<p>I will most likely get into some top universities, but I live in Nasvhille, TN. Although Vanderbilt is prestigious, it’s not MIT, Caltech, Princeton, or Harvard. I want to go to med school and become a neurosurgeon, but my family, very best friends, and a lot of people are in Nashville. Would it be better to go a long way from home or stay with all the people I know and go to Vanderbilt.</p>
<p>You’re what, a freshman, sophomore? You’re too young to make that decision. Even if you “decide,” now, based on our advice, that you absolutely want to stay in-state, or go out of it, you will likely change your mind. Very few people don’t change over the next few years of high school. A lot of people grow away from their parents, especially, and are ready for more space by the time they graduate. (This holds true among people who were not ready to leave when they were freshmen or sophomores, as is appropriate. If everybody were ready to go to college at 15, college might start at 15. Instead, it starts at 18-19, because high school students are only just becoming ready for that much independence at that time.) And what if your best friends also go to college out of Nashville? Just a thought.</p>
<p>One more thing. Can you knock it off with the “probably” going to get in to the most selective schools in the country? The version of yourself you’re projecting as a senior is a very good candidate, but counting on getting into one of HYPSM/etc. is never a good idea, even with that imagined resume. Counting on making Intel finalist, among some of the other accomplishments on that resume, is not really a good idea. Be prepared to accomodate deviations from the senior resume you’re treating as a sure thing. As with the deviations on the resume, so deviations in your college decisions might also occur.</p>
<p>^thank you</p>
<p>Agreed, exultationsy. GrayPhantom, once you get accepted, then there’s reason to talk. Quite frankly, I think you’re underestimating the competition in HYPSM, and how human/erratic of a process it is.</p>
<p>Ok, let me rephrase this, a lot of my friends and family are in Nasvhille and the majority of them are going to Vanderbilt or will be going there. Is it better to go to a higher ranked university or stay in Nasvhille, go to Vanderbilt for college and med school, and be with my family and friends.</p>
<p>For the sake of the discussion, I think moving out would be a better idea: to make new connections and experience new ideas. If you end up going to Vandy, there’s nothing wrong with that, but it’ll be “same old, same old” for 4~8 years.
Don’t you want to move away from your parent’s control (nurturing grasp of death)? :)</p>
<p>University of Pittsburgh is the best neurosurgery program and they could care less where you went to undergrad and their only requirement (loosely) is that you went to an allopathic medical school in the United States, but you better have done very well there.</p>