Discussion

Demographics: - Chinese-American female - Bay Area (CA) - top STEM magnet public HS - full pay - no hooks Intended Major: Biology / Pre-Med Academics: - GPA: 3.98 UW / 4.6 W - Rank: 7/420 - SAT: 1560 (retaking to maybe 1570) - Coursework: 10 APs by end of junior year, all 5s so far - AP Bio, AP Chem, AP STEM heavy ECs: - USABO Semifinalist junior year - SUMaC (summer after sophomore year, biology track) - Volunteer at local hospital, ~100 hrs accumulated - Biology research with mom's connections at Genentech, working on protein folding project, hoping for poster at regional conf - Varsity track (sprints), 4 years, team captain senior year - Tutoring freshman/sophmore STEM students, 5 hrs/wk Awards: - USABO Semifinalist - AP Scholar with Distinction (junior) - Team captain accolade (track) - AMC 12 honor roll Schools: Reach: - Brown PLME - Northwestern HPME - Pittsburgh GAP Reach: - Stanford - Penn - JHU Match: - Rice - Cornell - UC San Diego Safety: - UCLA - UC Berkeley ngl im torn between committing to BS-MD apps (probably strongest shot at PLME or Pitt) vs rolling the dice on Stanford/Penn for traditional pre-med. everyone at my school does the traditional route and it feels safer but also risky. am i being dumb.

Demographics: - Indian female - Georgia - public magnet HS - upper-middle income - single parent household - bisexual (idk if this counts as a hook) Intended Major: Biomedical Engineering Academics: - GPA: 3.92 UW / 4.51 W - SAT: 1520 - Coursework: 11 APs (Bio, Chem, Physics C, Calc BC, Comp Sci, Lit, Lang, Stats, Micro, Macro, Seminar), mostly 4s and 5s - Rank: top 10% but school doesn't rank ECs: - Research at local university on protein misfolding and neurodegenerative disease, 2 years, second author on a published paper in a real journal - ISEF finalist 2024 (materials science category) - Founded and run a women-in-STEM mentorship program at my school, ~25 mentees - Volunteer tutor at community health clinic, 3 hours per week - Debate team, 3 years, regional qualifier sophomore and junior year Awards: - ISEF finalist - Published research author - National Merit Semifinalist - Georgia state debate finalist (junior year) Schools: Reach: - Stanford - MIT - Johns Hopkins (BME specific) - Duke - Northwestern Match: - Georgia Tech BME - Rice - CMU - Case Western Reserve Safety: - University of Florida (engineering) - Auburn i know my SAT is decent but the GPA/stats vs research pipeline makes me nervous. the paper is real but idk if it carries enough weight for the reaches. be honest.

junior at magnet school in NJ, 4.0 UW, 1560 SAT, USACO Gold, founded women-in-tech club and ran a hackathon. my schools are MIT, Stanford, CMU, Berkeley, GTech, Michigan, Cornell. lowkey feel like my ECs aren't research-heavy enough compared to other CS kids and my essays are mid. am i just reaching too hard or is there an actual shot here.

White male, suburban MA public school. 3.98 UW, 1560 SAT, mock trial nationals top 8, school paper EIC, dad's a lawyer so the whole Yale Law pipeline thing was inevitable I guess. ED to Yale got deferred, which is fine (lol), but now I'm staring down RD to Princeton, Stanford, Penn, Columbia and honestly I have no idea which way this goes. Did anyone else apply T10 humanities with a similar profile and actually get in somewhere, or am I just vibing in the reach pool.

Demographics: - Korean male - Bay Area, CA - competitive magnet school - full pay - no hooks Intended Major: Mathematics + Computer Science Academics: - GPA: 3.98 UW / 4.5 W - Rank: top 5% (exact rank withheld, school doesn't rank) - SAT: 1570 - Coursework: 11 APs by senior year (Calc BC, Physics C, CS Principles, CS A, Comp Sci all 5s) - Math competition: AIME qualifier junior year, USAMO honorable mention ECs: - Math competition team captain, coached freshman team on number theory - CS research project on algorithm optimization, paper draft stage - Tutoring middle schoolers in algebra and geometry, 6 hours/week - Debate team, varsity speaker, made nationals sophomore year - Started a math blog about competition problem solutions, ~200 monthly readers Awards: - AIME qualifier - USAMO honorable mention - AMC 12 perfect score (2 times) - National debate finalist Schools: Reach: - MIT - Stanford - Caltech - CMU SCS Match: - Berkeley EECS - CMU Math - Cornell CS - Carnegie Mellon Tepper (backup) Safety: - UCLA - UC San Diego Honestly. Bay Area CS is insanely saturated. My school probably sends 30-40 kids to T20 schools every year. I'm not doing anything that screams 'pick me' compared to everyone else here. Research and competition math are my strongest angles but I know that's table stakes at places like MIT. Am I reaching too hard or is this realistic.

Junior, 3.95 UW, 1550 SAT, took AP Bio / Chem / Calc BC already. USABO semifinalist last year, did SUMaC after sophomore summer, solid research pipeline through my mom's network at Genentech but nothing published yet. Debating whether to ED Brown PLME or play it safer with Stanford / Penn and pre-med track. Real question: am I delusional about BS-MD odds or should I actually gun for it. ngl the guarantee is tempting but I don't want to torpedo my app by being too narrow. Anyone here actually get into one of those programs or is it just lottery vibes.

Demographics: - Chinese international - Beijing, top-tier international school (RDFZ-affiliated) - Full pay - No hooks Intended Major: Applied Mathematics / Computer Science Academics: - GPA: 4.0 UW (IB system, predicted 44/45) - SAT: 1570 - Coursework: IB HL Math, Physics, CS; SL Economics, English, Mandarin - TOEFL: 119 Extracurriculars: - AMC 12 perfect score, AIME 11 - IMO China team alternate (trained at national camp) - Math competition coaching for junior students, 2 years - Founded coding club at school, ~25 members, organized regional programming competition - Research project on optimization algorithms with local university professor, paper under review - Debate team captain, won regional tournament Awards: - China National Math Olympiad, bronze medal - AMC 12 perfect score - IMO alternate (national team selection) - School academic excellence award Schools: Reach: - MIT - Stanford - Caltech - CMU SCS - Princeton Reach: - Yale - Columbia - Penn - Cornell Target: - Berkeley CS - UT Austin CS (honors) Safety: - University of Waterloo - Oxbridge (backup plan, parallel apps) ngl international acceptance rate is brutal and my list is reach-heavy. math and CS credentials feel solid but worried about how much that matters when 40k+ internationals apply. be honest about my chances.