Chance Me: CO resident, 3.37 UW; 34 ACT; English on Pre-Med track

I see two big problems with both Cornell and Chicago.

One problem is that I do not see you getting accepted with a 3.37 high school GPA. I just do not see how either would even be possible. I do not believe that ECs or essays can make up for a low GPA for these two universities.

The other problem might actually be even more important. Premed classes are tough at pretty much any university. They will most likely be even tougher at Chicago and Cornell. Imagine walking into a premed class at either of these schools. Look to the left of you. Look to the right of you. You are surrounded by other premed students some of whom have never had a B in their life, and many of whom, probably most of whom, have only had one or two B’s in their life. Based on your high school GPA it appears that you are not ready to compete with these students in the toughest premed classes.

My personal recommendation is that for your bachelor’s degree just forget about both Chicago and Cornell.

I do not think that NYU would be all that much different. I do not think that it is a “toss-up” even with ED2. I think that it is unlikely. I think that it would also be full of very strong students in tough premed classes.

If you are serious about premed, then you need to budget for a full 8 years of university. It would be a very good idea if you can to save money by attending an affordable university for your bachelor’s degree. As such find out what Villanova and U. Washington are likely to cost you. If they will cost significantly more than your in-state options then drop them. I would say the same for your other out of state public options. For the private schools on your list run the NPCs and see what they are likely to cost (unless you know that you will be full cost, in which case you might just drop them from the list unless your parents are okay spending something close to $900,000 before they call you “doctor”).

I would be tempted to add Colorado State given that you are in-state and I do not believe that UC Boulder is really going to be a safety for you. Colorado State has one feature that it has one of the very best DVM programs in the world (ranked second in North America, actually just ahead of Cornell for veterinary medicine). This suggests that there will be a lot of very strong pre-vet students at CSU, and the required pre-vet classes are the same as the required premed classes. You would be competing with these pre-vet students for grades in premed/pre-vet classes, but you would not be competing with them for clinical shadowing opportunities since they will be looking for veterinary clinical shadowing opportunities.

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