Hi all, not sure if I’m doing this exactly right but will try my best. Junior in a public STEM magnet school on East Coast (mid Atlantic state), US citizen. Wants to stay on East Coast. Deeply involved in scientific research through her schoolwork, wants to continue in college with a focus in cell biology or biological engineering. Also has a passion for science fiction writing and has a novel in progress to be published.
Current GPA weighted: 4.39
PSAT 10: 1470
Takes maximal amount of AP’s, most recently 5 on AP World (her first AP)
Currently in AP Calc A/B and 4 AP’s this semester
Activities: Choir, Swim Team all 4 years (not recruitable athlete), Started Creative Writing Club at HS, Active 4H member
Awards: National Scholastic Silver Key, Local Public Library Short Story Winner
Work: Summer Internship this year for females in STEM
Volunteer: Public Library summer program
Intended major: Cell Biology or related with creative writing minor
Current schools of interest: Johns Hopkins, Princeton, William & Mary
Would Emory be too far south for your daughter? They have an amazing creative writing program in addition to a top notch biology department. There is also the ability to pursue a dual degree in biomedical engineering through a program with Georgia Tech. It would be a reach school, but not as much of a reach as Princeton or Johns Hopkins.
What is her unweighted GPA? So 4 for an A, 3 for a B, 2 for a C, etc.
What will the budget be?
Meaning, JHU is high 80s a year - so with inflation, etc. - you’re looking $350K-400K. Is that doable for you or will you qualify for need aid?
What will the safety school be - you asked for matches and reaches.
If it were me, I’d choose bio engineering over cell studies from an outcomes POV. You could always transfer to bio from engineering but unlikely the other way.
I’ll give you the entire Eastern seaboard - and there will be lots of safeties that I’m not mentioning. These are targets/reaches most likely.
but schools like:
U Miami
U Florida
Ga Tech
UMD
BU
Northeastern
Tufts
Columbia
Cornell
Rochester
UNC
Duke
Penn
Brown
UVA
Lafayette is another - doesn’t have ABET Bio Engineering but is ABET and bio is a choice within the ABET major.
I’ll say that it’s not confidence inspiring, with respect to the diligence of the compilation, that Emory appears at #6and#11 in the College Transitions site. Nonetheless, Emory can claim a long history of being recognized for its creative writing program, such as in this desriptive site:
Brown seems like a really obvious suggestion to check out. Totally agree about Emory if it is geographically acceptable. Maybe Penn?
Any interest in smaller colleges? From what I know (my S24 has a Biology interest so we looked at a lot of Bio departments), Haverford seems like a good fit given the focus of their Bio department, and they actually have an interesting engineering relationship with Penn if you go that way (unlike most LAC 3+2 programs where you get a second Bachelors at the partner university, you start taking Engineering classes actually at Penn while still at Haverford, and then can get a Masters in as little as 1 more year at Penn):
I think you can find strong writing courses most anywhere. They’re not all ‘ranked’ but most schools have this just like most have strong bio programs.
But to me the engineering portion/ not everyone has. Better to start there and pivot away.
Engineering and bio as majors - not necessarily related. You may consider a program like STEP at Purdue next Summer or Operation Catapult at Rose Hulman to get a taste of engineering to help validate the interest. Or invalidate it. There may be other programs but these are two well known ones.
It’s about the content in this case vs where they are located as they are short term programs.
Bucknell – which is on the list of 35 top colleges for creative writing – also has well-regarded programs in engineering and biology.
Generally, you might familiarize yourself with the Common Data Sets for the schools that you are researching, especially Section C7 (which tells how each school weighs academic and non-academic admissions factors) and Sections C9-C11 (which gives information on GPAs and test scores for recently matriculated students).
I’ll provide a reach school…Barnard. It’s a women’s college with full access to Columbia. There’s a creative writing concentration available within the English major, a cellular and microbiology track within the bio major, and there’s a 4+1 track leading to a Master’s in engineering (including biomedical) with Columbia.
That said, however, I think that you are approaching the college search process from the wrong end. The most important schools on a student’s list are their safeties. These are the schools that meet three conditions:
Extremely likely to admit the student
Extremely likely to be affordable
The student would be happy to enroll and spend four years at the school
By definition, matches and reaches won’t hit #1 on that list. And if the family doesn’t prioritize the sure things on a college search, that translates to the student that those options aren’t as highly valued. And if a “safety” ends up being the kid’s choice (whether by choice or by necessity), then there can be a lot of problems that arise with how they feel about it. So please, do not neglect the search for some sure things.
U. at Buffalo, U. of Delaware, Drexel, Duquesne, College of New Jersey, and more would all be possibilities.
Additionally, are there thoughts of moving inland from the coast? Ohio (just one state off the coast) or other areas of the midwest? Is the southeast an option? Or is the search limited to a state that is actually along the Atlantic Ocean?
Since she’s specifically interested in science fiction writing, support for that genre might be a good filter. This blog post is about MFA programs, but it’s interesting, and some of the schools could be good to look at for undergrad. MFA Programs that are Chill with Speculative Fiction – Steph Grossman
From that list, both NC State and Virginia Tech seem like interesting ideas - both have creative writing majors and minors available, in addition to a wide range of bio-related STEM majors.
NYU could be a good one to look at; and the Renée Crown University Honors Program at Syracuse could be worth a look too.
Hi, all, thanks so much for this input! Unweighted GPA right now is a 4.0. As for budget, I didn’t include that because I actually have no idea. We can probably swing around 30k a year family contribution so are hoping for significant aid but don’t know if we’ll get it. We are both teachers but my husband works a second job to make ends meet where we live and I’m not sure if that will disqualify us from a lot of need based aid. I should specify, cell biology/bio engineering is her main focus and major. The creative writing piece is her hobby and love, but she will not pursue a career in this. This is more of a carrot on a stick for her to keep her from going insane in the lab all day That being said, she would want to go somewhere with a good creative writing department.
This is great advice - thank you. I actually have no idea what I’m doing in this process and not surprised if I’m going about it the wrong way! This is our first kid going through it and her high school counseling department is basically non-functional. Not to mention, neither my husband and I are scientists so know virtually nothing about the field.
In terms of location, we would like her to stay within about 5 hours of Southern Maryland/Northern VA. Basically drivable distance - we don’t want to mess with flights and we want her to easily be able to come home for holidays.
She sounds like a very creative person. Wesleyan’s College of Design and Engineering Studies (CoDes) may be right up her alley:
CoDES hosts the interdisciplinary Integrated Design, Engineering, Arts & Society (IDEAS) major and minor, as well as the Engineering Dual Degree Programs. Hands-on, collaborative, project-based courses form the core of the IDEAS major and minor. Building on Wesleyan’s strong liberal arts tradition, IDEAS courses draw from a broad range of fields including biology, product design, ecological design, architecture, graphic arts, engineering, geology, archaeology, government, and physics. Welcome, College of Design and Engineering Studies - Wesleyan University
I replied further down to some of this but her unweighted is 4.0. I don’t know about safeties - we don’t have any yet. So far the list is William & Mary, Princeton and Hopkins and we know that isn’t a very good list! In terms of budget, we have no idea. Could swing a family contribution of about 30k +/- a year. We hope we’ll qualify for aid but we are both teachers and my husband works a second job to afford living where we do so I don’t know what we’ll qualify for.
Are you in-state for VA? William & Mary in-state is $42K not counting books, transportation, personal expenses, etc. Out of State is $72K. They only give ~8 full ride scholarships and no other merit aid. To check need based aid, you can run the net price calculator, but I would not expect much.
That being said, she would want to go somewhere with a good creative writing department.