I’m currently a junior in high school and planning to apply as a either a psych or pre-med major next year. I have a decent amount of extracurriculars at the moment and will be focusing a large portion of the approaching summer on participating in STEM related activities as well as a passion projects. I have about a B average and am taking AP Psych this year as well as sociology and human-anatomy/physiology classes next year. What are some colleges that would ideally fit both my major of choice and my overall grade average?
Do you have any test scores? What is your GPA? Do you have a budget? Any preference for location?
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Top undergrad institutions for psych are a combo of private and flagship
I think psychology today has a t10 or t20 list
It’s like Stanford UCLA UCB Columbia UIUC UMichigan etx
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None of which are attainable with a B average. However, many if not most colleges and universities, both public and private, have good psychology departments, as well as courses to fulfill pre-med requirements.
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Are you interested in eventually going into grad work in clinical psychology? If so, thats a different beast than general undergrad psych. there are some other threads that explain what to do. I can find one if you are interested
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Yes, I plan on going to med school and working as a Psychiatrist.
Read this post. Scroll down especially to the linked PDF for a frank discussion of clinical phys grad programs
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Clark University may be one possibility.
But any one of hundreds of colleges will have strong psych departments and will give you the opportunity to fufill pre-med requirements. Seek out schools that fit your finances and will give you the type of college experience you seek.
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East Coast preferably
As ideas for you, look into Union College and SUNY–Geneseo.
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Check out Clark. It would be a target for you, has a pre-med/health program and a very good psych department.
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For those asking, OP’s stats and ECs are in their other thread.
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Since you were particularly attracted to Boston previously, these are some schools there that you may want to consider. By virtue of their locations in the city, there are many opportunities available for clinical practice.
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Emmanuel (MA): About 1900 undergrads at this Boston school that is part of the Colleges of the Fenway, which is part of a consortium that allows cross-registration but also combines together for sports and extracurriculars, including with the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences.
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Simmons (MA): About 1800 undergrads at this women’s college that is also part of the Colleges of the Fenway consortium.
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Suffolk (MA): About 4400 undergrads at this Boston college
Two schools a bit outside of Boston that you may want to consider are Stonehill (about 2500 undergrads) and Wheaton (about 1700 undergrads).
Some other schools you may want to consider include:
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Ithaca (NY): About 4600 undergrads and also able to take classes at Cornell
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Drew (NJ): About 1600 undergrads about a 50m train ride from NYC but in a charming town of its own
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U. of Scranton (PA ): About 3600 undergrads
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Allegheny (PA ): About 1400 undergrads
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Muhlenberg (PA ): About 1900 undergrads
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SUNY Oswego (NY): About 6k undergrads
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SUNY Cortland (NY): About 6k undergrads
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West Chester (PA ): About 14k undergrads just outside of Philadelphia
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Siena (NY): About 3500 undergrads just outside of Albany
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Seton Hall (NU): About 6k undergrads just outside of NYC
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Duquesne (PA ): About 5100 undergrads in Pittsburgh and part of a consortium with U. of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon, among others.
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Canisius (NY): About 1800 undergrads in Buffalo
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Saint Joseph’s (PA ): About 5100 undergrads in Philadelphia
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Goucher (MD): About 1k undergrads in the Baltimore area and part of a consortium with Loyola Maryland, Johns Hopkins, and others.
Are you open to schools further south on the east coast?
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Washington college in Maryland has nice psych program and good acceptance rate for grad school. They give good merit as well.
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What is your state of residence?
At this point, I would suggest that you take medical school out of your undergrad college search. You can fulfill the required courses for medical school applicants at just about every four year college in this country, arts conservatories and some specialty colleges excluded.
So…start looking for college choices where you have a strong chance of being accepted, that you like, and that are affordable preferably without loans. Find two of those FIRST…then build your list up from there.
I’d suggest starting by looking at the public universities within your home state. Very often these are the ones with the best overall net costs for instate students.
Passion projects? Like what? In my opinion, your ECs should be things you really want to do. “Passion project” seems to be the new buzzword students think will grab the attention of adcoms. What exactly will you be doing, and how will you do more than one of these in a summer?
Any chance you have taken the SAT or ACT? And also, you want your grades now to be tippy top.
You have plenty of ECs…but please don’t count on your ECs being more heavily weighted than your GPA. At most places, this won’t be the case.
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I agree: your problem won’t be ECs. It’ll be demonstrating academic strength, so preparing for eother the SAT or the ACT and getting the highest possible score (may require taking it twice or even 3 times) to act as a counterweight to your grades. Spending the summer on ECs will not change anything because ECs do not trump academics.
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OP- in the US you don’t go to med school to become a psychiatrist. You go to med school to train as a physician… and THEN, once you have graduated from med school, you choose a specialty/match with a specialty. That’s a LONG way off. So your focus now should be on becoming the best HS version of yourself that you can be.
Taking HS psych is fine- but it doesn’t prepare you for becoming a psychiatrist. Majoring in psych is also fine- but it doesn’t prepare you for becoming a psychiatrist. Taking anatomy in HS is fine- but doesn’t prepare you for med school OR becoming a psychiatrist.
So put your future self to the side. Focus on your school work and doing things outside of school that you love. Your future will unfold. And it may or may not involve med school and that’s OK too…
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