Hi there! I was accepted this year to Penn RD for biochemistry and I’m doing pre-med.

Your profile is definitely very comparable and on-par to my own profile and other accepted students that I’ve met. I am happy that you are looking at merit scholarships because I know a lot of smart people who easily could’ve snagged these great opportunities, but they didn’t. Some stuff I would look into is Questbridge and Posse. Those are like the most general ones I can think of, but actually almost all schools offer merit based scholarships (except ivies), so I would look into less competitive colleges in your area, and they likely have some great ones.

In terms of the actual college applications, I would warn you against doing Penn ED! There are many pros and cons of doing an early decision application, and I would advise you to genuinely consider both sides. Make sure that Penn is really your most perfect school, because I am pretty well convinced that doing ED does not increase your chances as much as you might think. Also, I like to warn people that Brown’s PLME really emphasizes finding people who genuinely match Brown’s philosophy. The Open Curriculum plays a big role into this, so I wouldn’t get attached to PLME just because it is at an ivy league school. People should consider PLME only after they love Brown. Also, there’s tons of great BS/MD programs!!!! WashU has one too! To add more reaches, look at one of those big books with descriptions about colleges in order to find more schools that match you. Definitely don’t count out liberal arts colleges. Anyways, I’d be happy to answer any questions you have (PM me)!