Match Me: 97.9% Junior White Hispanic Female Biology/Nursing [NY resident, ~94% unweighted 9th-11th GPA, <$65k]

Chance Me / Match Me
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This can’t be emphasized enough. It gets very tricky when you’re seeking “prestige” but also seeking direct-entry nursing. Many top students whose priority is a nursing major end up attending colleges that would have been safeties for them if not for the additional layer of competitiveness for the nursing program. That’s why in the very first response on this thread, twogirls said

They also asked you about the Net Price Calculator results for the private colleges you named that meet documented need, BU and Wake. This is an important question. A $65K budget does not cover full pay at BU, Wake, or Rochester (which is a much better school than you realize; I honestly don’t think there’s a high school student in America who should be insulted by the suggestion to have URoch on their list. I’m a BU grad and I feel as if Rochester is comparable, reputationally - it’s just less in demand than BU because it isn’t in Boston.) College costs have escalated so quickly. When my older daughter was applying in 2013, I was “shocked and appalled” that UChicago cost $65K/year. Now the tuition alone at Chicago is almost $65K, and the total COA is $89K. BU et. al. are similar. So… would you get some need-based aid at such schools, to get you to budget? Or would you need merit aid to make expensive private colleges affordable? Even some public colleges cost more than $65K/year for OOS students.

Anyway… it sounds like you’re saying that you’re more passionate about the science involved in healthcare careers than about the patient-facing aspects. I understand the financial incentives to get into a clinical career by the most efficient path, but I wonder if it might be jumping the gun to make such a big commitment right out of the gate.

One thing I’ll say is that fluency in Spanish is a huge asset for any health care professional. You may feel that you don’t want to emphasize your own ethnic background in your applications (if that’s what you’re saying, vis-a-vis visiting Mexico), but I certainly would highlight a goal of being a bilingual and culturally-competent clinician, regardless of whether it’s a heritage language.

It’s great that you have strong SUNY schools as the foundation of your list. They’re excellent and affordable; and that sets a high bar. Leaving aside the skirmishes about what recommendations are worthy of your accomplishments, there’s no real need to consider schools that you wouldn’t prefer to Bing/Stony. But, circling back to the original point, direct-entry nursing is a different animal, and that’s why you’re getting the suggestions you’re getting.

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For many students, some colleges that are ordinarily safeties or likelies for them become reaches if they apply for nursing (or even pre-nursing with secondary admission).

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I was there about 20 years ago doing an MBA, and even then nobody was handing out Bibles.

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Years ago I had a medical emergency that happened to occur relatively close to a university that is ranked somewhere in the 140-180 range, but that has a good nursing program. An ambulance rushed me to the nearby hospital where they literally saved my life (with no long term damage at all – speed was important and helped a lot). There were quite a few nurses there who had graduated from that same university, and that at least have made a huge positive contribution to help me. Of course they do the same thing every day helping other people.

You are doing very well in high school. You have apparently recovered very well from a past medical issue that based on what little I know of it was probably as life-threatening as what I recovered from.

There really are a huge number of universities which are very good for a nursing student, and that are also very good for a premed student.

You have done very well in high school. This will help you quite a bit in university admissions. However, this will help you in another way that is more important: You will be arriving on-campus well prepared to do well in the very tough premed and/or nursing courses.

Some of the nursing and premed courses will be the same. For example, a nurse practitioner who I know referred to organic chemistry as “the only C that I ever had in my life”. One daughter (who will be a DVM in a bit less than 18 months if all goes well) referred to organic chemistry as “the most difficult B- that I ever had in my life”. Many of the nursing or premed classes that you will take in university will be tough. You are getting ready to go off to university well prepared to do well in these classes.

As others have mentioned, getting admitted to a direct-admit nursing program is significantly more difficult compared to getting admitted to a university overall. To me this makes it very tough to predict which schools would be safeties or matches or reaches for a nursing student.

Medical school is a bit different. The doctors that I have discussed this with all say that the other students in their MD program have come from a very wide range of undergraduate schools. Both daughters had majors which overlapped a great deal with premed classes, and therefore knew multiple premed students from their classes. The premed students are generally very strong, and the classes are tough. There is something to be said for being in the top 1/2 or even top 1/4 of the class when the classes are this tough and only maybe 1/4 of the students are going to end up making it to medical school. Also, medical school is expensive. Saving $$$$ by attending an inexpensive undergraduate program can be helpful.

It depends.

Frankly I do not know whether there is any advantage of attending Harvard for an undergraduate premed student unless you are from a very low income family and are offered very good need based aid. Harvard does not have an undergraduate nursing program so again it does not seem like the right place for a nursing student to go. For someone who wants to go into investment banking or international relations or theoretical mathematics the value of attending Harvard for a bachelor’s degree might be quite different. I do think that some high school students spend too much time thinking about famous universities (such as Harvard) when they should be thinking about finding a good fit for what they want to do.

To me a potential premed student should be looking for a university with a good premed program (this might leave 150 or 200 schools to consider), that they can afford preferably with money left over for medical school, where they will be arriving in the top 1/2 and preferably top 1/4 of the incoming class. Yes, this can make admissions boring. However, the value of having done very well in high school is not in where you can get admitted. It is mostly in being well prepared to do well in tough university classes, and also to some extent to earn merit based aid if you will be attending a school that offers merit based aid.

This is very true. Having medical professionals from a range of cultures is also helpful. Understanding your patients is a big part of being a medical professional.

Generally @hopefulpenguin I think that you are doing very well.

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You are a teenager and your views are based on your limited experiences. We understand. Many teens hunt prestige when applying to college and only you know which colleges you know and which ones you haven’t heard of. As you like to learn, the Dunning-Kruger effect may be worth looking into.

About your cousin, do you like them or have any respect for them? Because your comments and tone say otherwise. Think back to all your hospitalizations, I can guarantee that you were cared for 90% of the time by people you are now belittling with your elitist attitude.

But what do I know. I just happen to hold a doctorate and teach at a T40 program (in an area you are interested in) yet you would view me as being a waste of time and stupid because you haven’t heard of any of the colleges I got my degrees at (3 different ones by the way).

Apply to the prestige schools you feel are worthy of your talents. Cross your fingers that you get in AND can afford it.

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Taking away nursing and only considering pre med and prestige (maybe you have heard of some of these)…

Northwestern
Lehigh
U of Dayton
Vanderbilt
Washington U
Case Western
Tufts
Carnegie Mellon
Johns Hopkins

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To be fair, the OP is recounting a prevailing narrative in her family. I feel badly for this cousin, who is undoubtedly an accomplished and hard-working young person, yet is being belittled and held up as a cautionary tale to younger relatives in the family. It’s hard to overcome having this kind of mindset drilled into you, and it’s obviously causing the OP a great deal of angst and anxiety. I definitely get it, because I experienced a similar kind of thinking growing up, where peers and relatives who went to “ordinary” schools were mocked and dismissed. OP, I can attest that this kind of thinking doesn’t reflect reality, and the sooner you get free of it, the happier and healthier you’ll be.

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Does this mean you can afford $65,000 a year for college? The FAFSA determines your eligibility for things like the Pell Grant (if your family can afford $65,000 a year for college you are likely not eligible), and you will be able to get the $5500 federally funded Direct Loan for freshman year. What did you think you would get by completing a FAFSA?

This IS the case at Boston University. Have you been there. It’s a very urban campus.

These are two very different professions.

This!

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As I wrote earlier, whether a school is a likely one or not will depend on the major. Biology depts generally accept more students than nursing. Competition within biology is competitive ….due to premeds, grad school etc. …but it is an “easier” admit than nursing.

SUNY Binghamton:
Gpa 3.89
SAT math 50th percentile 690-780
SAT R/W 50th percentile 650-730
ACT 50th percentile 29-34

Stony Brook:
Gpa 3.6
SAT math 50th percentile 680-780
SAT R/W 50th percentile 640-720
ACT 28-34

University of Rochester:
Gpa 3.76
SAT math 50th percentile 710-790
SAT R/W 50th percentile 680-750
ACT 31-34

SUNY Buffalo
Gpa 3.8
SAT math 50% 600-700
SAT R/W 590-680
ACT 25-32

SUNY Plattsburg
Gpa 3.09
SAT math 50th percentile 520-630
SAT R/W 50th percentile 540-630
ACT 21-30

The first 3 schools are not target schools for nursing…for you…right now. They are reaches. They could maybe be target schools outside of nursing

UB nursing is competitive. I know students similar to you who did not make nursing.

SUNY Plattsburgh is a safety for you outside of nursing. As a nursing major it could be a target or possibly a reach (?). I read on CC that it has a 4% acceptance rate for nursing. We do not have information on those accepted students.

Rochester is not a safety for a student with an 1100 SAT, unless there are things going on that you are not aware of.

If you are looking for reach schools for nursing …I will recommend Emory, UNC, UVA and Northeastern. BU does not have nursing, and Wake Forest seems to have a DNP and a CRNA program.

Note: the reach schools I mentioned will be big reaches for you regardless of major. THAT is why we recommend safeties/likely.

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On your other thread, didn’t you post this:

My grandmother is very fortunate and would pool anything to my education

And this:

Cost is not an issue dont worry. My grandmother is very fortunate and would pool anything to my education

I would urge you to go back and read this thread from November/December. There were some great suggestions given to you…plus you had a whole different list of colleges. Any reasons why some of those were omitted?

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Oh man, I didn’t realize that was the same poster. There was a treasure trove of valuable advice on that thread and some of the same people chimed in on both threads. I, and others, emphasized what a nice option the SUNYs were, so at least OP has now deigned to apply to those. So maybe it wasn’t for nothing. But I’m not going to bother on this thread anymore.

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And the supposed “waste of skill and talent” that will result in her being a “failure in life” state schools seem to be U of Michigan and U of Alabama. Yikes.

I would work more with a therapist then because it most certainly is not sounding like anxiety or fear here. I can tell you as a college professor that if this attitude came across in any of your work that you would not be on my list of students to invite to do any specialty work or research. Being able to take feedback and grow is important.

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An issue is that if you come from a lower income family or a family where parents/grand parents have not attended a selective college in the US, there’s information they think they know but are slightly wrong about and are conveying that wrong information to you.

Prestige can matter but what matters most is how many resources can be devoted to students. So, a very selective that does very well in that department (and would be a reach but wouldn’t work for what you want) is Grinnell. They’re small and in the middle of corn fields, so few people have heard of it in the general population. However, scientists, doctors, academics, ie., people making selections for med school WILL have heard of it. It’s got incredible resources to support its students so they admit students who will take advantage of everything they offer and make sure they are supported to reach their goals.
Another option is the Honors College of a public university - again, the university is dedicating more resources than is usual, which leads to better educational opportunities in many cases (not sure about SUNYs though).
Based on your thread, I’d say you’d be pretty passionnate about working in a lab and participating in research as an undergrad, so undergrad research would be something to look into. (Note that at 1st, you would pretty much just wash beakers and do lower level jobs in the lab, because the PI and researchers want to see how accurate, disciplined, dedicated, etc., you are).

Another point is that FGLI students are the most helped by high-resources colleges since the college provides them with networking opportunities their family can’t. The name in itself doesn’t matter. But an alumni network that actually goes to bat for current student, a fully staffed career center, a dedicated adviser starting right freshman year, a stipend to support an unpaid opportunity in the city for an unpaid internship or research project that will help your resume stand out? For sure. So, the names “everyone’s heard of” may not be the names that work best.
BTW for med schools, the name of your college (or your major) won’t even appear among the criteria the algorithm uses for the 1st cut before “human eyes” review it but they WILL know colleges you don’t.

Biology research is another kettle of fish and in your thread it seems that’s what you’re most interested in. Is that correct?

Being a doctor means years of being puked upon, provided difficult-to-understand information, having to convey difficult information in a compassionate and clear way. Biology isn’t even the main subject for premeds, but chemistry (you need to take General Biology 1&2, perhaps Anatomy&Physiology, but you’ll need to take 4 courses in Chemistry and at least 1 biochemistry class. ) You don’t need to know right now but patients+science vs. biology research is a question that will shape college for you.

Direct Entry Nursing is different from the rest of the university, whatever the college; for instance, at Penn State, your odds of admission are probably 40% overall, a bit higher depending on the major… but 5% for nursing. And PA has lots of direct entry nursing! At NYU and Penn, nursing is also one of the hardest colleges to get into. Nursing would mean lots of clinical hours so you really have to be kind, patient, precise, etc., and like people even if they puke on you or insult you because they’re in pain (or because they’re jerks). The only thing that matters for choosing a nursing program is the NCLEX pass rate (look for 93, 95%), then look at fit (ie., your deal breaker criteria, such as not too urban and not in the middle of nowhere).

BTW, for any large university (15,000+) explore the majors offered beyond “biology” - there should be lots of variations, concentrations, etc., related to Biology but hidden throughout the various colleges: Biological anthropology, for instance, or Pharmacology… Not that you’d be interested, but it gives you an idea of what you could study, if you’ve got a particular interest whether there’s something around it, how broad or narrow research interests are at the college, what forms of Biology are taught, etc, etc.

Can you run the NPC on SUNY Bing, URochester, and another safety of your choice: what are the 3 numbers you get for “net cost”?

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Also, direct entry progression requirements or secondary admission competitiveness (i.e. risk of being weeded out) and cost are highly important when choosing nursing programs.

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Yeah, it doesn’t seem like she learned nothing from that thread with 350 comments, since she is now willing to apply to some SUNYs. But I don’t know that there has been much else that was learned and retained, especially based on the list of schools originally posted on this thread.

Posters here can say the same things over again, but there’s still so much to be learned from what has already been said.

I don’t know what accounts for the resistance to accepting that you can get a good education and your life won’t be a miserable failure if you don’t go to a highly selective school. But it’s been said a lot on both threads and I don’t know what will be ultimately convincing.

I feel for OP since she seems to be distressed by some of her beliefs/attitudes but isn’t able to let go of them. I hope she can get into an affordable school she feels good about and do well. College is a time for growth, and perhaps she will grow to really accept that she is more than prestige of the school she attends.

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I think it comes from*
1° immigrant or refugee parents who value education highly, perhaps as the only way out (often true when you have to rebuild your entire life in a new land) + by necessity understand success like “back in the old country” (where you go DOEs matter enormously in providing job security or even job access in many countries) +like most American born parents do not know the US college landscape well, have heard false rumors, know kids who have done Z or X
2° depending on students’ social status, some universities DO provide better opportunities. Children from upper middle class families do well regardless of where they go but it’s not the case for FGLI kids, for instance.
3° OP is not wrong that many upper class/upper middle parents prefer “famous names” over “non famous names”.
Then again, what parents “in the know” choose or what they consider famous/prestigious may have nothing to do with how famous a college may be among the general public; they may prefer, say, Williams to NYU, Haverford to Penn State, or Skidmore to UConn, despite NYU/PSU/UConn’s status in various local communities - remember the genuine dilemma for the kid who’d been admitted on a full ride+ at Williams as well as to a UCB program he couldn’t afford, who hesitated because no one had heard of Williams in his circle of relatives and church elders and he worried he’d never get a job because Williams doesn’t have a business major?
4° nursing adds another layer since direct admission is SO incredibly competitive - it’s a path to a well- paid job after 4 years, with opportunities for advancement, it’s flexible, etc. so it’s a great choice. As a result, College of Nursing admission numbers may be in the single digits even at a relative academic safety or likely for OP, which is mind-boggling. (Why aren’t there more direct admission nursing programs since there’s so much demand BTW -
not enough sites for clinicals?)

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I don’t believe this student is first generation or low income. The mom is a VP doing accounting and is a college grad.

Perhaps the OP can clarify…is your family low income?

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Likely because some colleges want to see how these kids do in college before using a nursing program space. IOW, there is an academic bar the students need to attain.

My profession is the same at some colleges…for undergrad, you apply for admission but not as an incoming freshman. This happens in a lot of majors (business, engineering for example) not just nursing.

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There are multiple factors why there is a scarcity of direct entry programs: not enough nurses who want to and have the training to teach nursing (pay is often much less than what a nurse can earn at a hospital), not enough clinical sites or nurses who want to be clinical mentors. Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New York do have many direct entry nursing programs, most of which are not that competitive, but most are at small schools in less urban areas. The state flagships and more well-known private schools seem to be where most kids these days want to be, so admission to their nursing programs is uber competitive.

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It’s possible that there are not a lot of sites for clinicals, but I also think it has to do with the lack of instructors/professors in nursing programs. I seem to remember reading this somewhere, and I do know that there are forgiveness programs in place- some of which will pay your loans if you agree to teach (this is more for advanced degrees)

SUNY Geneseo had a communication disorders and sciences program (speech pathology and audiology) but it closed years ago due to a lack of instructors.

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