At Duke & WashU, one would expect that switching majors from the School of Engineering to Arts & Sciences to be somewhat easier than vice-versa due to the nature of a more highly-sequenced curriculum in engineering. A&S typically has a more flexible general education structure.
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Actually, the medical school student can borrow $200,000 or so for medical school in their name only. If the parents plan to help, they would need to budget any amount over that limit…but not the whole $400,000. Some of that would be federally funded student loans.
I think your student has a good list. And they already have been accepted to Pitt which is an excellent college. So they know they are going to college already, regardless of the rest of their acceptance results.
Please let us know!
@DramaMama2021 any chance you can link the informative threads about medical school here?
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The FAQs for pre-meds are pinned in this forum.
I hope this helps. I look forward to following this student’s journey!
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I recommend that this student look at Brown. For one thing, Brown has a very robust student EMS program with its own ambulance that provides student-run Advanced Life Support not just Basic Life Support. It is licensed by the state. If you google it, I think you will find that it is fairly unique in its student-run EMS.
Also, it offers a BA in most (maybe all?) engineering majors (which Brown calls concentrations) which would make it much easier for your student to get an engineering degree (albeit one that is non-ABET) while also fulfilling pre-med requirements. And it’s fairly easy to switch from the BA to the BS (AB and ScB in Brown terminology) if that becomes of interest. Note that the AB has way fewer requirements than the ScB. And the Open Curriculum, with its lack of gen eds except for 2 writing courses makes combining engineering and pre-med easier as well. And the 2 writing courses can also be fulfilled by many STEM courses in addition to English and other humanities courses) .
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Cornell, on the OPs list, also has a state licensed student run EMS program. Been around for decades as it was running even back in my day ; ) They provide BLS but many students volunteer with the county rescue squad and are ALS certified.
It’s considered one of the “clubs” at Cornell.
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Yes but they could help the child avoid loans. Or minimize - but that assumes they can’t fund all out of pocket. They might be good to pay for all.
It’s simply because they mentioned national merit - in my mind, but I’m not all, it’s hard to pass up the gift that gives.
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Question - how much of the open curriculum is consumed by the necessary pre med classes ? It seems there are a lot ?
Does a pre med at Brown truly have an open curriculum ?
Just curious.
Typically, more than half of National Merit Finalist do not attend colleges that award money for the achievement. So many do indeed pass it up.
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Mine was one of those. It pained us a bit to pass up a full ride, but none of the schools offering that were a good fit for my D26.
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Just wanted to plug Rice EMS if Rice is of interest – it’s a fantastic program (although I don’t know how it compares to Brown or Cornell).
Rice is also the sort of school that sends kids to med school from all kinds of majors. My D22 had a good friend there double majoring in linguistics and classics – just like she did – but then he added pre-med to that, and he’s now in med school.
(I’m tired just thinking about that, LOL, but apparently it can be done!)
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Absolutely. Fit over finances is a personal choice that many make. And I’m guessing OP probably will do the same.
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It depends on how much of the pre-med courses overlap with the student’s major.
Pre-med is a goal that is not subject to requirements specified for undergraduates at Brown, so whether a student uses the free elective schedule space for pre-med courses not overlapping with their major is up to the student.
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I think the combination of academics and firefighting/EMT service is unusual enough to gain access to some very selective schools.
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TAMU is good for engineering and gives major merit aid for NMF (almost full tuition I believe).
Has he considered BSMD programs?
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I mean, every student at Brown has to fulfill their concentration requirements so it’s not really completely “open” for anyone (which was a huge surprise to one family I talked with who enrolled not knowing that). But without gen eds, there’s more “slots” available to take the med school requirements and hopefully even leave some room for additional academic interests.
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Looks like $11k a year. Tuition is $42K but some Texas schools give you in state tuition if you get merit. Not sure A&M does (I don’t see it). But if true, in-state tuition is about $13.5K.
UT Dallas gives four years tuition, and then I can’t tell if the dorm/food is one year or four years - but it’s a first year dorm.
Of course, OP might be set on their list. But yeah, NMF provides some awesome opportunities. But like others have said, some rather stick to their initial plans.
OP should confirm if interested, but I believe it does come with the OOS waiver.
TAMU is stronger in engineering than UT Dallas, and has more of a work hard/play hard culture (ala Duke) than UT Dallas, which is a more quieter place. Since OP’s ED school is Duke, I suggested TAMU.
You can read a comparison here on Reddit (keep in mind that college subreddits tend to be biased in favor of their college)
Also TAMU has this program: Aggie to Medicine Early Assurance Admissions | Texas A&M University Naresh K. Vashisht College of Medicine
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The OP stated that their kid wasn’t set on engineering and that is why they didn’t have stronger engineering programs on their list.
This is what they wrote…so why would a stronger engineering school be needed…or even suggested to this parent for their student?
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@Muu9 was simply highlighting another NMF school they thought worthy and did highlight the early assurance program to med school as the student is pre med.
And to be fair, OP did say med school and not engineering is the goal but I’ve read here many times the those who initially plan for med school typically don’t make it, either because they change their mind or because they don’t get in.
I’m not a believer in stronger engineering programs per se - they roughly produce similar earning graduates in many cases and OP had their question answered so may already be gone, but I think the post was fair given all the changes that take place through a student’s experience. @Muu9 was offering up a school with a solid (not as strong) NMF offer they thought was more akin to Duke than the one I threw out there (UTD).
Great attitude!
The truth is as long as you can actually do all of your major requirements and your med school prereqs and your gen eds, and get good grades in all of those areas, then you are in good shape for med school. People rightly warn that achieving that balance with an engineering major can be very hard for many kids, but not every kid! So if it works for your kid, then great.
And I again understand why this is leading your kid to the sort of list you are talking about. It is indeed relatively easy to start in engineering at a lot of these colleges and then quickly pivot to something else in Arts & Sciences if that balance doesn’t seem to be working out as hoped. And you typically won’t feel like you made a bad choice of college, because they are also excellent for all that other stuff.
Which includes Pitt, incidentally. So, they are already in great shape for executing on such a plan, and from here it is just about collecting even more options to consider.
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