<p>Hi
My son wants to apply to Brown PLME. He is a Sophomore in HS now and is ranked 1 in the class by a good margin - reasonable to hope for a VAL by graduation. He was accepted into a 2 year residential math and science program that would allow him to do College Math and Science classes enough for several college credits. This program does not rank. </p>
<p>Our question is - will this program help ( because of college level work and experiences with research) or hurt ( due to lack of rank and exposure to things like debate, sports etc.) his chances for getting into Brown PLME. </p>
<p>Lack of rank shouldn’t matter for a school that doesn’t give rank. Possible lack of extracurricular activities like those mentioned might hurt, but if your son is passionate enough about something, he might be able to find a way to pursue such extracurriculars as interests him.</p>
<p>Well, taking on special academic programs is a risk that is sometimes worth taking. Many Brown students, including myself, have taken rigorous academic programs along with many ECs. If your son decides to do this, make sure he doesn’t completely drop his ECs.</p>
<p>My daughter was accepted PLME and her high school had no rankings. My guess is that its more important to establish an interest in medicine than it is to show an ability to do college level math and science. Everyone will be really capable at math and science. Volunteering in hospitals, doing medical research and convincing them that you want to be a doctor I think are the most important EC goals.</p>
<p>Thank you all for the input.
I posted a reply earlier but that does not show. I not sure what I did so if you see a duplication please ignore.</p>
<p>Here are some other questions we have:
The program is a residential program. He has only 4 required classes so he will have more time during the day to chose any volunteering ( the staff at the program encourage this). He has several academic clubs to participate in to make up for loss of ECs like debate, </p>
<p>He is keen on research while in HS. He wants to participate in Inter/Siemens thing. A majority of students in this residential program are involved in some sort of reseach activity. So he will have a good peer support. Here at his current HS he seems to be the only one interested. </p>
<p>He likes to compete in Math and science competitions. Has been doing it since middle school. The thing I like about this is that he improves his knowledge and ranking steadily. Last year he was barely made it to HS team. THis year he stood 1st in district beating several all senior teams. He will miss out on this.</p>
<p>The new program being a math and science concentration puts the humanities and social studies in back seat. He could take these courses as electives with the rest of the undergrad students enrolled in the university’s 4 yr program.</p>
<p>as for the social life as parent we think he would be happier at the residential program as he would be living with friends vs. at home - he is our only child. The campus is about an hour drive from our home. We could visit him and he could come home for weekends to catch up.</p>
<p>Clearly you can tell we are not prepared for this decision. Any help will be greatly appreciated.</p>