Match Me (+ chance me), Junior Interested in Neuro (4.0 UW, 1540 SAT)

Chance Me / Match Me
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Demographics

  • US citizen
  • Competitive State + Region
  • Type of high school (or current college for transfers): Public, kind of competitive?
  • Other special factors: N/A

Cost Constraints / Budget

in the “middle” where I can’t really afford 100k for 4 years but also cant qualify for financial aid

I’ve talked with my family and we have quite a bit saved so I can somewhat afford a more expensive school, but I would also like to think about scholarships to make it more “comfortable”

Intended Major(s): Neuroscience

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 4.0
  • Weighted HS GPA: 4.04 (4.1 max)
  • Class Rank: School doesn’t do rankings
  • ACT/SAT Scores: 1540, 740 rw/800 m

List your HS coursework

My school does not offer APs until Junior Year

  • English: Dual enrollment college writing course jr year, normal track freshman, sophomore (school doesn’t offer honors)
    • Senior Year Plans: not taking AP Lit for my own sanity, probably doing another dual enrollment
  • Math: Advanced Pre-Calc, advanced track for the freshman + sophomore year (school offers normal, enriched, advanced, honors. I am in the second-highest track)
    • Senior Year Plans: AP Calc BC (OR CALC BC + STATS IF I DONT DO PHYSICS)
  • Science: AP Bio, AP Chem, normal track soph and freshman (school doesn’t offer honors)
    • Senior Year Plans: AP Physics 1 (school doesnt offer physics 2 + physics 1 is a prerequisite for C), AP Psych
  • History and social studies: APUSH, normal track soph and freshman (school doesn’t offer honors)
    • Senior Year Plans: AP Gov
  • Language other than English: Honors Spanish 9, 10, 11
    • Senior Year Plans: AP Spanish
  • Other academic courses: AP CSA (self studied 4), Science Research Program, assortment of Film Classes

**Awards
**
5 Film Awards (from one competition, not sure if this makes it look worse or better)
1 Research Award (hopefully more this year)

Extracurriculars

not really listed in order of how good i think they are

  • Research - 3 years
    20 hours working in neuro lab + 1 year outside of lab
    • spent a year working with one mentor, formulated research question, collected data, analyzed it, wrote paper, etc. + sent it to some competitions and won with it at one GOING TO CONTINUE THIS SENIOR YEAR + SUMMER BEFORE SENIOR YEAR
    • Important to note that I found my mentor from cold emailing around 100 people
  • Exec in club related to my research niche - 3 years
    • my research is neuro + something, all my other ECs are focused on that something
    • Organize monthly events to raise awareness for my research niche, 200+ participants at each
  • VP in club unrelated to research or neuro at all rly, but related to other ECs - 2 years
    • Biggest club in school history, part of the founding team, nationally recognized
    • doing a bunch of national competitions with the club - not related to my major at ALL though, just mentoring students though
  • Intern at non-profit related to neuro + my research niche - 2 years
    • Spoke at conferece to 700+ people, helped organize the conference the next year, doing weekly tabling/speaking at events with the founder + part of other “boards” connected to this non-profit, relates to next EC
    • Organized another conference surrounding this nonprofit, 10+ speakers, 50+ attendees
  • Board Member - 2 years
    • helped create the board, first board of its kind in my state, funded by the state itself, does legislative advocacy and budget work, surrounds my research niche
  • School Leadership Thing - 2 years
    • Leading group of freshman, leading weekly lessons to help them adapt to hs life, done through school
    • ~12.5% acceptance rate
  • Board Member (different from first one)- 2 years
    • based in very big city, selective program, board centered around my research niche, doing large scale advocacy work
  • Tennis - 5 years
    • Club + in school, varsity hopefully?, doing UTR tournaments and playing 5h/wk
  • Tutor - 6 years
    • Language tutor for both my FL and the other language I speak fluently, also doing tutoring for bio, chem, math, cs

Essays/LORs/Other
VERY STRONG LORs, have already gotten LORs from all of these people for summer programs and just listed them down as general references, and I predict they’ll all be extremely strong. All people I’ve known for all 4 years of high school and worked closely with them.

Schools
I’d love help finding schools to fill in my list a bit more in the middle and help with choosing what’s actually realistic to do for EA/ED, thank you!

Also, if I don’t do Yale SCEA, I was thinking of just EAing everywhere I can, so I can just get it out of the way, unless that’s not advantageous.

Yale (thinking maybe SCEA)
Cornell (thinking maybe ED if not Yale)
Carnegie Mellon (EA)
Pitt
Georgia Tech
Johns Hopkins
Rice
Rutgers
UPenn
Villanova
Vanderbilt
UNC Chapell Hill
Duke
Wake Forest
SUNY Binghamton
UW Madison
WashU St. Louis
Boston College
Swarthmore
Brandeis

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You should be competitive anywhere.

OTOH, colleges with an acceptance rate below 20%, which is almost all of those on your list, are loaded with other equally competitive applicants. They don’t have enough seats for all of them, so many are rejected despite being well qualified.

To make college affordable, you are apparently going to need scholarships. So, I’d eliminate any on your list which offer only need based aid, which is all of the Ivies for starters. Typically scholarships are going to be found at colleges where you are at the top of the applicant pool, so I’d look for those kinds of schools. From your list, you may be a good match for scholarships at Brandeis and Villanova. Check and see. You can run the net price calculator for all of the schools on your list to see if anything pops up there. If you are in state in NY, Binghamton has some automatic scholarships for science majors who are in the top 10% of their high school class.

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The first thing I would do is get an exact number (budget) that your parents can spend on college each year.

The second thing I would do is use the NPC for each school on your list, and ask your parents if that number is affordable.

It looks like you will need merit money for college. A few schools to add to your list are 3 SUNYs- Binghamton, Buffalo, and Geneseo. I would also add Pitt.

I just noticed that Binghamton is already there

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Boston College offers so little merit that it essentially offers only need-based aid. Their one merit scholarship is the Gabelli scholarship (full tuition plus some other perks), which is awarded to a total of 15 entering students (out of nearly 40,000 applicants). So, I’d cross off BC unless it’s one of your top choices as the chances of getting that scholarship - even for a strong student like yourself - would be very low odds. Likely not worth the time for the application (which requires a supplemental essay).

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Have your parents run the NPCs at some of these schools to confirm you don’t qualify for need based aid?

If you don’t and you can’t afford $100k per year, then unfortunately many of these schools (like the Ivies and CMU) will need to come off your list since you won’t be able to afford them.

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You have a competitive profile, and you will definitely be accepted to a bunch of the schools on your list. As other said, though, first see which colleges from this list you can afford, since affordability may be your limiting factor, rather than being accepted to a school with a good neuroscience program.

You may want to reduce the number of reaches on your list, though that’s your choice. I would also remove Georgia Tech because its Neuroscience program isn’t as good as some of your higher acceptance schools - I would choose Neuroscience at UPitt, Rutgers, or Wisconsin over GTech.

Also, why is Swarthmore there? It is a Liberal Arts College, and is very different from all of the research universities that you have there. If you’re interested in attending a LAC, I would recommend a very different list.

Good luck!

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As a suggested addition, consider the University of Rochester.

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This is very common. This is also very common among academically talented students. You should be looking for universities that are likely to be affordable.

My understanding is that neuroscience is a field where some form of graduate school is relatively likely, and might be a bit more likely for academically very strong students such as yourself. On the one hand this means that you should avoid debt for your bachelor’s degree, and possibly even try to save a bit of college funds for graduate school. On the other hand, you can get into very highly ranked graduate programs coming from a very wide range of undergraduate schools, and quite a few people I have known have done exactly that.

If you do end up eventually considering a graduate degree, then PhD’s are often fully funded (although I am not specifically familiar with neuroscience PhD programs). Master’s degrees are typically not funded and can add significant additional expense.

You need to find out what your budget is, and what your budget is without taking on any debt at all.

Many of the universities on your list are likely to be very expensive. Multiple of them do not offer any merit aid at all. You have a list of very good universities. You do not have a list of very affordable universities.

I do not know which state you are from. This suggests that I do not know whether you have an in-state public university on your list. You probably should.

If finances matter at all, then you should not apply ED anywhere without first running the NPC, or having your parent run the NPC, and make sure that you and your parent are fine with whatever result you get.

The University of Vermont (usually abbreviated UVM) has a very good neuroscience program, and gives merit aid for out of state students. Given your stats, admissions would probably be a safety, and merit aid looks likely. At least for us the NPC did predict merit aid, and was spot on accurate in this regard.

My understanding is that the SUNY’s, or at least some of them, also offer merit aid for out of state students. Here I am not familiar with the specific schools. Given that you have one SUNY on your list, I expect that it is likely to be affordable although again I do not know whether or not you are in-state.

Knowing your home state would be helpful to people suggesting universities to consider.

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Two exceptional neuroscience programs are at small liberal arts colleges in Upstate New York - Colgate University and Union College. A friend’s daughter, who had a high school profile similar to yours and similar financial circumstances, chose between these 2 schools for Neuroscience. Both offered her nice financial packages. She chose Colgate where she is now a junior.

Historically, Colgate was one of the first two colleges in the country to establish a program in neuroscience at the undergraduate level. They first offered undergraduate neuroscience courses in 1972 and established a neuroscience major a few years later. In 2019, Colgate established the Robert Hung Ho Mind, Brain, and Behaviour Initiative (MBBI) to foster interdisciplinary research and collaboration in this field and recently opened a new MBBI Center in a renovated and expanded wing of Olin Hall to provide the facilities for this purpose.

Neuroscience was still a rare undergraduate major in the early 2000’s (fewer than 3 dozen such majors nationally) when Union College established their undergraduate neuroscience major. Within a decade they had established a Center for Neuroscience (2012), providing labs, faculty offices, and training spaces, and bringing together faculty from different disciplines together in one location for interdisciplinary research and collaboration.

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How much will they pay?

These only have need based financial aid, not merit scholarships. If their net price calculators show them to be too expensive, remove them from your list.

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How about Oberlin?

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I agree you seem to have a lot of colleges on your list unlikely to be affordable. You also have some very good ideas on your list, like Pitt and Binghamton.

Union is a very good suggestion to check out as they have both a strong Neuro program and merit. Others along those lines I would recommend checking out would be Rhodes College and Trinity University in Texas.

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Union offers top-notch lab facilities, should you want to consider this characteristic:

Best Colleges for Science Lab Facilities | The Princeton Review

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What does this mean? Can you tell your state - there are regional cohorts.

It’s tough when you say - I can pay $100K a year but I qualify for aid. Speak to your parents. Get an exact #.

While no one can say for sure, if you major in neuro, it’s unlikely to be the end of your schooling.

Awards - I’m less concerned with them. You got 5 - great. But for what? What you do, not what someone compliments you about it, is what matters. So focus less on collecting awards but have 2-3 activities that you have quality in - depth, increased responsibility, etc.

You may get in many places or may not - but you need to ensure you can afford, not just four years but longer. And it’s a very long list - you might want to trim it.

Best of luck.

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Duke, Vanderbilt, WUSTL, CWRU, Emory, MSU, UVA, USC all offer competitive full ride (or full tuition in the case of USC) scholarships

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Given your background Yale, Cornell, UPENN, Carnegie Mellon, John Hopkins, Rice and Duke are reaches for you. GT, Vanderbilt, UNC, Wash U, Boston College and Swarthmore are likely schools, and Pitt, Rutgers, Villanova, Wake Forest, SUNY, Brandeis and UW Madison are safety schools for you. I think you have a good chance of getting into a handful of these schools.

However, most of the reach and likely schools are not going to offer you merit money given what you have disclosed. I would add more SUNY schools and state schools like Penn State.

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Just curious - how you determine one set like this is a reach - but then a Vandy, WashU, and Swarthmore are likelies.

Not saying you are wrong. It’s your opinion so that’s what matters. But to me, they are in a similar range - with Swat maybe even harder.

Just wondering the thought process behind your chancing.

Thanks

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