High School Class of 2020

Pre-College Topics High School Life
1621

for me: (school only offers honors classes so gym and art and music etc. are also honors)
Junior year:
Dual Enrollment English (at local university)
AP Calc BC
AP Chem
AP Physics 1
AP Macro Econ
AP Enviro
Honors History
Honors Spanish
2 Honors Electives

Senior Year
Dual Enrollment English (at local university)
Dual Enrollment Math (at local university)
Dual Enrollment History (at local university)
AP Bio
AP Comp Sci
AP Physics 2
Spanish 4
Honors electives ( including aviation, robotics, etc.)

1622

EA is not equal to SCEA. Single Choice Early Action is similar to ED. Only one application for the latter. EA is non-binding but allows for multiple submissions. Your college counselor controls the high school transcripts and is the gatekeeper in this instance.

1623

In correct - you can apply EA to multiple.

ED: early decision - one college (I think there are some exceptions like applying to state univ etc - but in general ED is committed if we are admitted and hence we cannot apply to multiple)
SCEA: single choice EA - restrict applying to other EA (not many have this but some Ivies)
EA: early admission - non-binding (if you get a seat, still reject it and go to some other). I think, you can apply to as many as you want. MIT is an example.

1624

SCEA for ivies prevents you from applying from other PRIVATE schools

you can still apply EA for public schools (UMich etc)

1625

Yeah, every school has its own policies for EA/ED. Typically ED is binding while EA is not. SCEA (I believe this is the same as restrictive early action) is only available at some schools. Ivy leagues for example prevent you from applying to other private schools, as mentioned by @8thgradekid and Stanford’s restrictive early action prevents you from applying to ANY other schools. I personally don’t feel ready to do an SCEA or restrictive early action or ED.

1626

Does anyone know when March SAT scores come out?

1627

March 22

1628

Hey, you guys! Now that AP exams are starting next week, I just wanted to wish all of you good luck.

Have a nice day.

1629

I did. Got a 26.

1630

Thanks! You too!

1631

Hey guys! I am currently a rising senior who plans to be a pre med student (majoring in Biomedical but unsure yet) in college and I would like to receive some input to improve my odds into getting in my desired colleges. Below I listed a general idea of my application. Any help is useful! Thanks!

Also, I have taken way more AP’s than the average junior in high school and as a result, I received B’s in a couple of those AP classes. Will this play impact my college admissions by a considerable amount or will admission officers understand that my course rigor was very difficult?

Grade: Going to be a Senior this Fall
Location: Northern Virginia
Current GPA: 4.10 (Hopefully around a 4.3 by end of senior class through my planned course load)
Current SAT (Attempted 3 times) : Math: 760, English: 680 (plan on taking it a 4th time in August for 1500)
Subject Tests: None (plan on taking Math 2 and Chemistry Subject Tests during October and November)

Extracurriculars:
-Volunteered at the DC VA Medical Center for the last 3 years in OR, ER, and Pharmacy. I was able to gain insight in the medical field by shadowing doctors and the medical staff and watching surgeries while also providing help in the hospital such as handling prescriptions for patients, inputting patient surgery information, and distributing medical supplies throughout the departments. Accumulated over 400 hours within this organization and recognized for it. I plan on volunteer here this summer in their Research Department and to reach 500 hours

-Volunteered at the Walter Reed National Military Center last summer in Occupational Therapy and Surgical Waiting Room. In Occupational Therapy, I helped my supervisor find technology for current and former US military personal who are disabled or impaired from combat to assist them in their current living situation. In Surgical Waiting Room, I comforted the patients families and helped them keep up to date on the current status of their loved one in the OR. Volunteered around 90 hours from Walter Reed

-Volunteered in the Red Cross for the last 3 years and accumulated 84 hours from this organization. Served as a Blood Donor Ambassador during this span and helped out in various events to promote general safety from homes to disasters

-Started recently volunteering in the Medical Reserve Corps to help improved health and safety of communities and provide emergency support in the case of a disaster

-Founded FBLA in my school and am a member of National Honors Society, Math Honors Society, and Science National Honors Society

Current Course Load:
-AP Language/Comp: A-
-AP Psychology: B
-AP Calculus: B
-AP US History: B
-Academic Physics: B+
-AP Chemistry: A-
-AP Computer Science A: A-
-Study Hall

Planned Senior Year Course Load:
-AP Literature
-AP Calculus BC
-AP Biology
-AP Physics
-AP Human Geo
-AP Government
-AP Statistics
-Study Hall

Schools I am interested in:
-VCU
-Virginia Tech
-Penn State
-UPitt
-William and Mary
-University of Virginia
-University of Southern California
-NYU
-Baylor

My parents are generous enough to pay for all or most of my tuition.

1632

@AlphaDog1031 IMO, you are taking too many APs which likely resulted in your 4 B’s junior year and no “A’s” only A-. I would at least drop AP Stats and/or AP HUG senior year as many colleges will ask for 1st semester grades and you want to continue to get strong grades senior year.

I would (would have spent) more time prepping for your SAT (or ACT) to get them in at least the middle range for your colleges that you are looking to apply.

Question, did you take at least 3 years of a foreign language?

Lastly, make sure you have several safety colleges on your list as most of those colleges you listed are very selective.

Good luck, you seem like a strong student who likes to challenge him/herself.

1633

@AlphaDog1031 Sorry if any of this sounds harsh. This is based completely off my knowledge of the college app process, so take this with a grain of salt.

I agree with socaldad2002, you’re taking way too many APs for you to handle. It’s much better to take a little bit less APs and keep a 4.0 UWGPA imo (of course, it’s bad to go way too lightly to the point where you’re getting easy A+'s). In the end though, I can’t really give you much advice about your GPA without more information about your class rank and school rigor. Colleges look at something called the Secondary School Report, which gives information about the rigor of those classes offered at your school. They compare students across schools on their coursework based on the Secondary School Report. Also, I’m not sure about the schools you’re applying to, but some schools, like the UCs, require 3 years of foreign language, which was brought up by socaldad2002. Make sure to check the course requirements of the schools you’re applying to. Lastly, an advice I’d give is to drop AP Physics next year. Taking two science APs is usually pretty difficult because they’d both have labs, which may conflict with each other.

Your SAT score and attempts may raise concerns in the college application process. Typically if you take it 3 or more times, it starts to look bad. Considering you’re going to take it 4 times, and your highest score is a 1440 so far, colleges might look down upon that. You might want to consider dropping SAT completely and just doing ACT now. If I remember correctly, you can choose to send only your ACT scores but not your SAT scores if you wish, so if you can get a 34 or 35 on the ACT, you can send colleges that only, and not your SAT scores/attempts.

As for extracurriculars, your volunteer work is pretty extraordinary, and clearly you have commitment to that. I think that’ll definitely positively affect your chances, especially since you’re applying to premed. Founding FBLA is also a pretty big plus, it shows that you look beyond what’s offered and try to add new things to the school. A slight concern I have about your extracurriculars is that you don’t seem to have much of a commitment or focus. Have you gotten any awards in any of the honor societies you’re in? How often do you participate in those, and what is your involvement? I know you might be committed to those, but as you might expect, a lot of students participate in those events just to look good on college applications, and colleges are well-aware of that. Because of this, if you don’t have any major achievements or commitments to those listed on the college apps, they’re likely to be of little use.

Nonetheless, you still have a pretty high chance at getting into those colleges. I’d say with your grades and extracurriculars, you can definitely get into at least half of those schools. Keep up the good work, and try not to stress yourself out too much, especially next year since you’re going to be doing college applications first semester on top of your courseload!

1634

@AlphaDog1031 Hey! I’m a Northern Virginian too! That’s cool.

Have a nice day.

1635

Appreciated Ktong777 for your advice and thinking about taking ACT. Thank’s a lot.

1636

Hi Excoverer,

What is your opinion to attend Uni of Maryland, College Park Vs our VA in state colleges,
Planning to major computer science as my second option instead PreMed to MD.
Appreciated your valuable suggestions.

Thanks,

1637

Hiii everyone! I know this thread has been dead for a while, but I remember reading through this over the years. I can’t believe we’re seniors!!

How did the application process treat ya’ll?

1638

Wow…this thread was created a while ago and then died, but we did it! I think decision season is over (or nearly over) for most. I’m proud of all of us for getting through this tough period!