Chance Me: HYPSM + UCs + Brown PLME! Biology on pre-med track, 1560 SAT, 35 ACT, 4.0 UW GPA, CA resident

Chance Me / Match Me
21

Herein lies your problem. That money likely is gone with med school alone so your undergrad focus should be on low cost, not name.

So you should look at CSUs or WUEs like Reno, etc. or schools with significant automerit like an Alabama or Kansas.

Let’s say you get into an Ivy or Michigan or UVA. How will you pay for med school?

When you have a budget, it becomes your primary factor, not school name. So that’s potentially a very costly mistake you’re making up front

So assuming you are 100% on med school, you need to entirely change your list, including the very pricey UCs. You can’t assume a full ride bcuz you’re 99%+ unlikely to get a competitive one.

With your list and given a strict limit on med school loans, you may be eliminated from med school before you even start your undergrad.

PS - your hook isn’t full pay. They can afford to be full pay but like many full pay families, don’t want to be ‘full pay’ given your budget constraints.

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Thank you for the advice! Just something I was concerned about was going to a less well-known school and being weeded out before having a chance at internships

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Thank you for your advice! You’re right, med school is probably set at around 400k alone

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Thank you for your advice! Yes, I’m 100% set on med school. For me, the UCs come out to ~45k a year, so around half the price of the privates. Would probably have to go in 400k of debt all-time if I went to an Ivy though (resulting in more than half a million after interest)

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You do need a backup plan. Of all frosh pre-meds, only a small percentage eventually apply to medical school (others change their interests, or earn college grades and/or MCAT scores too low to be realistic applicants), and only 40% of applicants are admitted to any medical school.

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Ask your supervisor at the hospital for suggestions of ways to have more patient contact– this person already knows you, that’s half the battle.

Volunteer at a homeless shelter– first few months you may just be helping clients fill out forms (so many forms) if they have not yet qualified for VA benefits, Medicare, Medicaid because the process was so confusing. Or you may start as a dietary assistant– helping the clients who need low sodium or low sugar or whatever make sure they are getting the right meal. After that- who knows. Some have regular visits by mobile health, vision and dental clinics, and they always need extra hands.

Volunteer at a nursing home. There will be things you are not allowed to do unless you get certified as a CNA (a wonderful thing for a prospective premed to do btw) but depending on your skills and your state and your age- there will be things you will be able to do, directly with the residents. And as above- the dietary assistant needs are always greater than the number of people available to help.

Volunteer at a hospice facility. They will train you.

But start at the hospital where you are already working…..

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Oh okay, thank you! No backup plan yet, so I’ll try to go all in haha

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Wow, thank you for the great suggestions! I think I can get certified as a CNA right now, so I’ll look into that.

Would you happen to have any advice regarding med school apps too? Such as what extracurriculars to do, what to do during the summer, etc

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I will be a little contrary here. If you attend one of your instate public universities or any other college where the cost is $50,000 a year or less…you will spend $200,000 of that $400,000 on undergrad.

IF you get accepted to medical school, you will be able to borrow $50,000 a year in federally funded student loans (assuming you don’t borrow any federally funded loans for undergrad) with a max of $50,000 per year. If medical school all in costs $100,000, you can borrow $200,000, and use the remaining $200,000 for your medical school costs.

And…some medical schools do give various amounts of financial aid…so you might get something there too.

@WayOutWestMom I think I have this correct.

Having said that, I think you have a chance at a merit scholarship at the colleges on your list, but this can’t be counted on. You need to make sure you have some affordable options on your application list if you want to conserve funds for medical or graduate school programs in the future.

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At some colleges, because many on the list provide no merit scholarships at all. And yes, while some technically offer merit scholarships, they are extremely competitive (for example, at GTech or UMich).

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There is a lot of information in the FAQ threads in the Pre-Med forum. Here are some topics you may find of interest.

FAQ: Pre-Med Extracurricular Activities
MUST READ for “pre-meds”
FAQ: Medical School Applications

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This thread also:

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Elite universities would much prefer you do not take a heritage language for your foreign language classes. This demonstrates a lack of rigor as these classes will be relatively easy for you.

If this is the case, you should remove the Ivy League schools and many of the private schools (Stanford, MIT, etc.) on your list. These schools do not provide merit scholarships and will all run close to 100k/year.

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Do I think you have a chance of getting a merit award at these colleges…well…my opinion is…apply and see. They are very competitive.

Could you explain how and why you chose all of the colleges on your list?

If you are looking for some less costly options, I would suggest you look at Arizona and University of New Mexico.

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My D21 was also on a merit hunt to preserve her college fund for medical school. She reached interview/semi-finalist status at a couple of the schools you are targeting for their competitive merit scholarships (and was awarded a full-ride at an LAC not on your list.)

For competitive merit it is extremely important to understand the mission of the awarding body and tailor your application and essay to show how you fit that mission and will be a valuable addition to that campus. My D’s stats were not quite as high as yours; she did have significant community-service and leadership ECs and the foundations focused on those characteristics were the ones where she was most successful.

Another thought, if you are selected for interviews, it is important to prepare, especially if it is a format you are not experienced with. For example, asynchronous interviews can be difficult without some practice.

I’m happy to share more if you have questions.

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I think you should try and see if it happens. The one student I knew of who had a full ride at one of these schools started a mental health awareness club in HS and expanded that club throughout the US. These awards are very, very competitive.

If you are looking for merit given the cost of medical school, I would expand your list.

Congrats on your achievements!

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That’s not necessarily valid. There’s nuance involved. If the student starts in Chinese 1, then yes, they’re rightly viewed as grade grubbers. That’s not the case if they are placed in a level appropriate for them. Admissions know that born in the US and speaking at home is vastly different from being able to write an effective timed essay in Mandarin on an ad hoc topic.

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You can only borrow $200k. You’d have to get private loans and it’d be much more than half a mil. I was talking to my derm - guessing she’s upper 40s - still paying off loans and said not close to being done.

Med schools state they give little if any import to where you attend. And if you look at residents at top academic hospitals, I believe them. See a previous post I made. Frankly even a UC is too pricey You should give this a lot of thought - your parents may need to do sign debt (not sure for med school), and $400k plus is, in my opinion, non sensical.

The choice you make for college today may very well impact the freedoms to make choices tomorrow. Debt is something that forces you into decisions you don’t want. When you are a doctor, no one will care if you went to UCB or UNLV They will care about - are you taking new patients and are you in network on the insurance plan they have.

But go back to your initial post - if you now realize going to an Ivy isn’t smart (or a UVA/UM type given costs), you can alter your list now. And you should. Let your budget direct you, not perceived prestige.

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I sort of see two sides to this. On the one hand, the vast majority of students who start university thinking “premed” end up doing something else. Some cannot maintain a medical-school-worthy GPA in the tough premed classes. However, quite a few just find something else that they would rather do. One example is biomedical research (with a PhD track). There are of course lots and lots and lots of other different examples.

However, to me your ECs do make it look like you might have a bit more idea compared to most high school seniors regarding what is actually needed to be a doctor. Between this plus your excellent grades I think that you should be able to do this if you stick with it. I think that you definitely should budget with the idea that you may very well end up in medical school.

With a family income of $500,000, you are not going to get any need based aid. I think that it would be a mistake to spend close to your full university budget for a bachelor’s degree. As such, I would just drop Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, MIT, Cornell and Caltech from the list. I would not bother applying to them. This is just as well, since your list is too long.

I do not know how much merit based aid is possible at each of your other out of state and private options. You should of course check. You are a very competitive applicant. However, many of these schools only give very limited merit based scholarships.

I actually was wondering why these two schools were not on your list. They are both very good and you are in-state. Of course UC Riverside also has a very good medical school. You might want to figure out what UC Riverside is likely to cost you, and drop schools from your list that have no chance of getting at least close to this number (I am assuming that your chances for admissions should be pretty good for UC Riverside).

I think that I will put in a bit of an ad for UC Riverside, which also mostly applies to UCSC. You are a very strong student. You have done very well in high school. You have some very good ECs. You might think that this would allow you to attend a university that is higher ranked compared to UC Riverside (or UCSC). However, your goal is not to attend a famous university. Your goal is to become a doctor. UC Riverside is a very good university with a very good premed program and a very good medical school. It can keep you on the path to being an MD, and it can do this very well, and it can do this at a much more affordable cost compared to your high reach private schools. If you show up at university and you are in the top 1/4 of incoming students at whatever school you attend, and if you work very hard in university and keep way ahead in your class work, this might at least give you a slightly better chance of being the student who manages to pull off an 80 in that brutal mid-term exam where the class average is a 45 and anything over 70 counts as an A (but only a handful of students get a 70 or better).

One daughter was pre-vet, and attended a university that was not ranked in the top 100 in the US. Because she was pre-vet she took the full range of premed classes. She had a boyfriend who was premed who had never had a B in his life. Why did he attend a university that was not ranked in the top 100 in the US? It was affordable, he got very good merit aid, and it is a very good university. He is an MD now (and my daughter is a DVM). They both could have attended higher ranked universities for their bachelor’s degree. Instead they both kept their eye on the goal, attended an affordable undergraduate university, and ended up right where they want to be. You might want to think about whether you should aim for something similar.

I think of Caltech, Georgia Tech, and MIT as being somewhat similar and having a very math / technology / hard science orientation. If you have 800 on the math SAT, you might be pretty close to an average student at MIT or Caltech. There are certainly students that attend any one of these schools and go on to medical school, but I am not sure that this was the easiest or least expensive path for them to take on the way to medical school. I do not know CMU as well, but suspect that it might be similar. Getting merit aid at these schools also seems unlikely to me, although I am more sure about this at MIT and Caltech versus the other two.

Premed classes will be full of very strong students at a wide range of colleges and universities. You can get weeded out by premed classes at UC Berkeley or UCSC or any other school on your list. You will want to show up at university on day 1 planning to attend every class, always pay attention, keep way ahead on your homework, and make a very strong effort to do well. You are likely to meet many students in university who are exceptionally strong students such as yourself. This can be both thrilling and a challenge.

Students in very good MD programs come from a huge range of undergraduate universities. I once asked two doctors I know whether students in their MD program came from. One said “All over the place”. The other said essentially the same thing but with a less memorable quote. Other students I know who went to other types of biomedical-related graduate programs have said the same thing, as have students from other types of graduate programs.

You really can attend the University of Arizona, or Arizona State, or UC Riverside, or Princeton, or any one of 200 other schools, and go on to a very good medical school. I doubt that your chances of getting accepted to medical school is really going to vary significantly based on which of these schools you attend.

Not getting weeded out by the tough premed classes is mostly on you. This means picking a university that is a good fit for you. Then this means keeping your eye on the goal and working very hard as an undergraduate student.

If you add your $400,000 budget plus the federal $200,000 loan limit, I think that you should be able to get to the point that they hand you an MD with this budget. Given your great grades and test scores, I think that you can do this. Given your pretty good experience (for a high school student) in medical environments, I feel that there is a reasonable chance that you will stick with this goal, and if you change your goal to me it looks like you could do any one of a wide range of other things as well. I wish you the best.

However, you do need to focus on undergraduate universities that will be affordable, and will not eat up too much of your budget.

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But note that UCR medical school favors those with ties to inland southern California, which is a medically underserved area.

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