Match me! Ig

Chance Me / Match Me
1

Just checking what I would get into if I were to do these things during highschool I’m a freshman

Demographics

  • Current highschool senior(I’m a freshman just seeing what I might get into if I did these things)
  • I’m a US citizen, Canadian citizen, and an Egyptian citizen
  • Michigan
  • Middle eastern
  • In the IB program

Intended Major(s)

  • Neurology with a premed focus(neurosurgeon NOT BECAUSE THEY MAKE SO MUCH MONEY I like the nervous system it interests me)

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 3.94(but its a 4 since the school grades a 4 as a A, and a 3.5 as a B and so on)
  • Weighted HS GPA: 4.71(was wondering If I take IB courses and 2 or 3 APs during my sophomore and freshman year will this be an approximate of what my GPA might be or would it be higher or lower?)
  • Class Rank: top 4 in middle school and top let’s say 25 in high school out of 1657
  • ACT/SAT Scores: I got a 1340 on my Psat in 8th grade so I think for the SAT I will probably get around a 1400-1500 I hope

Coursework
AP/IB scores for high school; I’m going to take in my sophomore year APUSH AP environmental science, and in my 11th and 12th grade year I will be taking IB HL math, IB HL english, IB HL psych, IB HL Bio, IB SL geography, and IB SL French.
I will reach Honors Calculus if I’m not in IB, and I would be in AP French in my senior year.

Awards

  • Honors Program - Congress of Future Medical Leaders
  • NJHS awards
  • And NHS award
  • Don’t have a lot of awards can anyone tell me what awards I can do in order to increase my chances?

Extracurriculars

  • Math olympiad
  • Did a LOT of tutoring
  • I play a lot of soccer(Varsity soccer)
  • Varsity tennis
  • Volunteer in NJHS and NHS
  • My dad will/made me do some work at the hospital in research

Essays/LORs/Other

  • Essay about traveling too much which caused me not to have a lot of academic advantages and lose friends.
  • And I don’t know what a LOR is…
  • can anyone give me any ideas about what to improve on for this section as well?

Cost Constraints / Budget

  • I don’t have any cost constraints(I don’t need to focus on money just academics since my parents can hopefully pay for it)
  • Any kind of scholarship

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)
  • Likely (would be possible, but very unlikely or surprising, for it not to admit or be affordable)
  • Match
  • Reach

THIS is the main part I’m struggling with. First I can’t find a good website that gives me information on what every college wants. So if possible can anyone make a list I can apply to 20-25 of them(is this too much?).

Thank you!

2

Just to clarify…are you a HS freshman pretending to be a senior?

3

YUP! just trying to see what I might get into If I continue what I’m doing or do more things.

4

Keep it a secret :shushing_face:

5

Are you going to be traveling a lot in high school? Why? And, if so, and you want to use that topic, hopefully something a bit more positive can be said about the experience?

Letter(s) of Recommendation

6

Your major in undergraduate school will not be neurology. And actually, even while in medical school, you won’t know your specialty until you match into a residency program in that specialty. And that is assuming you actually get accepted into medical school.

You are a high school freshman. It’s way too early to match you to any college…or major.

At this point, you need to take four years of English, Science, Math, Social Studies and Foreign Language. And add in an arts elective or two. Do a sport also. Find some activities you like without regard for college admissions, and do those activities.

Once you have a junior year GPA, you will be in a better place to find specific colleges.

It’s fine to get a sense of the types of colleges you might like…location, size, distance from home or ease of travel, urban/rural/suburban, secular or religious, public or private.

Lots of moving parts in the college selection process.

2 Likes
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Thank you!

8

With respect to your college major, perhaps you mean neuroscience?

9

It is early to be considering this, but sure, planning ahead is not bad. I’m hoping that you will be doing all of high school in one location - if the family is considering moving you around during high school, see if that can be avoided. Writing an essay about how traveling too much in middle school or younger harmed you would not be a good subject, I think, but I’m sure you will come up with plenty of other ideas in the next few years.

What you want now is to get the highest grades possible, taking the most challenging classes offered. Do the extracurriculars that you like, and do them as much as you like. Unless you are trying to get into a BS/MD program (extremely competitive), there is no need to do medically related ECs now. Certainly, do not let anyone force you to do ECs that you don’t want to do! If you don’t want to do medical research now, don’t do it! Plenty of time to do that in the future, if you want.

Watch out for manufactured ECs/honors, like the “Your child has been invited to participate (for pay) in this prestigious program that has the word medicine in it!” type of program.

Do plan to prep for the ACT or SAT, starting in the summer before 11th grade. The reason not to bother before then it that it’s overkill, and your time is better spent just reading voraciously and broadly, doing schoolwork, doing ECs, and having a social life. But unless you’re only applying to California publics, it is worth prepping in the summer before 11th, in time for the real PSAT, because you want to try for National Merit since it opens doors to scholarships. Also, plan to try an at home practice ACT, to see which test you’re better suited to do well on, so you can prep for that one.

When I see someone who has your advantages - I’m assuming that you’re fluent in Egyptian dialect and culture - and I think of amazing ECs that dovetail with your interests that might set you apart from the crowd when applying to college, what comes to mind is assisting in some kind of US-run summer medical research program, maybe in infectious disease, in Egypt, perhaps the summer before 11th and the summer before 12th. They could probably use you as an interpreter and as support staff, and maybe even in some medical information gathering capacity. The way to find something like this would be to do a lot of internet sleuthing, and reach out to US academic infectious disease specialists in tropical diseases who are doing research/work in Egypt.

I’m not saying that you have to do this. Of course you don’t. I’m just saying that thinking outside the box like this, working with the particular talents that you have that other applicants don’t, and leveraging them to do something amazing that has nothing to do with your high school, that doesn’t involve trying to claw your way to become the president of some high school club, that the admissions officers won’t see a thousand others just like you, THAT is what will vastly increase your chances of acceptance at highly selective schools.

Do your best in the most challenging classes your high school offers. Think about a way to do something that YOU would love to do, that is outside the usual for high school students, that takes advantage of your own talents, and that would make you stand out.

And BTW, you’re particularly lucky in that you are also a Canadian citizen, and as such have a better chance at places like Toronto and McGill, and at Canadian tuition rates.

10

Thank you so much this is all amazing advice that I will consider doing!

11

Sorry, I’m still researching my major, so I don’t have a rough idea yet. Thank you for the tip!

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