#College Search (junior)

68 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

wet tree
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Location: Primarily USA, I’d like it to not be rural, and I have no preference on urban or suburban. I am from LA and I don’t want to be close to home, so no schools within LA county, everything else is fair game.

MAJOR: Currently I’d like to major in bioengineering, or biomedical engineering as some schools call it. But this is a very up in the air question for me as I’m pretty unsure on what I truly want to major in. Therefore I’d hope to go to a school that doesn’t require declaration until the end of sophomore year.

STATS: My GPA is currently a 4.01weighted 3.84unweighted. However if I continue down my junior year trajectory it would become a 4.09weighted. The grade average at my school last year was a 3.98 weighted with the max possible being 4.5, and school average was 1380 average sat. I haven’t taken the SAT but my practice test have me scoring in the 1510-1530 range. ALSO just to add, in the UC system I think its a 4.36 weighted 3.86 unweighted, and a 4.05 weighted and capped.

CURRICULUM: As I said above I’d love a liberal arts curriculum, think brown or stanford. I’d enjoy curriculums similar to theres that allow students to have alot of freedom and choice over there experience at the school.

SIZE: I’d like to have the overall college size be a medium size or large sized institution, for refrence Stanford, yale, lehigh, princeton, are all my ideal sizes. I’m open for larger but hesitant for smaller, such as Amherst. However I’d like for there to not be class sizes that are above 20. Coming from a high-school with class sizes never over 30, id hope my college for most classes wouldn’t surpass 40.

COST: My parents are very financially stable so if merit scholarships are an option that would be nice but no cost is a deal breaker.

CONSIDERING: Dream school is currently Stanford,with princeton, yale, and harvard following close after. I also loved UC berkeley, and Lehigh. I’m considering emory but I haven’t done any digging I just know it has a big bio focus. Other schools I liked but am iffy on is Northwestern, Uchicago, and UCSC.

ADDITIONAL FACTORS: For all four years I want housing to be available within a mile of the campus. I’d prefer a quarter based system. I want atleast 4% of the student body to be African American, and want general ethnic diversity. I want school spirit and true enjoyable sports games (doesn’t need to be D1). I want undergrad research opportunities to be readily available for anyone who actively is trying to find one. I want nice buildings, can be modern or old I just don’t want boring. I want a low greek life presence, meaning under 50% of undergrads participate in it. I want spaces to be open for people from variety of majors, meaning the 3d printing space when free should be open to all, or soccer and basketball courts when unused can be played on with friends.

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College Search (junior)

wild monolith
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Duke!!!

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Vanderbilt

wet tree
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Oh sorry forgot to mention my mom has a big fear of red states where abortion is illegal

wild monolith
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CWRU, Rochester, Univeristy of Washington,

You should still do the UCs even if you want smaller class experiences, you'll get that in your upper elective courses at most schools. Most gen ed classes at any college will be large (100+) because people from many different majors will be taking that class at a time. So for example BME has to take bio and chem and those are classes bio majors, chem
majors, physics majors, premeds, and a lot of other stem degrees will also be taking.

wild monolith
wet tree
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That’s great to here I’ll definitely add duke to the list

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I was wondering since all those schools are extremely prestigious and are reaches for almost anyone, if you could give me an idea of what schools are targets and which aren’t

wild monolith
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yes that's a great question

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I think I need more details about which classes you've taken in HS and what your extracurriculars look like (you can dm me if you'd like)

wet tree
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Ill send them here shortly

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Junior yr:
AP Biology
AP English Language
Honors COGO
Honors Pre-Calculus
Graphic Design
Photography 2
Music Production (half credit)
Spanish 4

Sophomore:
photography 1
Sports training
Honors us and the world
Honors trigonometry
Honors English 10
Spanish 3
Chemistry

Freshmen:
physics
honors geometry
English 9
Ancient history and the world
Spanish 2
Making and engineering (half credit)
Sports training
Graphic design 1

Expected senior year courses:
honors molecular bio capstone
Honors marine bio
Ap calc
Ap lit
Ap stats
Honors art history
Ap art
Ap or honors Spanish

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My extracurriculars are kinda lacking, I do photography, studio art, piano, fly drones occasionally and make TikTok edits. But TikTok edits are the only extracurricular where I really have proper content to show for it

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I also was a member of the jv soccer team fresh and soph yrs, and am on track rn. Idk if sports really help me tho since im just in it to get a workout it

wet tree
wild monolith
wet tree
wild monolith
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ooh ok, what club?

wet tree
wild monolith
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ehhh it's pretty common for seniors to start intiatives in their hs as they have a better understanding of the needs of the student body

wet tree
# wild monolith ooh ok, what club?

An arts and science club, I haven’t worked out logistics but it would be blending my two interest together and I think making art through scientific means sounds cool

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Oh and another ec I forgot to mention is last summer and this upcoming one I’ve worked/will be working as the lead coding instructor for a summer camp

wild monolith
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I think you could consider schools with 35% to 50% as targets

and then like 20-35% as hard targets.

Everything else is a reach. I'm on the fence on how competitive your app is for reaches specifically I think how you write about your experiences and like owning your passion and dedication for them in your writing is going to be super important

wet tree
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Ok thanks for that info

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In that case that makes the t30 reaches I’m assuming

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From ur perspective what in my application is the weakest overall? And What in my application is the weakest that I could improve

wet tree
wild monolith
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nope you can do something like an internship or summer program or job or meaningful volunteer experience this summer or fall.

or volunteering you could even start on the weekends now if you have time

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and then there's the SAT/ACT

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for model UN you could try to win stuff and get accolades there

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or yeah you can "level-up" your current activities like trying to get a leadership in them
or doing a bigger or more meaningful project in them than u have before

wet tree
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for SAT I think I’ll definitely get above 1510 hoping to super score 1540+

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Also I’m going to try and volunteer to work the art booth at my local neighborhood farmers market

wet tree
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Did u go to duke for ur undergrad and graduate?

wild monolith
wild monolith
wet tree
wild monolith
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hmm ok. what about the average top students, like the ones in the top 10% of your class

wet tree
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I don’t know exact metrics but I have a friend who is definitely a member of that and he has around the same schedule as me except he is taking Ap calc this yr and he’s taking Ap music theory however he doesn’t take any half credit course so he has 7 total class, meanwhile I have 8

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Also my schools honors courses are “equal” to an Ap level course difficulty wise

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Atleast that’s the wording in the school profile

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In fact could I just dm u the school profile? I don’t want it to be public info to the whole server but I think you’d be better at interpreting it that I would be

wild monolith
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i think lehigh, rochester, cwru are good targets.
maybe villanova.

maybe brandies, trinity college, lafayette,

purdue and virginia tech

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for safeties you should be good for riverside/merced

wet tree
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Ok thank you so much I’ll definitely be looking into all of this, and I’m glad u suggest that I don’t cut off the reaches, because whoever knows what could happen.

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Also a lot of the targets I haven’t seen yet so this definitely widened my scope

wet tree
wild monolith
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Santa Clara has an engineering summer campus you could participate in. https://www.scu.edu/engineering/beyond-the-classroom/outreach/summer-engineering-seminar-ses/

Or this UW Madison one could be good - https://engineering.wisc.edu/engineering-summer-program/

Summer Engineering Seminar (SES) - School of Engineering - San...
College of Engineering - University of Wisconsin-Madison
Dan Roelke
Engineering Summer Program - College of Engineering - University of...

Love math and science? Interested in exploring engineering? Learn more about the UW-Madison College of Engineering Summer Program.

wet tree
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Also sorry but one final question, from what you’ve heard or witnessed, how often does a well spent gap year improve applicants chances

wild monolith
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like 0

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for the average student, I think it really only helps international students who need to reapply or take a gap for financial reasons

wet tree
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Ok that makes sense

wild monolith
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also i know there are schools that have combined are and engineering programs

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but lowkey it's rare idr others that have it at the top of my head. but i love your science art club idea and I think as you continue pursuing your interests you'll be able to find ways to articulate why you like the resources/opportunities at specific schools.

wet tree
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Thank u exploring schools is definitely quite a process

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But I’m learning that I need to put acceptance rates out of my mind to focus on what matters

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Also since ur a bme major, is the trajectory for working in that field as tedious as the traditional pre med track,

wild monolith
# wet tree Also since ur a bme major, is the trajectory for working in that field as tediou...

it's worse. and combining bme with something else like premed or art is tough tbh.

mostly because engineering and art or music are all outside-of-class degrees like you have a lot more project-based homework that takes many hours to do than students in other degrees have to do.

also engineering classes are notoriously difficult at baseline. I know a lot of people who did well and didn't struggle as much but they had a combination of suuupperrr smart and super good work ethic.

I would say I am super smart with no work ethic so it was a struggle for me lol.

And I did bme, neuroscience, minor in african american studies, and premed at the same time 😭😭

Because I realized I liked being busy but I wasn't really doing my best at like time
management/focus/discipline for each class.

It was totally doable if I did not procrastinate though but still p stressful, I don't recommend piling on that much

wild monolith
wet tree
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I’ll probably make a new college post in 9 months about my chances and such