to get into a good medical school, nor to get into a very good biomedical graduate program, nor to do well in a wide range of other careers.

If your parents won’t pay anything at all, then this will severely limit your options. One option would be to start at community college, make an effort to do very, very well, and then transfer to an in-state public university after two years. Even this is likely to cost something. I am under the impression is that there are some universities further south that have very good merit based aid for some students, but unfortunately I don’t know much about them. Hopefully others can make suggestions.

Perhaps one piece of bad news is that getting to medical school and then graduating with an MD or DO is a very long, very difficult, and very expensive path. I am wondering whether another option will become attractive to you at some point. As one example, one daughter briefly thought of medical school as an option, but as an undergraduate student got involved in lab work and discovered that she liked it and is good at it. Then she got involved in biomedical research (still in a lab) and discovered that she liked this even more. She is currently getting a PhD. One advantage here is that a PhD, if you ever get that far, is typically fully funded (the university pays for your tuition and fees and health insurance, and gives each PhD student money each month that is enough to live on as long as the student lives frugally – in return the PhD students spend most of their time helping with research). However, all of this is something that you can figure out many years from now.

This suggests that the big name famous schools (Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, …) will be horribly expensive. You can probably just forget about them. Of course UC Berkeley and UCLA will also be too expensive.

Don’t worry about it. Just participate in the ECs that are right for you. Whatever you do, do it well. Treat other people well. You will be fine.

With great grades and strong academics, ECs are really only important for a few schools at the “Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, MIT” level, and it looks like you won’t be able to afford them anyway, and you really do not need to go there.

If you do get leadership positions, remember that “leadership” involves listening to others, and making an activity better for everyone who participates. Leadership in particular is NOT about getting your way. You can practice the “listening” part of this now. You can also think about how to improve any particular activity, and discuss this with others involved in the same activity. However, I would not worry about your ECs.

To me it seems like you should apply to in-state public schools, apply to a few schools that are known for very good merit aid (such as Alabama), and maybe apply to a few famous or highly ranked schools if and only if you can identify one or two or three that are likely to be a good fit for you. Also keep community college as an option. Then when the acceptances start to come in, see whether your parents might agree to fund something. They might not know what they are willing to pay for until they see what real options you have. If your parents are facing Harvard at $90,000 per year, UMD at a more reasonable price (hopefully with a little merit aid), and community college, then hopefully UMD might seem like it is worth the cost.

I do not think that I would apply ED anywhere unless you have a clear top choice, and you and your parents have figured out what they will pay for, and your top choice appears to be affordable.

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But if the student wants to go to med school, why does the name matter? I go back to my time at Vandy - wheere many of the residents went to schools like K State, N Illiniois, Luther, SE Louisiana and more - and Duke and JHU are similar. Med school students come from a wide range of schools.

And lower cost doesn’t come from top schools, unless you have significant need. OP needs to turn their list upside down….but will know more when they get their ACT.

And OP doesn’t need lower cost. They need no cost - so they’re going to have to shoot for Hail Mary’s, apply to auto merits like Troy and there may be others like Prarie View…..or go CC…which just delays the problem two years.