Match me- Class of 2027, Cognitive science/Bioinformatics/AI major, 1500 SAT, 3.92 UW GPA, 4.83 Weighted GPA [MD resident]

Chance Me / Match Me
1

Demographics

  • US citizen
  • State/Location of residency: Maryland
  • Type of high school (or current college for transfers): Public High School
  • Other special factors: (first generation to college, legacy, recruitable athlete, etc.) None

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 constraints

Intended Major(s): Cognitive Science/ Neuroscience / Bioinformatics or similar

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 3.92
  • Weighted HS GPA: 4.83 out of 5.0 scale (must specify weighting system; note that weighted GPA from the high school is usually not informative, unless aligned with the recalculation used by a college of interest, such as CA, FL, SC public universities)
  • College GPA: (for transfer applicants)
  • Class Rank: Not provided by school
  • ACT/SAT Scores: 1500 superscore

List your HS coursework

(Indicate advanced level, such as AP, IB, AICE, A-level, or college, courses as well as specifics in each subject)

  • English: Honors English 9, AP Seminar, AP Lang, AP Research, AP Lit (senior year)
  • Math: Honors Algebra 2, Honors Pre Calc, AP Calc BC, AP Stats (senior year)
  • Science: Honors Bio, Honors Chem, AP Physics 1, AP Chem (senior year)
  • History and social studies: AP Government, APUSH, Honors World
  • Language other than English: French 2, Honors French 3, Honors French 4
  • Visual or performing arts: Studio Art (senior year)
  • Other academic courses: AP Computer Science Principals, AP Java, Programming 1, AP Psychology, Advanced programming 3 (senior year)

Awards

  • 1st Place DECA States (2026)
  • 2nd Place DECA States (2025)
  • NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing (2024)
  • AP Scholar with Distinction (2025 and 2026)

Extracurriculars
(Include leadership, summer activities, competitions, volunteering, and work experience)

  • Patriot Ambassador (Student Government) Head of Graduation and Recording Secretary (2023 - present)
  • DECA Vice President
  • Science , English, French National Honor Society (2024 - present)
  • MedLife Wootton Chapter CoPresident (2025 - Present)
  • Year-long internship with AI startup company
  • ThinkNeuro Internship
  • Research internship at George Mason University
  • Treasurer of Women’s Rising school leadership club
  • Princeton Learning tutor (tutoring Math and English to students in China)

Essays/LORs/Other
(Optionally, guess how strong these are and include any other relevant information or circumstances.)

  • LOR from AP Calc BC teacher and AP Lang teacher
  • LOR from Internship mentor

Schools
(List of colleges by your initial chance estimate; designate if applying ED/EA/RD; if unsure, leave them unclassified)

  • Criteria for schools - strong academic program but significant social scene, near big city, west coast / east coast / chicago, no size criteria but not too small.
  • Need to identify reach/target/safety schools - We have a lot of reaches on our list but would like to narrow down to best fit, looking for good fitting targets and safeties. Also looking for good ED options.
  • Some already on the list of interest - Tufts, UCSD, Brown, Columbia, UCLA, Berkeley, Northwestern, Dartmouth, Georgetown, UMD, Penn State, Pitt. any that should be removed?

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; also, for colleges that admit by major or division, consider that in chance estimate.

Not necessary

  • Assured (100% chance of admission and affordability):
  • Extremely Likely:
  • Likely:
  • Toss-up:
  • Lower Probability:
  • Low Probability:
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Unless you are taking this your senior year, UCLA and UCSD should be taken off your list. A year of Visual or Performing Arts is a requirement for admission.

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Thank you, yes it will be in senior year. I will update.

4

Try CMU, they have bachelors in neuroscience, cognitive science, biology (neuroscience track), a unified double major in biology and psychology, and minors in neural computation and neuroscience

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Just a thought: With strong stats, some French, wanting a strong academic program but also a good social scene in or near a big city, you might want to consider McGill. It might be pretty close to a safety even with your being an international student, and it is in an interesting location to spend four years.

UMD is very good. I am hoping that your chances there are very good given your excellent academics plus being in-state. However you and your guidance counselor would know better than I how good your chances are there.

Seeing “AI” in the title I am pleased that you are tutoring math. The skill sets overlap.

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The list seems reach heavy and needs more likely admits.

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In terms of Reaches to reconsider, I always consider the UCs to be a fairly dubious value proposition OOS. In-state, they can be amazing bargains. But they really charge a LOT for OOS.

I also don’t really see the fit with Dartmouth. It is not near a big city, and while of course a very good school overall, I don’t see them as notably strong for your areas.

Tufts and Georgetown then have good city locations, but I also don’t see those as notably strong for your areas.

Then while you don’t really need more Reaches, I would mention that for your academic interests combined with location preferences, Penn, Hopkins, WashU, and NYU would be more natural choices. I note while obviously St Louis is not coastal, or Chicago, it is a large, historic city, and in fact a pretty fun place to be a student including because it is somewhat less expensive.

Speaking of which, I think Pitt is a great choice for a more likely college, as Pittsburgh is also a very fun, historic city for students, and Pitt is excellent for your interests. But I would not so much see the appeal of Penn State.

However, you could consider at least Washington in Seattle, another great school for your academic interests, and of course Seattle is a very nice large city. Also possibly Minnesota in the Twin Cities. I note Minnesota, like Pitt, has a form of rolling admissions, so it can be nice to see if you can get an early offer from a college like that.

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But note that a large percentage of majors there are capacity constrained, so changing between them can be difficult.

https://advising.uw.edu/degree-overview/majors/list-of-undergraduate-majors/

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We were considering Tufts and Dartmouth because from research online it seems they both have a very good Cognitive science program. But thank you, will definitely look into Penn, WashU, NYU.

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I would also check out Yale University as a “reach” option. Did you score “4” or “5” in AP Seminar and AP Research? Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, Bioinformatics - any interest in creating new knowledge in any of these areas? Research-focused institutions are always interested in admitting new undergraduate researchers, ones that have potential of continuing on to a graduate degree (PhD) as opposed to collecting a diploma after 4 years & entering the world of work.

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To be sure, if you liked them enough for other reasons, it is not like they would be bad choices.

But FYI, this is the sort of thing you can check just for relative research strength:

There is WAAAAY more to choosing a college than this sort of analysis, and in fact this sort of ranking de facto excludes LACs, which are not at all a good idea to ignore for undergrad purposes. It also will naturally not rank as highly more undergrad-focused institutions, like in fact a Dartmouth.

However, if you can get everything you want in terms of location, lots of non-academic student resources, AND top research departments in your intended areas, that’s not a bad idea, assuming a research university is what you want in the first place.

By the way, looking at those lists, I was reminded that USC would be another urban research university that has excellent departments in these areas.

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Yes, and I will admit to being far from an expert on how to navigate their undergrad curriculum.

What I do happen to know is they have this very cool undergrad minor:

My understanding is that is designed to be flexibly combined with any related majors, including Neuro or Psych.

But I understand this might look a little risky in terms of major admissions and contingency plans, as opposed to places where you can pretty freely declare (and change) majors.

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…unless the non-CA school doesn’t offer it and instead incorporates elements of visual or performing arts into other classes.

I know this from personal experience with my daughter’s school, so I’m just putting this out here as an FYI. I don’t want to derail the thread, so I’m happy to answer any follow-up questions via PM instead of here.

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Consider taking a look at Colgate and Union.

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