Match Me- bio/neuro major, GA resident, rising senior, top 10 rank, 36 ACT, 14 APs by end of high school

Chance Me / Match Me
1

Demographics:

  • US citizen (Georgia resident)
  • public suburban high school
  • immigrant parents
  • not first gen (one parent w/high school diploma)
  • female, east asian

Budget:

  • family income between 100-200k
  • budget is flexible, family is willing to pay more for a good school

Intended Major(s):

  • biology or chemistry (mainly biology, esp relating to cell bio or microbiology)
  • neuroscience

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores:

  • school uses 100 point scale w/7 point bonus for honors/APs
  • UW: around 97
  • W: around 101.6
  • all A’s, rank as of now: 10/~450
  • ACT: 36 (no superscore, 36 in all categories except 35 in english)

Coursework:

  • English: AP lang 10th grade (4), dual enrolled at GSU english 11th grade (A)
  • Math: AP precalc 10th grade (5), AP calc BC 11th grade (?), planning on GT dual enrollment linear algebra/multivar calc 12th grade
  • Science: AP chemistry 10th grade (5), AP biology 10th grade (5), AP Physics 11th grade (?), planning on AP Physics C, APES, and GT compsci 1301 12th grade
  • History/Social Studies: AP Gov 9th grade (5), AP world 10th grade (5), AP psych 11th grade (?), Dual enrolled US history at GSU 11th grade (A), planning on taking AP microecon 12th grade
  • Foreign Language: highest level was Latin 3 honors in 10th grade (A)
  • Arts: orchestra from 6th-12th grade, AP music theory 12th grade
  • Other: Chemistry TA 11th grade
  • in sum, 5’s on all AP’s except a 4 on lang so far

Extracurriculars:

  • Science Olympiad (captain, test writer for several tournaments, nationals competitor, founded middle school charter in 10th grade and continutously mentor students)
  • Lemelson-MIT (worked with a team to create an invention with a $4000 grant from MIT, recognized by mayor and congress, chem-related project)
  • Summer Science Program biochemistry (5 week residential research program)
  • Georgia Tech bioinformatics summer internship (hybrid, mostly digital)
  • Hospital volunteering since summer after 10th grade in stroke department and lab
  • Global Health Leadership Conference (online international conference hosted by Johns Hopkins, chosen as a student speaker)
  • local student government leadership program 10th-11th grade (did community service project based on drug safety)
  • Orchestra executive officer since 10th grade (founded summer middle school orchestra workshop, help run events)
  • Music club vice president since 10th grade (helped organize performance opportunities and rehearsals)
  • Krav Maga since 8th grade (martial art, brown belt)
  • Other smaller things: Beta club, National Honor Society, Science National Honors Society, officer of an international, student-run nonprofit with members in over 10 countries- helped co-host seminars and judged a competition but otherwise havent really done much, not sure if I should put it on my app)

Awards:

  • Georgia science and engineering fair (GSEF)- received $1000 grant from Georgia Tech to complete project, won 1st in county level, best in category at GSEF, Air Force special award at GSEF (energy-related project)
  • Bausch+Lomb honorary science award- selected from junior class at school
  • National Youth Science Camp- selected as one of two Georgia delegates (didnt attend)
  • Betacon- 4th Hand drawn anime (national), 1st hand drawn anime 2 years in a row (state), 1st agriscience (state), 3rd agriscience (state)
  • Science Olympiad- 3 top 2 medals in national level tournaments (not nationals, but rather multi-state virtual tournaments, 150+ teams), 4 top 3 state tournament medals, top 20 finish at nationals, several golds and medals at state and regional level tournaments, all bio-related events

Essays/LORs/Other:

  • will assume essays will be ok (not too great but not too bad hopefully)
  • LORs will be from bio/chem teachers (have written several lors for me before, was a TA for the chem teacher and lead a club sponsored by the bio teacher), humanities will probably be from orchestra teacher (will have had her all 4 years and am an officer for orchestra and music club)

School:

-no preference for location or size
-would be nice for a school with good research/internship opportunities

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Based on your interest in research opportunities, you might benefit from considering schools rated highly by their students for their science labs:

As examples, Emory or WashU might suit you.

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This is a major for which some type of graduate degree is relatively likely. Do you have any idea what you are likely to do after getting a bachelor’s degree? Are you potentially interested in either research or medical school?

One daughter by the way majored in biology with a focus on what was either cellular biology or microbiology (I am not personally clear on the difference). She then worked in research for two or three years, and is currently getting a PhD in a biomedical field. One thing that we have noticed is that the other students in her very good PhD program come from a very wide range of undergraduate schools. You can get a strong education and good research opportunities at any one of a large number of colleges and universities.

You are a very strong student. You are competitive at pretty much any university. For the top ranked universities so are the very large majority of applicants. This makes top universities (such as MIT and Johns Hopkins) a high reach for pretty much anyone. However you really do not need to attend an undergraduate school that is this highly ranked to do very well.

You have two excellent public universities in-state. Both UGA and Georgia Tech are of course excellent. I expect that you have other in-state public schools but I do not know much about them.

If medical school is a possibility, then you should budget for 8 years of university where the last 4 years are likely to be expensive. In this case you should be looking for affordable universities for your bachelor’s degree (which might imply looking closely at your in-state public schools).

Even for other graduate programs some parent financial help can be, well, helpful. For example PhD’s are usually fully funded. However the stipend is typically just enough to live on, and some modest financial help can make the marathon which is a PhD easier to put up with. It is also in the long run eventually going to be better if a PhD student can fund their IRA, and I can’t imagine how this would be possible without parent help. As such, for someone who is in a major where some form of graduate school is likely, avoiding debt for your bachelor’s degree is a good goal. Saving a bit of college money in the bank or 529 plan would also be good if you can do it.

This might narrow you down to a few hundred colleges and universities. You are a very strong student and should be able to get accepted to many different very good schools.

This brings me to two important points.

One is to make sure that you apply to safeties. Whether UGA and GT are safeties for you I do not know. I suspect that they are likely but not safeties. Your guidance counselor will however know better than I do how likely you are to get accepted to these two excellent in-state public schools. You are by the way fortunate to have two in-state public schools that are this strong.

The other is that you should be thinking about what you want in a school. Finding a good fit is important. Visits to a few schools might help you to think about this. We started with schools that were close to home, mostly just because they were easier to get to.

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First generation is someone whose parents have not gone to college.

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One of my parents attended college, the other did not. I did not specify that clearly in my post

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Thank you! I am currently deciding between research and pre med but am leaning more towards pre-med

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Thank you! this is very helpful

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The classes that you take are going to overlap a lot. If you are premed, then at some point you will need to get a lot of experience in a medical environment. It is very common to do this as an undergraduate student, either during the school year or during the summer or both. It is also common for premed students, after they get their bachelor’s degree, to continue to get experience in a medical environment for a year or two or maybe longer before applying to medical schools.

If you decide to focus on research, then you would be best off trying to get research experience while you are an undergraduate student. It is not unusual for this to start slowly (or not at all the first year) and then ramp up as you spend more time in university and get to know your professors.

I am pretty sure that some students get both some research experience and some medical-related experience before they decide what they want to do.

Both daughters had majors that overlapped a lot with premed classes, and knew quite a few premed students. My older daughter was pre-vet (the required undergraduate classes are the same as premed classes). While her premed friends were in a human medical environment, my daughter was in a veterinary medical environment. Thus while the required courses were the same and the need for experience was the same, the nature of the experience was quite different, or at least the patients were very different. My younger daughter briefly thought of premed as an option, but quickly decided that she would prefer research. She found that she liked lab work and is good at it. While her premed friends were volunteering in medical environments, my younger daughter was in a lab doing various types of research (some of which for example involved growing cancer cells and then finding out what various potential treatments would do to the cancer cells). The first job that she got after graduating at least to me sounded a lot like what she had already been doing as an undergraduate student.

Neither daughter attended a famous or highly ranked university for their bachelor’s degree. They both however attended universities that were a good fit for them. They both found very good relevant experience (relevant to whatever they wanted to do next). There really are a very large number of very good colleges and universities where you can both get a good education and find good opportunities.

So at some point while you are an undergraduate student you will want to either get medical experience or get research experience, or possibly get a bit of both before deciding what path to take. This is something that you do not need to decide until you are at least half way through your bachelor’s degree, and I expect that some students decide later than this. At least in my immediate family we all took some time off after getting our bachelor’s degree and worked for a while before deciding what graduate programs to apply to. This therefore might be way off in the future for you.

And as long as any graduate program, and especially medical school, is a realistic possibility, you should pay attention to the cost of your undergraduate education and try to save some $$$$ that you can use for medical or graduate school. Avoiding debt for your bachelor’s degree can also make it easier to find good options in terms of what you do after getting a bachelor’s degree. “Dream jobs” do not always pay that well, at least at first.

Just to be clear, I think that you are doing very well and do not need to decide any of this any time soon. I am mostly just giving you some ideas that you might want to gradually think about over the next several years.

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You can get a very generous scholarship to the University of Alabama, and save the money for medical school or offsetting low grad student / postdoc pay if you go the research route.

R1 universities like Alabama re those with the highest levels of research activity, and being among the top students at a university can make it easier to get research opportunities and maintain an excellent GPA.

You should also consider the impact that going to college in a state will have on your residency status (usually it won’t unless you live there for a year or so after college). For Georgia public med school admission purposes, if you want to keep your Georgia residency after moving oos, you should have your Georgia resident parents claim you on their taxes, keep your Georgia driver’s license, and use your Georgia home address as your permanent address for FAFSA, bank accounts, etc.

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I agree with this 100%.

@mango20 you will have a better idea once you spend hours working in a lab, shadowing physicians and getting an up close view on how they spend their day (hint: it could be quite boring on some days, gross on other days, etc). You may choose one….or decide to do something else. Time will tell.

Keep in mind that federal student loans for grad/med school may change, putting limits on what you or your parents could borrow. There is a lot going on here….but it would be horrible if you started a school and could not afford to continue, if your parent’s retirement was impacted, etc. I do not know your circumstances.

I would look at schools that would give you merit or are affordable based on the NPCs. You are a very strong applicant and many schools would be happy to have you:

I would begin with your in-state publics.

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I’d recommend you include some purely undergraduate-focused schools in your search, such as Amherst, Bowdoin, Hamilton and Davidson.

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So the sort of Bio you are noting as an interest is sometimes called “red Bio” (versus “green Bio”). My S24 was also interested in red Bio, and so we researched a lot of colleges with that thought in mind. And there are lots of colleges where the undegrad program in red Bio is going to be very good, but some stand out as being even better than usual.

Like in terms of the reachier schools, you might look at Hopkins, Penn, and WashU (WashU is where my S24 ended up, and it is going very well so far). Obviously other super-reachy colleges like Harvard, Stanford, or so on would be good too, but those particular three stand out as places where this sort of Bio is a special focus of theirs.

You should definitely check the NPCs at these sorts of colleges–they might be surprisingly affordable, or not, so you need to know.

In terms of selective but less reachy private research universities, I would check out Case Western and Rochester. These are also popular premed colleges, including because they have associated medical complexes, and are in cities with other experience opportunities. I would note merit is a real possibility with these universities, at least if you do the work to demonstrate serious interest.

Then if you are interested in large publics (although OOS public programs are not always the most cost effective options), you might look at Wisconsin, UC San Diego, Washington, Minnesota, and Pitt. I might note Minnesota and Pitt also have OOS merit, and are also popular premed options including because of the local experience opportunities. Again, Michigan, Cal, or so on would be good too, but these would be publics where red Bio was a special focus.

I would also endorse looking at Liberal Arts and Sciences colleges, where arguably the undergrad STEM experience can be really great, premed support can also be great, as can support for placement in PhD programs. Obviously they don’t compete in terms of research output with research universities, but the professors do in fact do research and you don’t compete with grad students for research slots.

In terms of potentially suitable reachier LACs, I would definitely check out Haverford. It appears that Haverford and Byrn Mawr at least loosely have a division of labor in terms of Bio, where Haverford is more the red school and Bryn Mawr more the green school. Haverford/Bryn Mawr also have a special relationship with Penn where you can take some classes, say if Penn has certain advanced or grad-level classes that end up appealing to you (although you might also just stick with your Haverford options). Haverford’s pre-health advising also has a good reputation and they certainly do well in things like med school placement studies.

Haverford also has what it calls a concentration in Biochem, which you can add to a Bio major and might be of interest to you:

Carleton is another that very much appealed to my S24 (it was in his final two with WashU) in part due to its strength and offerings in Bio. They also have really well-regarded pre-health advising. They are also big into what they call integrated math and sciences studies, and they have a Biochem minor which can play a similar concentration role:

Haverford and Carleton don’t have merit, so you would need to check NPCs carefully. But in terms of less reachy options where merit is a possibility . . .

Earlham is a smaller LAC but Bio is a big focus of theirs–they cover both red and green but they also have a Biochem major which is intended to both allow you to concentrate more on red Bio and also be a good premed major (you can major in anything, of course, but this major will leverage what you have to do as prereqs anyway):

Then St Olaf is a forum favorite for good reasons–it is a friendly school with merit and a lot of great departments. Once again, they have a Biomolecular Science concentration you can add to your primary major that might be of interest to you:

There are a lot more LACs I would recommend checking out as well–Allegheny, Ursinus, Juniata, and Kalamazoo, for example, are all good for this sort of thing. And if you are interested, you could apply to a robust list of such LACs and then compare merit offers.

Of course you can also look at your in-state publics. I just like to mention the possibility of “chasing merit” at LACs and such because I think some kids would really prefer a different experience to going to one of their in-state publics, and don’t realize that their really good numbers can potentially be turned into merit offers that would make some of their OOS private options competitive on cost.

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This could vary by college.

The most limiting definition is “no parent attended any college”. The broadest definition is “no parent earned a bachelor’s degree or higher in the US”. A common definition in between is “no parent earned a bachelor’s degree or higher anywhere”.

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Be certain to include Rice University, Emory University, Johns Hopkins University, & Washington University in St. Louis in your search.

University of Michigan,University of Washington at Seattle, Vanderbilt University, UC-San Diego, U Maryland, U Minnesota, U Penn, Georgia Tech, U Texas at Austin. Texas A&M University. All Big Ten Conference schools.

Several of these major universities will offer a PhD track for undergraduates and several offer major scholarship grant money. Look at the honors programs available at each university for both university wide honors and honors related to your major.

Based on the information which you have shared in this thread, your search criteria is quite broad and somewhat undefined so specific recommendations are tough to make.

Information regarding a grad program geared toward earning a PhD might help you to see a path or area of interest:

Look for major undergraduate scholarships (for example: Emory Scholars & Vanderbilt).

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Congratulations on building a strong profile in high school. You’ve made yourself a competitive applicant for almost any college in the country and have prepared yourself to do well wherever you land.

Have you visited any colleges yet? If sounds as though seeing what different colleges are like could be helpful to figure out what kind of college experience you’re hoping for.

For instance, you might want to visit:

  • Agnes Scott: small women’s college (about 900 undergrads in a walkable part of the Atlanta metro)
  • Clark Atlanta: HBCU with about 3600 undergrads in a more urban area, or Spelman with about 3600 undergrads as a women’s HBCU
  • Emory: Private with about 7400 undergrads with a more suburban feel
  • Georgia Tech: Tech-focused school, larger in size with about 20k undergrads in a more urban area
  • U. of Georgia: Large public with about 32k undergrads in a college town

Doing so might help you figure out your size preferences, how you feel about a woman’s college, a tech-focused college, etc. Some other questions you might want to think about include:

  • What size classes do you prefer?
  • How do you feel about Greek life (fraternities/sororities)?
  • How do you feel about significant enthusiasm for intercollegiate sports?
  • What kind of people do you hope to find on-campus?
  • What kind of interests (besides research & internships) are you hoping to pursue in college?
  • Do you want to be able to study abroad for a semester or a year taking science/major classes (i.e. not just gen eds)?
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