I plan to major in Biology on the pre-med track. I have been admitted to Biology at the following schools:
UConn ($30k)
UMD ($55k)
Holy Cross ($60k)
Fordham ($55k)
UMass ($38k)
Trinity ($70k)
Also admitted to Providence Honors, Penn State, UVM Honors. But, those are not in the running at this point.
Money not huge, but not an endless supply and would keep leftover for med/graduate school.
Where would you choose and why?
I have premed daughter at Rhodes and MD resident with a lot of friends’ kids at UMD. (Dd was admitted instate at UMD with Presidential scholarship. )
I can tell you what I wouldn’t do. I wouldn’t go to Trinity (not sure CT or TX, probably CT given your other schools) for 70k. Save your money.
Same with Holy Cross.
I would recommend to remove UMD. Here is why. 30% of all UMD students claim premed. UMD is in extremely competitive DMV area. Intro UMD premed classes are huge. Like 300+ students.
I do not know about other schools, but I would go with cheapest that you are comfortable with. Save your money for medical school. Go to school with best fit, smallest cost, highest GPA.
I would choose in your case between UConn and UMass.
Also a lot of students change majors. So find school that has variety of options.
UConn is a great school, and there is a huge alumni network between New Jersey and Boston if that is where you plan to live. I don’t just mean for career, but socially too. When you come out of college, there will be people you know all over the northeast.
Of the publics, I would remove UMD. It is not worth $17K-$25K more per year compared to the other two.
Of the privates, I would remove Trinity and Fordham. (I am a fan of Fordham --my own kid goes there-- but they are not known for STEM. Fordham recently received a $100 million donation to improve its STEM, but I think the improvements will come too late for you to benefit fully.)
UCONN or UMASS for this reason - unless you’ll excel at a small school only - then Holy Cross.
Why? Because the name of your school doesn’t likely impact your overall success in landing at top academic hospitals. And if you don’t go to med school, biology salaries, for whatever the reason, are obsenely low on average. So why pay? I’d actually go to UMASS - $8K is a lot - but you’d eat really well. But UCONN is strong!!!
Auburn
CWRU
Florida A&M
Florida State
Fordham
Lipscomb
Luther
Murray State
Northern Illinois
Pitt
Princeton
Tulane
Tuskegee
U North Carolina
U Puerto Rico
U Tennessee
Taking it further to Johns Hopkins - resident undergrads:
JHU
UMD
UMBC
U Miami
Morgan State
South Carolina
TCNJ
U of Puerto Rico
UT Dallas
Towson
Vandy
and more
Duke Medical - this was just the early letters of the last names of the alphabet
Arkansas
Michigan
UNC
Princeton
Rochester
South Florida
Southeastern Louisiana
Texas
Have you toured the schools? Are you Honirs at UConn or UMass? Big differences among these campuses - even the bigger ones.
I would choose UMass or UConn due to cost and the possibility of med school or some type of graduate/professional school.
I would suggest UConn or UMass. You can take the required courses for medical school admissions at any of your options. If these two are still in the running…dive deeper into why they might work for you.
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