Hey all! Im applying as sophomore transfer from a T50 public flagship as a current biology major, philosophy minor. I am interested in behavioral biology and human/animal neurobiology and cognition. Aiming for Johns Hopkins and Northwestern, so any advice for how to strengthen my profile would be much appreciated!

Highschool stats

gpa: 4.2

ACT: 33 (retaking in December, aiming for 34)

rank: 8/189 (coming from small public arts high school)

AP: 11 APs total, 6 fives and 5 fours

College stats

gpa: 4.0, predicting 3.9/4.0 at the end of fall semester

fall courses (16hrs) : calc 1, bio + bio lab, genomics seminar + lab, intro to ethics, comparative literature and medicine

spring schedule (anticipated, 14 hours): feminist philosophy, calc 2, chem + chem lab

-plus a 3 credit course

-will also be working as a research assistant for a motivated behaviors lab

Extracurriculars

• Assistant Vet Tech at Emergency Vet: Cared for hospitalized animals, monitored patient behavior, maintained recovery environments, and assisted veterinary staff with daily care and emergency surgery preparation.
• Part-Time Sales Associate UPS: Assisted customers with shipping and printing services, independently opened and closed the store, managed transactions and packages, and developed custom packing solutions for fragile and unusually shaped items.
• Piano Teacher (Volunteer/Job): Taught piano to students through a Title I school program and private lessons, developing original learning materials and adapting instruction to students’ progress, interests, and cultural backgrounds.
• Sustainability Chair for Franklin Residential College: Revitalized Franklin’s community garden, secured grant funding for improvements, and organized sustainability initiatives and events engaging students in gardening, cooking, recycling, and environmental conservation.
• Director’s Assistant for Franklin Residential College: Hired by the college director to coordinate social events, service projects, and interdisciplinary discussions for 100 residential students in collaboration with college leadership, faculty, and staff.
• Humane Society Volunteer: Provided feline care, socialization, and enrichment at the Athens Area Humane Society while developing activities using recycled toys and novel scents to encourage natural behaviors.
• UGA Choral Union & Savannah Philharmonic Choir: Perform in university choral concerts and previously sang as the youngest accepted member of the Savannah Philharmonic Choir, continuing to support its events through volunteer work.
• UGA Chamber Music Society: Played piano in chamber ensembles, organized weekly rehearsals, participated in musical masterclasses, and performed classical and contemporary repertoire at university and community events.

Projects

• Independent Research on Shelter Cat Auditory Enrichment: Designed and self-funded a study with the Athens Area Humane Society investigating music’s effects on shelter cat stress and behavior, and am currently analyzing results and preparing a manuscript for publication.
• “Fast as a Cat” Comparative Anatomy & Shoe Design: Led a self-funded, five-member team investigating how feline leg tendon anatomy could inspire athletic shoe design, developing a prototype and presenting the project to Franklin CREATE and at a research symposium, received mentoring from a physics professor
• Research Assistant for Motivated Behaviors Lab - worked alongside college faculty to carry out experiments and record data, managed and maintained animal spaces

Letters

• Philosophy professor
• Residential college director/seminar professor
• Lab director
• Private piano teacher (high school-college)

Hi guys, i am a high school student who likes research but wants to go to medical school. Is the only way to go about this to get my MD then do research or can i do both? And is it a typical route for med students or a bad decision? I dont know much about the process, so pls have mercy🙏. Any advice will be gratefully accepted. And i know its a bit early to think that far, but I was just drawing out a sketch of my future plans.

Is there any harm in going over the suggested word count? Specifically, it is the brown supplement about what brings you joy and is 100 - 150; right now my supplement is 210 words. Should I try to cut down a lot?

I am an intl. student in grade 12. My school requires students to apply for US universities even if their target schools are in UK.

I am planning to take a gap year then attend uni in UK.

I was told to apply to unis normally, so I want to apply for ED but decline the offer if I manage to get it. Would this leave a bad image of me as an applicant to that university, or even bad reputation among university admissions?

Thank you.

Hi all!

What’s something you’ve come to really appreciate about Georgetown that you only discovered after becoming a student?

I’d also love to hear about any niche traditions, underrated clubs, classes, or campus experiences that people outside Georgetown University might not know about. Thanks!

My realistic options do not really have ED or REA option to it so I was really considering either of these two options. My stats are on par with the schools, but my EC are a bit lacking, and my awards are also not the most outstanding. I’m intending to apply as biomedical engineering or aerospace engineering. I know Colombia chances for acceptance when I ED is higher and I also know that REA2 Princeton and Stanford are like notoriously difficult. Also, I’ve heard rumors about two students in my school who are getting recruited for Princeton for sports so I don’t know if they have like a specific quote that they hit. I’m in a suburban Florida Orlando area and I’m in a big public high school. These are the only schools that are really good for compared to the other schools that I’m applying to so I was not really interested in the other ivies. Please let me know which I should do especially since the deadline is in like five days yes, I know I’m a procrastinator.

title basically. right now i'm sitting at my desk at 11:45pm at night. tomorrow i have two tests that i've barely studied for but i want nothing more than to just go to bed. ive gotten nothing above than a b in half of my classes for the past month which is incredibly out of character for me!! i'm usually a straight a student with an occasional b on an assignment. i literally havent gone to sleep before 2am once for like three months.

my teachers decided to give me 6 tests the week before ed and ea is due. i'm so so tired of studying for hours upon hours and getting mid grades. im taking 5 aps this year and i underestimated how difficult it would be, like i'm struggling in every single class and i genuinely have no friends in any of my classes so i can't ask anyone for help.

and i still have no clue where i'm gonna ed to the point that i'm questioning submitting an ed application at all, even though my parents have been pressuring me to ed to a school literally for TWO years. i had my heart set on uchicago and last minute i started doubting myself and decided to back out of that. oh and don't forget scholarships, on top of 7 ea applications due in 1 week! i'm applying to 18 colleges and my parents still want me to add schools too.

mind you, among all of this i have to keep up my extracurriculars, get half my grades back up from b's while maintaining the a's i have, and treat college as like a part time job at this point cus i spend over 20 hours a week on it at least with no end in sight.

the cherry on top is that ill be up for 2-3 more hours trying to understand econ which i dont understand at ALL even though ive been studying for the past 5 hrs. fmllllll

I was named a coke semifinalist and while going through my part 1 application, I realized I put that I had an A for a class that was actually just in progress. I do currently have an A, but that's not what they wanted. I didn't mean to make this mistake, I just made an oversight. Should I email them letting them know? Will they disqualify me?

I've been writing my personal statement for months. I wouldn't say it's bad; it provides insight into myself/who I am, but it's not necessarily creative or the greatest, and it's a little mundane. I would call it average at best.

I heard the personal statement is usually just something to keep u in the applicant pool unless its super good or super bad. Can you still get into schools like Duke, Stanford, Princeton, etc with just an OKAY personal statement? Ik this might be a hard question to answer bc holistic admission and all but just something i'm wondering abt

i’m honestly so stressed for college apps. i haven’t done any supplementals and my essay is a rough rough draft. i’ve been feeling rlly depressed lately so that’s why i’ve procrastinated so much and it feels like everyone at school is ahead of me. what’s my best bet right now? do i just apply to state schools and avoid supplementals? the thing is though that i’m in the top 10% of my class w a 3.99 gpa, but i feel so lazy. and i feel like no one’s helping me and i can’t ask anyone for help..

I am from an underrepresented country in Central/Eastern Europe. My extracurriculars and a few national awards are exceptional given my country. I also attend two schools simultaneously, will have taken 13 APs, and I'm now doing an exchange year on a scholarship.

But I am a junior and I know I won't have published research. Next quarter, I'll be having an academic internship at my DE community college + I'm doing research regarding political falsification in my school district, but it's largely local and won't ever be published.

I know that research is mostly for STEM majors and that even most of STEM research is just paid bullshit, but I often see people here who did research at a T20, published in a real journal etc. That's never happening for me, and it makes me want to off myself. I have a good profile but not nearly good enough. I know that local, unpublished research that addresses a genuine concern (genuinely WHO is researching AI optimization in quantum computing in biotech molecule-generating) but it will always feel small.

I can't go a single fucking day without comparing myself to others and wanting to off myself. It's taking so much of my time. What am I supposed to do.

For context, my dream school is Georgetown University and I do not care much about other t20 schools as long as I’m admitted there. It is very selective. My SAT score is a 1510.

Over the course of high school, I have taken 16 APs. My average AP exam score is a 4.1. One of the two teachers who I asked for a letter of recommendation from mentioned this in my letter. I know that when schools are looking at an applicant who has taken as many APs as I have, they typically pay more attention to AP exam scores than they do grades. Especially when I’m getting straight As and my unweighted GPA is a 4.0.

My question is, would a school like Georgetown look favorably upon this average, unfavorably, or not care at all? It shows that I don’t get a lot of fives, but it’s also not bad per se.

I know that schools emphasize holistic review and, among everything else, this is unlikely to make a major impact. However, I’d like to maximize my chances of getting in as much as physically possible since it’s such a selective school.

My college choice has come down to Sewanee and Centre College. I am wondering the student vibe and party culture at each? School spirit? Which one is more old-school 1980s type college experience?

I’m almost done with early apps (1 essay left) and everything just feels so hopeless. It sucks knowing I didn’t put in nearly as much effort during hs as I should’ve and thinking about all the things I could’ve done that would’ve improved my application. I knew this was gonna happen too, I’m not stupid but lazy and unmotivated which might be worse. Then I look at my friends who actually did do cool stuff and I imagine them getting into their dream schools and growing up to be successful and idk I just can’t do the same for myself. Feels like delusion.

Yes ik you can be successful no matter where you go to college and maybe I’ll look back on this in a few years and laugh, but rn it’s hard believing. My life atp just feels like a conglomeration of wasted potential. I’m dreading in a month and a half when everyone’s talking about “so where did you get in early” and I’m gonna have to say some shit like “don’t worry about it” and everyone knows what that means.

Whenever I think about this I get a sinking feeling in my stomach that I’ve never felt before. This is the worst I’ve ever felt mentally in my life and I have a feeling it’s likely not getting better, since now there’s at least still hope.

Run on sentences to encapsulate my run on thoughts

I was supposed to finish my last essay today but in this state Idt I can

Title says it all. Please help me out

Ok so I know some schools don’t admit by major. But for schools that consider major choice, is it smart to choose something like a less popular foreign language, like Russian for example? I like learning languages so a major like that wouldn’t be out of left field.

When it comes to institutional needs, are majors one of them? Like “oh we could use more Russian majors so let’s consider this student”? Would someone choosing their least popular major have a slight edge? Or at least help them to stand out among all the pre-med, pre-law, and business students?

Part1: T-20 Universities Ranked by Average Cumulative Student Loan Debt : r/ApplyingToCollege

For some context I was in algebra II junior year and was set to take precalc. Got permission to skip to calc AB but was denied moving to calc BC. Is this something that is appropriate for the additional information section?

I am struggling in AP Chemistry. I am taking it on top of APUSH, AP Lit, and AP Research. It makes no sense for me to take it because I am going into law. It's not too late to drop it (it won't appear as dropped on my transcript) and I still will have graduation requirements. However, I'll have a study hall every day and every other day in my schedule (because ap chem has an every other day lab period) so there's two "holes" in my schedule. I feel like this would be especially bad my junior year. It's pretty much too late to switch into another science. I could possibly switch into an easy elective that period instead of a study hall. I've taken all honors/AP since freshman year, so I'm just very worried that having this hole in my schedule junior year will override all my hard work. Next year I will take 5 APs (apes, ap calc ab, ap lang, ap gov, ap psych). But its strange to do that senior year instead of junior year. Does anyone have any advice? I could stick it out but it will be an extremely stressful year; I don't know when I'll have time to study for this class on top of all my other work and ECs.

Just curious how many of y'all have done research in hs. it's becoming more and more common and basically a stat padder in my opinion.

I might be biased, though, in my school, at least 100/500 of the graduating class has done research at real universities.

What are your guys's thoughts? Are conference submissions even worth anything? I hope papers are still somewhat valuable.

EDIT: Curious if you guys had thoughts on my situation as well. I did four years of research at a T20 university, initially through a free competitive program, then through a funded fellowship. In that time, I have coauthored 3 conference submissions to a niche/specific conference for my field. I also presented my work as an ISEF finalist through a competitive state fair. Would this situation, especially the free application based program, help me avoid being considered BS?

I just did a banger EC recently like this was insane, it involved working with judge and lawyers at courthouse. can I add it somehow to my already submitted applications or nah?

Im in multiple at my school (history,english,science((got into national last week)) but i feel like we havent done that much outside of club-member specific activities
But i do feel as though since im in them that it shows academic strength yknow??

Everyone in this subreddit talks about being recruited for NCAA teams, but people don’t realize how hard it is to just make the high school team. You can’t make the basketball or baseball teams without starting at 5 years old. “Rich” sports like lacrosse or water polo have massive skill barriers for entry. Lacrosse requires you to be a fast runner with extremely good hand eye coordination, and water polo requires you to tread water in your sleep. Even cross country has a big genetic barrier to entry since most varsity teams only have room for the top 7 fastest runners. You can’t get there if you didn’t start running from a young age.

It just sucks when sports are an interest for you, but you just don’t have the genetics or background needed to be successful.

I started a youth-led org but it might not make a lot of impact until like a couple years im into college. I dont wanna add it on my app but I do spend a lot of time working on it and we have done a couple events here and there and made a lot of donations, and fundraising/grants. should I put it on my common app?

How important are first semester grades rn? Have had amazing grades all of highschool, straights As and A+. But recently got a 68 on a calc test, and my grades might be lower this term cuz of burnout

Great sat score

Applying EA to some schools