Junior looking for college ideas [NJ resident, 4.0 GPA, 1550 SAT; "medical track majors, bio related"]

Chance Me / Match Me
,
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Demographics Asian

  • US domestic * US citizen
  • State/Location of residency: *NJ
  • Type of high school * private boarding
  • Gender/Race/Ethnicity (optional): Female
  • Other special factors (first generation to college, legacy, athlete, etc.): none

Intended Major(s) medical track majors, bio related

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 4.0
  • Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): 5.64
  • College GPA (for transfers):
  • Class Rank: 1 or 2 for now
  • ACT/SAT Scores: 1550

Coursework
(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))
AP bio, AP chemistry, AP calculus AB, AP US history, Chinese 6, Engineering 4

Awards
Head of the form, various Class awards

Extracurriculars
(Include leadership, summer activities, competitions, volunteering, and work experience)
Founder of school hospital volunteer club
Student council secretary
Dorm prefect
School TSA 4th officer
School news illustrator
School world language fellow and writing fellow
JHU and Stanford summer programs, bio related
UCLA summer program, art related
A paper presented in conference poster session, clinic related
A paper to be published, cell related

Essays/LORs/Other
(Optionally, guess how strong these are and include any other relevant information or circumstances.)
Essays: no idea yet
LOR: should be good

Cost Constraints / Budget
(High school students: please get a budget from your parents and use the Net Price Calculators on the web sites of colleges of interest.)
No cost constraints

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 (certain admission and affordability) Rutgers
  • Likely (would be possible, but very unlikely or surprising, for it not to admit or be affordable): no idea
  • Match: no idea
  • Reach: want to reach Yale or duke
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What kinds of schools appeal to you? There are plenty of great schools that would be interested in a strong student like you (at all selectivity levels) but we need to know more about your wish list (size, location, vibe, urban, rural etc) to give you some ideas. You can major in anything if you are interested in medical school as long as you take all the necessary pre-req’s in college - obviously, a biology major makes it easy to do that, but it isn’t necessary. So what do you like about Yale and what other types of schools might appeal to you?

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Congrats on your achievements! You are clearly a strong student.

You indicated that you are interested in biology or “medical track” majors. Unless you major in nursing, you will need to attend medical school or some type of professional school. This means you will be in school for more than 4 years.

You also indicated that there are no cost constraints. This means that your parents are willing to pay $350,000 (give or take) for college. Do you know if they will also help you pay for graduate school? Medical school is expensive, as is grad school. Are you interested in schools that might give merit money (this could possibly allow you to use some of your college money for grad school)?

I am going to recommend a few schools for you to research: Emory, Pitt, Rochester, Wake Forest, and SUNY Binghamton. There are many more but I don’t know what you like.

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Thank you! I am a parent posting for my daughter. She visited Duke, Vanderbilt, and Georgetown in the summer. She likes a not-too-busy campus environment with a diverse community. She prefers a medium to large research school located in an urban/suburban area. We just started to think about colleges and don’t have many ideas yet. :joy:

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Thank you for the suggestions. I am a parent. We probably will pay for her education as long as she needs it. :joy: But in the meantime, the road to doctors is a hard one. We would also like her to have a good major/school if she decides to shift from medical later.

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Your daughter attends a private boarding school. In the vast majority of cases, these schools have excellent college counseling services…it’s something you actually pay for when your child attends a prep school.

I would strongly suggest she speak to the college counselor there about her aspirations, and how she can best meet them. The school counselor will also have suggestions for match schools.

@CC_Kathy by the time your daughter gets to medical school, if she actually does…the costs will likely be about $100,000 a year or so. And that’s on top of whatever you pay for undergrad.

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Yes, we will get college suggestions from her school counselor, maybe in spring. As a parent who does not know much about US college applications, I try to get more information ahead. :joy:

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@CC_Kathy its always good to have information.

There is no harm in reaching…but without end of year junior data like GPA…it’s very hard to give suggestions. Yale and Duke could both be huge reaches. We don’t know. Yale certainly is a reach for all applicants as the admission rate is in the single digits. Even students with excellent applications are denied admission because there simply aren’t enough spots for all who apply.

A pro tip…your daughter can take the required courses for medical school admissions at just about every four year college in this country…arts conservatories excluded. Rutgers is a great instate choice for you. Look at other options like TCNJ…which could work too. Plenty of other options…depending on where her grades are later!

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Why not look at the University of Rochester, Tufts, Emory, Case Western?

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I agree with working closely with your college counseling, but I also think at this stage it can be helpful to get leads on places to check out. Personally, I think it can be a good idea to start with a long list of possibles, which then as you figure out favorites, and why they are favorites, eventually gets narrowed down to a robust application list. Your counselors can help with all of that, but I think you can also get ideas from anywhere.

In that spirit, and based on what you described so far, I would second looking at Rochester and Case Western. These are very popular choices in my feederish HS for high numbers kids with those type of interests who are also looking at colleges like Yale or Duke. Your college counseling will be more informative, but these could be in the likely range for this sort of profile.

As a New Jersey resident, Rutgers is a great public choice, but I agree you might also want to look at Pitt. It just seems like a great fit given what you described, and it has a great location in an increasingly popular city. Also probably a likely (Honors harder), and they have rolling admissions so you can get an early answer, which is nice.

In fact a bunch of the other core Big 10 universities might be worth considering–again, Rutgers is a good choice already, but some people fall in love with, say, Wisconsin. It sort of depends on the college experience you want. I note even though out of state cost of attendance at such places is higher than Rutgers, it is still considerably less than at a private, so . . . .

But back to privates, I’d also suggest checking out WUSTL. If you like Gothic campuses like Yale or Duke in nice urban locations, WUSTL has one of the best, and it is the right size, right format, and specifically is popular for applicants with those interests.

A few more urban schools that seem like a good fit to me are Brown, Emory, and Rice. Again, lots of people I know cross-apply to Yale and colleges like those.

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If she is focused on medical school for sure then Johns Hopkins. A large percentage go to med school.

But if not sure about pre-med then I totally agree with WUSTL and Case Western for pre-med. I cost truly is not an option also consider CMU and top public’s like Virginia, UCLA, and U of Michigan.

If you need a target school and want a guaranteed admission program think about Pitt (also mentioned above). Provided she showed interest, she would get merit and could save money for med school. Some schools like Pitt might think she would treat them as a safety and pass so do show interest in target schools.

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Is biology currently her main academic interest?

Note that the job and pay prospects for biology majors at the BA/BS level are not great (when people talk about good job prospects for STEM majors, that really means engineering, computer science, math, and statistics).

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Do you think your daughter will go to graduate school for a different career if she decides against medical school (she might not know given she is still in HS)? If yes, then a biology degree is fine even if she works first (my opinion). Just understand that the degrees noted above will pay a lot more.

For those students who truly love biology, it is often very difficult to make the switch to math, engineering, etc. It isn’t always where their interests are. It might help to keep the biology major and add a minor in statistics (for those who just really love biology).

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^ :100:
Bio+stats or even biostats if the college offers it, bio+data science…

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Yes! Thank you for the suggestions!

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Yes, Biology and related research are her main interests. She already stated she won’t apply for engineering school because she has zero interest in Physics. Thanks for your input.

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That’s a great suggestion. Thank you.

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Great! Thank you.

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I would hesitate to recommend biology for somebody who has no interest in going back to school after getting their BS/BA, but that doesn’t seem to be the case with your daughter. Adding stats as noted above is a great idea.

Even if she wants to work first, she will be able to find a job that allows her to live with a roommate.

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Ohio State offers a Biomedical Science degree through their College of Medicine for undergrads. To be considered for one of the 26 spots there is a special application process. In addition to the research at Ohio State there is also Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus.

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