I have a pretty good idea of my targets and safeties, but I think all of you could help me with my reach schools. Of the ones listed below, which do you think suit me best (I definitely want to apply to a good number so list as many as you think)!
Dartmouth, MIT, Tufts, Columbia, Cornell, Yale, UPenn, Carnegie Mellon, Princeton, Johns Hopkins, UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke, UMich, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, WashU, Georgia Tech, Stanford, UC schools, and USC
What preferences for a school do you have besides wanting to major in biology with a goal of doing a PhD and going into research?
Note that biology is a broad field. Do you have any particular subareas of interest (or even preferences between the broad areas of molecular and cell biology versus ecological and evolutionary biology)? You may want to check the faculty rosters and course offerings in the biology departments of each school of interest to see what subareas are well represented.
Well - want this:
So you can research diversity for each school on their common data set. Just google the school + common data set and go to section and go to section B2. Dartmouth has 539 caucasian of 1206 first years - so thatâs diverse. At the same time, being caucasian, if you are, might make it harder.
You want to be in a city or cute college town. Most these qualify - well not all UCs. All UCs are different - so why say all?
Collaborative will be major dependent - bio - youâre probably ok at most. But others will know more. Some say CMU is competitive but others say not true.
Research is everywhere including UNH. Watch for department emails and approach professors. If you hustle, you get.
Spirit - some of these are big time sports - UNC, Duke, Michigan, USC, etc.
Your reaches are way too many - all these apps, youâll have a hard time finishing - and applying to more doesnât increase your odds. And youâre going to PhD - and any school will be fine.
So you need to decide which are right - but if I wanted to be in /near a city, Iâd remove Dartmouth and Cornell.
Basically you created a whoâs who of top schools. Have you visited any? You clearly have Rank-Itis.
You could get into a couple of these - but itâs very possible you get into zero.
Focus on the school you are likely to attend up - that safety that is affordable and youâd love to be at. Make sure you love that listâŠas itâs likely a school you will attend.
And are your parents able and willing to spend $400K over 4 year (if you are a full pay family) if they could $80K or $150K or $200K, etc. They may be - but have you had that chat?
Good luck.
Iâd recommend going through your list of the 5 things you listed in your first post and start culling some of these reach schools based on those criteria. Some of these schools donât have the reputation for being particularly collaborative. Others are in very rural settings. Some arenât known for their school spirit.
Have you looked into how the research opportunities at the schools on your list compare for undergrads as for graduate students? Oftentimes schools with large graduate departments will have more of the plum opportunities reserved for those students, as compared to a school with few or no grad students where undergrads have a lot more opportunities.
One school Iâm thinking about is Davidson. There are about 1900 undergrads here, itâs in a cute town, and itâs about a half hour away from Charlotte. Itâs the alma mater of Steph Curry and Davidson gets an A- from student ratings on Niche in terms of athletic enthusiasm. This would probably be a lower probability option.
Another school is U. of Richmond. There are about 3100 undergrads, it gets an A for athletics from Niche, and itâs also in a definite town. Iâd call this a low probability school.
Amherst has about 1900 undergrads, gets an A- for athletics from Niche, and is in the 5-college consortium with UMass, Mount Holyoke, Smith, and Hampshire. This would probably be a lower probability option. (If you identify as female, as your earlier mention of Wellesley seems to indicate, then Mount Holyoke and Smith could be a likely or a target, if athletic enthusiasm at UMass is sufficient for you.)
None of the above schools have any graduate programs in biology, so undergrads would not need to compete with grad students for any research opportunities.
Biology major courses, particularly at the frosh/soph level, will have lots of pre-meds competing for the high grades they need to get into medical school.
You will not have difficulty getting research at UNC. Keep in mind that most students will be from NC.
Dartmouth, Tufts, Columbia, JHU, Duke, Northwestern, WUSTL, are all reaches of course. You are competitive for admissions, but so are the vast majority of applicants at all of these schools.
Tufts currently costs about $95,000 per year (total cost of everything except not including transportation â which should be minimal with your coming from NH), and will probably be $100,000 by the time that you start there. The other schools on this reach list will not be very far behind. You could very well spent more than $400,000 by the time that they hand you a bachelorâs degree. Then of course there could be additional cost for a masterâs degree, although PhDâs are usually fully funded (with a stipend which is only just barely enough to live on â a small amount of parent enhancement of the stipend might make living on a PhD stipend for 5 or 6 or 7 years a bit more tolerable).
I think that UVM is pretty much a safety. You are also very likely to get merit aid there, which will not make it cheap but will make it significantly less expensive than the full cost private schools. U.Conn and U.Mass seem very likely also. I think that merit is possible at these schools but am not sure. Rutgers and NC state might similarly be likely but I am not as familiar with applying to them as an out of state student.
I am not sure which USC you are referring to. The one in California might be another reach.
The rest of your schools look to me to be somewhere in the middle, but I would not be surprised if you get acceptances at one or more of them.
And I think that you will get research opportunities at any of these schools.
I think that this is a pretty good list as long as your parents are okay with spending something north of $400,000 for a bachelorâs plus another $250,000 or so for a masterâs if this ends up being needed (guessing at future price increases).
By the way, we are somewhat familiar with applying for a PhD in a sub-field of biology. A masterâs degree is not always strictly needed, but PhD admissions is insanely competitive at âtop 30â programs. Strong grades, strong references, strong research experience, and a good personal statement will all be needed. If you have a publication by then that would not hurt.
I do wonder whether you should add an application for UNH since you are in-state. However this does not seem to be strictly necessary since you should be safe to get into at least one if not all of UVM, U.Conn, and U.Mass.
And I do think that you are doing very well.
I think you are mostly right, but I would humbly submit that I think UIUC and UW-Madison are probably best viewed as matches/targets for this OOS applicant.
I agree.
These are all fine schools. I think you need to start looking at ways to eliminate some of them. Maybe ease of travel. Maybe weather. maybe proximity to a larger city. Maybe size.
And I think you need to visit some to get an idea.
Ultimately you will want to cut it to fewer, not more, schools.
But that said, I agree with some of the suggestions above to check out some smaller schools, say some of the ones on that Biology PhD feeders list (per capita version).
Mainly I think that because as others pointed out, research opportunities and collaboration among the top students and faculty can often be very high among undergrads at such colleges, and that helps explain why they do so well in PhD placement.
They can also be very high on school spiritâin their own way. Like, maybe not football games with 100,000 fans, but more intimate competitive sports your friends might actually play, and lots of other traditions and activities and such that I would associate with strong school spirit.
If that sounds interesting, I would definitely check out Haverford. Very academicky school, short train ride into Philly, fun BiCo relationship with Bryn Mawr . . . seems like a potential fit.
Carleton is another school with really strong academics and it is in a very nice college town (Northfield), and also only like 45 minutes from the Twin Cities. Lots and lots of fun quirky traditions, spirited sports, and so on.
St Olaf, a forum favorite, is ALSO in Northfield (which itself helps explain why Northfield is such a nice college town). Again really strong life sciences, and both of these LACs have a real Minnesota Nice thing that might well be appealing to you.
Kalamazoo College is in a great college town (or really small city) of the same name, which it shares with Western Michigan University. Kalamazoo the city has lots of cool music and bars and restaurants and such, and is also a bit of a life sciences hub. There are actually trains from there to both Chicago and Detroit (it is basically right in the middle). The college is particularly strong in Bio and Chem, and also has a really cool curriculum approach, the K Plan, you might want to check out.
Finally, Oberlin is in a nice town just outside of Cleveland. A lot of people know of them for the conservatory, but they have also always been strong in sciences, not least life sciences. Some people describe it as a strong fit school, and I think there is something to that, but for kids where the fit is good it can be a great experience.
Thatâs just a few ideas, but point being I think academicky kids often benefit from at least taking a serious look at colleges like these, which are really much more focused on giving undergraduates specifically the sort of experience you seem to be looking for. And among other things, it works to get a relatively high percentage of them into grad programs.
To be honest, your scores are on the very low end for all but a few of these reach schools, and it is not possible for any of us to guess on your rank. Depending on the high school and the weighting system, you could be top5% or just outside of the top20%.
In addition, your course difficulty is impossible for us to know: the 4APs you have at the end of junior year is just above average at some high schools, and top 8-10% students at others. Colleges will know your high school and have an idea on your approximate rank and rigor based on the information the school provides and historical data.
These schools are all high reaches. Select a few based on what you are seeking, but focus on the schools that are targets.
Have you considered Pitt?
And I do hope you are applying to UNHâŠgreat small college town. Checks off most of your boxes.
Another one to consider is University of Delaware.
I think you would likely get accepted to the Ohio State University too.
This student also said cute college town. Ithaca (where Cornell is) and Hanover (where Dartmouth is located) are both very charming college towns.
Yes, but Cornell, as an example, is a few miles from the heart of Ithaca whereas Ithaca College is close.
They can leave them, of course,âŠbut then another metric must be used.
No matter what, I think the list will need to get smaller. There are 20 schools on that list.
But thereâs still time to research, investigate, and go on some visits if the student hasnât. Thatâs what the student is doing - trying to figure out a way to reduce the list.
And they will - with some time and effort - maybe they can make a charge of the 5 or 6 most important things - weight them - maybe ease to get to is 10%, niche rating on dorm food 10%, etc. - and come up with a scale.
Lots of ways to figure this outâŠ
I donât really see why Hopkins is on your list. It attracts a lot of pre-med aspirants, and earning a committee letter there to apply to med school is highly competitive. Youâd still be in the middle of that, as a bio major aspiring to PhD programs. Plus, it doesnât have the sports-spirit culture you want either⊠nor does Baltimore have a âfun college townâ reputation.
Since youâre looking at some west coast schools and donât have budget constraints, you might check out UCSBâs College of Creative Studies, which is a small program, often described as being like âgrad school for undergrads,â within the larger university. The CCS Biology major is specifically geared toward students seeking a career in research. Youâd get a research-heavy education from day one⊠but youâd also be on a fun and lively campus with sports, beach, etc. CCS requires an addition application in addition to the UC app.
Also, consider the Claremont Colleges. Theyâre small, but the whole consortium blends together and has more than 7000 undergrads combined. Harvey Mudd is the STEM school with a Caltech-like STEM core, but itâs undergrad-focused unlike Caltech. Scripps, the womenâs college, would allow you to cross-register freely at Mudd, Pomona, CMC and Pitzer - I know several bio majors who got into tippy-top grad programs from Scripps. The 5Câs are DIII but thereâs fun spectating to be had if you want it. Claremont is a cute college town but you can also get into LA on the train.
USC, Northwestern, and Duke are the most sports-spirited of the elite privates⊠Notre Dame would also be in this category, if you would be okay with the Catholic affiliation.
Minnesota could be another good flagship to consider. Maybe UT-Austin too.
Good luck!
As others have mentioned, the school spirt in these colleges in terms of sports varies widely, in addition to the type of campus. I would narrow it down to say Northwestern, Vanderbilt, USC, UMich, UNC and Tufts, so thatâs six reaches. I would apply EA to UMich, UNC, USC and the other public schools on your list and based on that, expand the list of reaches if you get into any of them as you would have a backup plan. If you are deferred by the reaches but get into, say Wisconsin, you would have to consider reducing your list of reaches for RD. You goal in going to a place like Northwestern would be make you a good candidate for Phd programs at other places. So, if you want to get a Phd at MIT, getting an undergrad somewhere else could be beneficial. Good luck! Youâll do fine.
i know it is another reach and they love ED - Barnard College of Columbia University. Not really strong sports culture - same as Columbia.
This topic was automatically closed 180 days after the last reply. If youâd like to reply, please flag the thread for moderator attention.