Advice on deciding between UMich [$16k] and small liberal college? [Kalamazoo $6k] [pre-med, neuroscience / chemistry]

[MWolf]

My kid attended a LAC in Vermont and spent two summers doing research internships at University of Chicago.

While U Michigan is one of the top universities in the country and the world, Kalamazoo has a long history of hitting way above its weight, especially when talking about placement of graduates in grad schools.

Both have very good reputations for their graduates being accepted and finishing grad school. However, there is only real data for the undergraduate institution of people who get PhDs. While there may be an equivalent for MDs, I have not seen it. So I know that Kalamazoo edges Michigan out with regards to the percent of their graduates who end up with PhDs, including in biomedical sciences. However, I cannot say for MDs.

It also depends what you want to do with your MD. If you simply want to work as a physician, and would be happy to attend any reputable accredited medical school, what’s most important is to do your undergraduate degree at the college in which you will be most likely to succeed. However, the more “prestigious” medical school tend to prefer students who graduated from similarly “prestigious” colleges, in which case, you need to consider the “ranking” of your undergraduate institution.

So if you want to get an MD at some “top” medical school, U Mich has an edge. However, for more than half of all good medical schools, it doesn’t matter which you attend.

It’s true that a far higher percent of PhD programs care about prestige than do medical schools. However, many LACs that are not “highly ranked”, or even well known by the public, have stellar reputations among most PhD programs. Kalamazoo is such a LAC. So if you wanted to do a PhD, rather than an MD, either would be a good choice.

Overall, how well you do in college and how much you engage in things like research or shadowing have a much stronger effect on admission chances to any medical school or PhD/MS program than the brand of the college in which you do your undergrad. The basic requirements for a “prestigious” medical school are a top GPA and an excellent record of research and engagement in medical-related activities. The brand of the undergraduate institution only starts having an effect when comparing the very applicants.

PS. My kid’s major was also neuroscience, but she went to do a PhD.

[Franklynn]

I agree! I was just chatting with a med student who went to Ursinus College and they were talking about all the research advantages at a small school. Pointed out that if they were at a big University, their lab job would have been cleaning glassware instead of running the assays. No grad students means the undergrads do all the exciting work. It’s a tiresome argument that there’s no research at LACs. Kalamazoo’s med school placement rate is 86% to U Michigan’s 55% ish. This probably means Kalamazoo uses committee letters and Michigan probably doesn’t but it still speaks to the quality of Kalamazoo.

[blossom]

LAC’s are great for med school admissions! Big research U’s are great for med school admissions! Comparing the percentage admit rates really doesn’t tell you much.

How many students at both places declare a “pre med intention” and then end up not applying to medical school? (and when- after organic chemistry or another weed-out class?) How many successful med students do NOT do research– they focus on volunteer work with vulnerable populations– they’ve helped unhoused diabetics figure out a strategy for taking their insulin, eating appropriately. How many of the successful med school applicants go to a non-US program, how many are in DO programs and not MD, how many end up taking a Post-Bacc to enhance their application…. etc.

I would not make a decision based on comparing statistics without a LOT of context. Which the schools generally do not provide.

If the LAC route was the “rock solid guarantee med school plan” that the LAC fans claim- nobody from JHU or Stanford or UIUC or Cornell would ever get into med school because they’d be crowded out by their peers from small LAC’s with sky high admit rates. This is obviously not true.

The fetishization of research on CC just continues to build. Fortunately, in the real world, the picture is much more nuanced than that. And for some med school programs (focused on Community Medicine/Population Health for example) direct experience with the economically, socially, medically vulnerable is a LOT more valuable.

[Publisher]

Just Googled Kalamazoo, Michigan. Was surprised to learn that in 2024 it was ranked as the most dangerous small city in Michigan.

[NiceUnparticularMan]

The “best” source for raw placement stats I know of is College Transitions, including their “Pathways” series which has a Med School version.

I put “best” in scare quotes because this is uncontrolled for everything but class size, and that’s problematic.

Nonetheless, for what it is worth, they report Kalamazoo placing 0.79% of students in med schools during the study period, 0.09% in “top” med schools. But that’s actually 17 individuals in med schools, 1 in a “top” med school, so I wouldn’t take any of this too precisely.

For Michigan, there were 641 total placements, which works out to 1.11%, and 0.43% in “top”, which would be 248.

This is sort of supporting your point about the placement at the most selective med schools, but I would note there is observably a lot of “home cooking” at most universities with “top” medical schools. And in fact, 116 of those 248 specifically went to Michigan for medical school. Obviously Kalamazoo lacks that specific pipeline.

Still, I think if your goal is to go specifically to a “top” medical school, it isn’t crazy to favor a university that has a top medical school. No guarantees, of course, but the existence of this sort of home cooking effect seems like something you might want to consider.

But then what if you can’t pay for med school after paying for college? What if you don’t thrive in college? You probably won’t be in that pipeline, maybe not in med school at all. And crude statistics like this can’t answer whether those are risks for you as an individual.

[NiceUnparticularMan]

@Publisher

the most dangerous small city in Michigan

So I believe the study in question is the one by Wallet Hub, which includes not just reported violent crime rates but also property crime rates, motor vehicle crashes, pedestrian injuries, drug poisonings, and so on.

Kalamazoo is a real city though, and does have some higher crime neighborhoods. I actually was never in those neighborhoods in the few times I have visited, but it is one of those things college students at Kalamazoo College or Western Michigan are typically told they need to be aware of.

Of course I went to college in New Haven back when urban violent crime rates were WAAAAAAY higher, so to me this idea of staying out of certain neighborhoods is no big deal. Same thing really with us being comfortable sending our S24 to St Louis, another city with a high overall violent crime rate (by today’s standards), but ascertainable neighborhood patterns.

ETA: Oh, not that a matters a lot, but Kalamazoo in that same year (2024) was #90 on US News’s Best Places to Live in the US, made Money’s 50 Best Places to Live in the U.S., and so on.

[kakapo]

I am planning on visiting both again in March and hopefully deciding by April! I have been in contact with many people from both schools including some that were in the exact same situation I’m in.

[kakapo]

I have looked at the K Plan and I strongly believe it would give me more flexibility with classes, yet the options for classes are definitely more limited. One of the biggest appeals of Michigan for me is their heritage Russian language classes and neither WMU or K College have Russian classes anymore. I’m not opposed to learning another language at K, but I’m not sure which one I’d choose.

Just to clarify, I am planning to work no matter what school I go to, but it is for my own personal expenses and to keep saving money. In Kalamazoo specifically, I know I can get hired as a pharmacy tech which pays well and that will also allow me to have a car on campus. My parents have said they will support whatever decision I make and they will pay for either one so I won’t have loans. However, it still weighs on my mind as our family being able to afford this is a much more recent development. And like some others have mentioned, I will have to consider med/grad school expenses which I think I will have to pay for on my own.

I agree that the colleges offer very different experiences and I hope that the choice will become more clear after visiting both again!

[kakapo]

There are certain neighborhoods that are considered more “violent” but K college is not in one of those areas.

[kakapo]

Thank you for this perspective!

I should say that the scholarship I got for K College offers paid research opportunities during the summer and the chance to present at meetings/conferences. I believe most of the research is conducted at WMU and it’s definitely more limited in scope, but I would be more likely to get better experience. I’ve been doing research for a few years now and I definitely prefer more hands-on wet labs rather than data entry or dish cleaning positions.