Rate My Academic Plan.

Pre-College Topics High School Life
1

Hi! Please rate my 4-year academic plan in relation to my college list (bottom). I’ve seperated them by subject and grade. Professionally, I want to be an OBGYN and go to med school, but I want to major in Economics.

ENGLISH
9: English, Intro to Creative Writing
10: English
11: Advanced Creative Writing Workshop, American Studies (basically ap us history but it’s an english/history combo)
12: Satire, Intensive Expository, Contemporary World Fiction

SCIENCE
I am really interested in biology. I want to do research. I’ll apply to Choate’s Scientific Research Program, but it’s dubious whether I’ll get in or not. I like to program. I have a basic understanding of Javascript, HTML & CSS, and Swift (Apple’s app development code that’s not really well-known).

9: Physics (I’ll see if I can be bumped up to honors), Global Science, Intro to Programming
10: Chemistry, Computer Science Honors (if I get into pre-calc)
11: Biology
12: Current Topics in Biology

MATH
9: Geometry, Honors
10: Precalculus, Calculus
11: Calculus
12: Statistics

HUMANITIES
9: n/a
10: World History, Macroeconomics
11: American Studies, Microeconomics, Advanced Topics in Economics
12: Philosophy, the Rise of Modern China, Women’s Studies

CHINESE
9: accelerated
10: honors 2
11: honors 3
12: honors 4
(these may be higher/lower given that I have ~5-8 years of lessons already)

ART
9: photo 1/acting 1
10: photo 1/2//acting 1/2
11: film history (maybe)
12: jewelry

SUMMERS (purely aspirational)
9: assist in lab research, iowa writing, adroit journal
10: continue assisting in lab research/internship for economics, kenyon writing
11: TASP, RSI, or Wharton’s Entrepreneurship camp

COLLEGES, ranked:

  1. Harvard (dad was an RA there)
  2. Stanford
  3. Yale
  4. U Penn (legacy)
  5. Brown
  6. Berkeley/U Chicago
2

Additionally, I am a 4-time legacy at Howard, which has an acceptance rate of 49%.

3

& at either Boston College or BU, I’m not sure which exactly. Also, my aunt is a lecturer at the University of Maryland College Park.

4

@Gibby, is this competitive for Harvard?

5

@harvard2025 your plan seems good to me. to even be seriously considered at these places you need to take the most rigorous curriculum available and excel at it, in addition to nailing the SATs and having top ECs. Harvard and Stanford are crapshoots for even the most talented students, but your Harvard legacy status will help a bit.

Your legacy at Penn will also help a bit but not greatly given that you will be applying there RD. The fact that you come from a family that is very familiar with elite school admissions and with what it is like attending an elite school will definitely be of great help, in addition to the legacy benefits. On the other hand you probably go to a top prep school with a lot of other top students who have similar legacy status and are also very competitive and smart. So it comes down to whether you will be able to stay within the top 10-15% of your class while taking a rigorous curriculum.

6

It looks good, but is it typical at your school to jump from Geometry to Precalculus without Algebra2?

7

80%+ of Harvard applicants have competitive schedules. Pretty much every student from your school will have a schedule competitive enough for Harvard. For you, it’s too soon to tell, as you’re not even in 9th grade yet.

Additionally, you will be attending a top-ranked boarding school. Every incoming student there has absolutely no concept of how challenging the academics are going to be. While having a tentative 4 year plan is fine, it will undoubtedly change over time.

So your plan is premature; you are assuming that you will be amongst the top-ranked students there (which you may be, but it’s too soon to tell). The fact that every year seems to have more classes than is the normal workload, and that you are suggesting courses that would not normally be available for your grade level (e.g. macroeconomics as a sophomore) seems like hubris to me. You’d be wise to get your freshman year under your belt and then risk your question.

Also note that at your school, the advisors have been doing this a long time; they will work with you to select the best schedule for your abilities and your future plans.

What does that even mean? Harvard does not have RA’s in the traditional sense, i.e. upperclass undergraduates. And since Harvard does not consider grad school in legacy consideration, your dad’s involvement will mean nothing.

Yeah, that’s an issue. Your school won’t let you jump ahead just because you desire it, and there’s nothing on your post that indicates a plan on how to place out of Algebra 2.

8

He did his residency there and lived as an RA for Harvard College for 5 years.

I’m pretty sure that I can move into Algebra II because my classmate did. We took the same exact class with the same curriculum, and neither of us did any extra math class prep or any summer program. They are also going into Choate, and we have similar results on tests and grades. Same SSATs, grades, placement test results. They are a bit smarter than me imo, but my teacher hated me and didn’t give me a good rec lol.

9

Can I just ask if you’re considering being an OBGYN why you want to major in Economics? Although you don’t have to major in a certain STEM area to attend/apply to medical school, my advisor has told me that if I plan on going the medical route to major in something related to STEM, just to show Medical Schools you’re fully committed and can handle difficult courses.

10

^ no, actually that’s counterproductive advice.
Med schools want you to excel in any major of your choosing (philosophy does very well for instance) but major isn’t even a criterion when the algorithm makes the cut among all applicants : it’s purely overall GPA, premed GPA, science GPA, MCAT.
All science premed pre-reqs are difficult courses, at many universities they’re set as weedout, and in order to qualify for med school you need to rwnk top 10-20% in every single one of them. That’s plenty enough to reassure med schools about your motivation, readiness, and ability.

11

I agree with @MYOS1634 .

That said, let’s not get ahead of ourselves; the OP is 2 and a half minutes finished with 8th grade. Let him/her get acclimated a bit to HS first. Med School admissions is a whole different ball game and it’s a few years away.

12

OK. Still won’t help in admissions, though, as only undergrad matters for legacy consideration.

Well, that’s a discussion for you to have with your advisor and the math department. Let us know what happens.

As an FYI for the future, never blame a teacher. No school, either HS, college, or grad school, will ever view that as a valid explanation.