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College Choice for PreMed

inks55inks55 Registered User Posts: 1 New Member
in Pre-Med Topics
I'm in the last steps of my decision making process for college. I am a rising senior in high school and have done quite a bit of research on the schools I am interested in. Disregarding physical location, social life, and demographics, I would like viewpoints on which school would best prepare me for medical school - Middlebury College or Washington and Lee University? Thanks for any help!
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Replies to: College Choice for PreMed

  • mom2collegekidsmom2collegekids Registered User Posts: 83,189 Senior Member
    edited July 2016
    Undergrads don't prepare students for med school.

    Go to the school that you like best and where you will get the best GPA...and have the least debt.

    What are your financial safety schools?
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  • urbanslaughterurbanslaughter Registered User Posts: 1,205 Senior Member
    edited July 2016
    Both these schools will offer a great education, but if we're forced to disregard physical location, social life, and demographics it's hard to distinguish between any of the top 25 schools. That's what "fit" takes into consideration - and so should you. These schools couldn't be more different in those areas.
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  • MiamiDAPMiamiDAP Registered User Posts: 16,184 Senior Member
    Agree with mom2collegekids.
    If you want to have a debt free life after medical school, attend the UG on Merit award and negotiate with parents paying for medical school instead.
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  • mom2collegekidsmom2collegekids Registered User Posts: 83,189 Senior Member
    edited July 2016
    <<<
    I'm in the last steps of my decision making process for college. I
    <<<

    ?

    It's July! Why are you in the "last steps"???

    You don't even know which schools will accept you!

    And...what about cost? Will your parents pay $65k+ per year for any school? If so, then SUPER!

    Have you ASKED them how much they'll pay??? If not, please do.

    You have no idea how many kids spend weeks/months crafting app lists....and then spring comes and parents say, "none of those are affordable."

    And....what are your stats?
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  • CreeklandCreekland Registered User Posts: 3,748 Senior Member
    I think this is the first time ever I've seen someone down to those two schools, I'm presuming, deciding which one to do ED at?

    I'm really curious as to why those two got chosen and others ended up eliminated if you don't mind offering thoughts.

    To answer your question... either one will work out fine for med school if YOU get the GPA and ECs needed along the way.
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  • Era991Era991 Registered User Posts: 122 Junior Member
    @inks55 Current med student here. Overall agree with the posters above. One thing you may want to consider is how strong the pre-med advisors are at colleges, which you can only really find out from hearsay or online posts by current students. If you have good pre-med advisors, you'll be lucky enough to have a lot of the nitty-gritty logistical details practically spoon-fed to you, and anything to make pre-med easier is always nice; in the best case scenarios, they may have very strong connections to shadowing/research/volunteering opportunities, and good mechanisms in place to help you through the application & interview process. If you don't have the best pre-med advisors, it's still perfectly possible to do just as well, but you'll just have to take the initiative to find the info and other mentors yourself. Many people fall into the second boat and do great, so don't worry too much about it.

    Anecdotally, I will say that there were some noticeable (and sometimes not surprising trends) during my own med school interviews. At most public schools, the majority were in-state applicants. At Yale, nearly half my interview group were Yalies and many of the others were Harvard undergrads. At the UCs, the majority of the interview groups were UC, Ivy, and Stanford undergrads. At Penn and UChicago Priztker, it was mostly Ivy and Vandy. At Stanford, it was mostly Stanford and Ivy. But you know what they say about anecdotal evidence; there's clearly a lot of confounding factors here, including selection bias on the part of the applicants in terms of which schools to apply to.
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