Chance me/Match me, DC student dreaming of medical school [3.96 GPA, 34 ACT, 1490 PSAT]

Chance Me / Match Me
42

I like the idea of Xavier. However, I showed my parents my list and the info I got from here, and they said that they think New Orleans and Miami are too far. Minnesota can stay, even though it’s further, because I have family there. I could probably change their minds, but I’m not that attached to either school.

They also said that if I think I would love Georgetown, I should apply.

Thinking about the private schools on my list, other than Gtown, Penn and Yale, they’re schools where I know someone who got merit. But I don’t know how to find out how likely merit is. Does anyone know?

Private schools on my list right now are Drexel, Syracuse, Case, Rochester, Boston University, Northeastern, Vanderbilt, Emory

Also, are there other private schools that might offer good merit, are urban, and are within about 10 hours of DC (closer is better)?

43

This aggregator lists percentage of students receiving merit aid and the average package for a number of schools: Merit Aid by Institution – College Transitions

Please note that aggregators can have errors, so it’s best to go to the source…colleges’ Common Data Sets (i.e. search “College Name” and “Common Data Set”) and look at section H2. It will give you info on the merit aid at the school (you may need to do some division to get the percentage without need who received merit).

What price point are you trying to hit? A school with a lower sticker price that offers little to no merit aid may cost less than a more expensive school that offers “generous” merit aid.

1 Like
44

You can see the percentages in the CDS (Common Data Set).

Schools like the first three need to pay people to go. Case, as an example, great school, but very very very low yield - so has to buy kids in. Why? They are getting kids who got into higher level schools.

BU, NU, Vandy and Emory are possible but not probable.

Merit - by itself - means nothing. You need to look at cost.

For example, at Northeastern, Section H2A - N of the Common Data Set says Number of students in line a who had no financial need and who were awarded institutional non-need-based scholarship or grant aid (exclude those who were awarded athletic awards and tuition benefits).

454 Freshman got merit aid out of in H2 Line A 2744.

So 1/6.

Line O says the average is $15,600.

So COA is and I’m only using tuition, fees, room and board - $87,450 so if you take off $15,600 - you’re still over $70K a year.

Meanwhile, Florida State as an example - full pay is $35K. Now that’s one example and maybe that school doesn’t fit you.

But what you are looking, as a full pay student, if you are is a budget.

If your budget is $50K, then (and have your folks due the net price calculator to make sure), but there’s no reason to apply to Gtown as they have no merit aid.

And you can apply to NU - but know it’s a Hail Mary to get to $50K.

So first thing is you need a budget - if you truly are concerned with cost - and you pick two schools that you’d like to attend and 100% will achieve that budget. That might be VCU and Temple, as an example.

Then you pick schools that won’t assuredly hit the budget, but are likely - say three more - maybe a U Delaware, U Cincy, U of SC.

Then you can pick a few schools that the odds are against you but it’s not impossible - such as UMD, Wisconsin, Pitt - knowing if they don’t hit, you are not considering them. That’s one thing with a budget - you need to live by it (if you are serious about it). I’d put Northeastern in this bucket. $50K isn’t happening - but there’s potentially a small chance.

I am full pay - my kid knew $50K was the max - so she loved AU - but it came in $57K or so - and I didn’t even have to tell her to take it off. She knew.

Finally, you can throw in a few hail mary’s - full rides - like - it doesn’t work for you on urbanness but the W&L Johnson, SMU Presidential, etc. You have Vandy, Emory, WUSTL - so it’s those types. You know you’re not going but - maybe there’s a scintilla of a chance.

That’s how I would plan and you assume you are certainly going to one of the first two buckets.

Who is not in - someone who 100% cannot achieve the budget - so Gtown, Cornell, Penn, etc. Nothing worse than an acceptance that you can’t afford - except one you knew up front you couldn’t have afforded and applied anyway.

Hope that helps.

PS - you are pre med and even if you don’t go to med school, as a bio or chem major, you’re going to likely be low wage even at top schools - but there’s always exception and there will be at VCU and Gtown.

What you’ll learn is -your major and not your school drives your income potential.

2 Likes
45

These schools I mentioned earlier seem to hit your parameters of mid-sized to large in urban locations that offer significant merit aid and are within the desired driving distance, per Google Maps:

  • Ohio State: 6h33m from D.C.

  • U. at Albany: 5h55m from D.C.

  • U. at Buffalo: 6h58m from D.C.

  • U. of Cincinnati: 8h9m from D.C.

  • U. of Louisville: 9h34m from D.C.

One school that would be a low probability admit that I’m surprised not to see on your list is Duke. It has great basketball, is mid-sized, an amazing medical school, and definitely has opportunities to work with underserved communities in Durham. It’s 4h1m from D.C. Odds for merit aid are extremely slim, but it does exist.

If you take off the desire for a school to have a med school, then some other contenders that could offer generous merit aid include:

  • Fordham (NY): This Jesuit school has about 10k undergrads and is 4h3m from D.C.

  • Lehigh (PA ): 3h14m from D.C. About 5800 undergrads.

  • Loyola Maryland: 1h6m from D.C. and part of the Baltimore Collegetown consortium which allows student to take classes at other area schools, including Johns Hopkins which is just over a mile away from Loyola Maryland. About 4k undergrads at this school which is Jesuit, like Georgetown.

  • Providence (RI): 6h39m from D.C. Basketball’s popular at this school with about 4200 undergrads.

  • Seton Hall (NJ): About 6100 undergrads at this school that’s just outside of NYC. Historically known for basketball. 3h42m from D.C.

  • St. Joseph’s (PA ): About 4800 undergrads at this Philadelphia school that recently took over the U. of the Sciences, bolstering its strength in that area. Also a Jesuit school. 2h29m from D.C.

  • U. of Dayton (OH): This school of about 8200 undergrads is 7h36m from D.C. and has a lot of basketball fans.

  • Xavier (OH): This Jesuit college in Cincinnati has about 4700 undergrads and is 8h2m from D.C.

Generally, though not always, schools in the midwest tend to be more generous with merit aid than coastal schools (particularly schools in popular coastal cities) because there’s more demand for urban coastal cities, so the midwesterners (and schools in more rural locations) will tend to offer lower prices to entice students to attend.

2 Likes
46

Could look at St John’s for basketball and its college of pharmacy and health sciences with nursing and physician assistant programs. There are merit scholarships and honors program for incoming freshmen.

1 Like
47

Can you help me understand the thinking that where you go doesn’t matter?

I found this:

and it seems to indicate the exact opposite. That graduate from Harvard has 37 times the chance of getting to medical school (3.7% of Harvard graduates go to med school) than a graduate of St. John’s (0.1%), and that the differences if you look at “top” medical schools is even greater.

To me, that seems like I should pick a school as high as possible on those lists, even if it means taking on debt in medical school, because medical school with debt is a a better outcome to me than no medical school and no debt.

I know that some of the difference is in the caliber of student at Harvard, but that can’t be the entire difference, can it?

48

Some - or all ? That’s the question. You’ll have some that believe on both sides. For medical and law, I personally believe it’s the student moreso than school.

Btw what percent of Harvard students went in even intending pre med vs the initial percent at St John’s?

1 Like
49

What are your reasons for believing that? Do you have any data that supports that belief?

1 Like
50

Separating the selection effect (Harvard is more selective and has stronger students entering, so more of them will do well enough to be realistic medical school admits) from the possible treatment effect (does the same student who gets into Harvard and SJU have a better chance of getting into medical school if they enroll at Harvard?) is not easy.

Note that treatment effects may not necessarily align with admission selectivity. They can also vary based on the characteristics of the specific student.

1 Like
51

My belief is that a student who goes to Harvard is 100/100 in getting into St John but the other way might be 3 or 5 or 10 of 100.

Harvard has over 140 schools represented in its small law school class alone. Schools that have no pedigree in the arena that people think of pedigree. Penn over 200 schools represented in its law school.

Schools like Emmanuel and hmmmm St John’s and admission difficulty stalwarts like Miami Ohio, U of Alabama, Hawaii, Louisville are there.

For Penn, schools like Bowie State, Milsaps and name your U of.

I think law and medical are similar. You put up the #s and requirements - you get a shot. If you don’t, you won’t.

Will these schools weight toward more elite ? Yes. Because those kids were better test takers on average like four years ago.

But you go to Fairleigh Dickinson and score well. Just as a past Harvard Law grad did, then you can get in.

I use that same parallel to med school - that’s my hypothesis.

Thanks

52

Medical school admission considers much more than stats. While high stats are necessary to avoid automatic rejection, all US medical schools are highly selective even among the applicant pool with high enough stats. In contrast, law schools vary considerably in selectivity, with stats being much more heavily weighted in admission.

5 Likes
53

I understand but that’s still a baseline and I noted that. I said #s AND REQUIREMENTS.

54

It does matter. Typically greater than 50% of Harvard and Yale law schools classes attended 1 of 11 undergraduate schools (Ivies, Duke, Stanford, U Chicago). Those 11 schools represent less than a fraction of 1% of total students but are exceptionally overrepresented in the upper echelons of certain careers.

Going to a lesser reputation school doesn’t preclude you from these elite opportunities but to your point where you go matters. We can debate why, but it matters.

5 Likes
55

@WayOutWestMom has shared this link with much information on med school admissions:

I see that item A-2 lists which undergraduate institutions have 50+ applicants, and I see charts on GPA and MCAT scores for different institutions, and other information, though I’m not seeing a listing of the acceptance rates of applicants by undergraduate institution. Perhaps I’m missing it?

But there was someone who had a similar question as you, and this was her response:

@DCDC, you may find the thread below interesting reading. It did not go as planned, but you will see a range of viewpoints.

1 Like
56

But even if the selectivity of the undergraduate doesn’t matter that much, we know that GPA matters a ton, and Ivies have a reputation for grade inflation, whereas many other schools have a reputation for deflating grades in undergrad. Furthermore, more selective schools may have more opportunities for research, and students may have more success getting the classes they want, and both of those might impact applications. Finally, peer group may matter. More selective schools might give me better study partners, which might improve my understanding of the material which might help my MCAT score. Or they might include more advanced information in courses, which might help my MCAT score.

57

Please keep the conversation focused on this student’s interest in med school. Since they’ve not expressed an interest in law school that conversation is off-topic to this thread. Thank you for your understanding.

58

There is a different approach.
My DD dreamed all her life to be a doctor. She is smart and very capable. However, we do not have money for Harvard or Ivy. I do not believe she is Ivies’ material but she was accepted to UMD with Presidential scholarship, Rochester and Richmond.
She intentionally chose smaller LAC since she was not interested in weed out classes with 400 students competing. She wanted smaller environment. She wanted also a guaranteed option. She got accepted to 2 DO programs. She chose LECOM since it is real guarantee without MCAT. If you think that her classes are easy, you are wrong. All premed classes are challenging. 1/3 of her school is premed. All premed students are bright. Getting As require a lot of work. However, she is fine with her choice. She does not need to attend Harvard. She also is not interested in cutting people. She wants to treat people and make them feel not a number in the office. She most likely will be family doctor or pediatrician and her debt with LECOM low tuition will be not big. She also can enjoy her undergraduate life without “killing” herself. I think it is a perfect approach with much less stress and no gap year.
Good luck with chasing top schools…

1 Like
59

I have not heard this before. I’ve heard of most colleges having grade inflation, but not that it was specific to Ivies. In addition, I’ve heard of at least one Ivy with a reputation for grade deflation.

I don’t think that’s necessarily the case either. One, under the current administration it appears as though many highly rejective (aka, elite) colleges seem to be targeted for the loss of their research funding. Secondly, there are numerous reports of schools with grad schools having more of the research (or at least, the interesting parts of research) going to the grad students leaving nothing (or the less interesting bits) for undergrads. Thirdly, more selective schools will have more students gunning for the opportunities for research and other things that will put them in line for their desired futures. So even if the schools do have more research opportunities, do they have sufficiently more to cover all the demand there will be for those opportunities?

I have not heard of this as a significant problem at the vast majority of institutions. Either way, it’s something you’d want to research on a case-by-case basis as it’s not necessarily something that is determined by a school’s admission rate.

The people who start off as pre-med are generally a pretty smart bunch. And the ones who might not be as great of study partners aren’t likely to choose to continue past the first semester of pre-med classes. Additionally, some pre-med classes are graded on a curve. You want to be one of the ones setting the curve or darn close to it. Is that likelier to happen at a school with a low admit rate or at a school with a higher admit rate?

My understanding is that the pre-med coursework anywhere is going to give you sufficient preparation. Additionally, my understanding is that the vast majority of med school applicants take an MCAT test prep class.

You may find this perspective interesting:

All of this said, if you think you’d be happier at a school with a sub-20% admission rate, that is totally fine. If you want to go to a school where everyone is so impressive and you’re constantly having to hustle and push yourself to keep up with them, and you find that an invigorating atmosphere, go for it. If prestige is something that is important for you, go for it. If there are other elements of highly selective/rejective schools that you find appealing and a great fit for you, go for it. I just don’t think the ideas posited in your last post hold much water, so I would not choose a highly selective school for those reasons.

3 Likes
60

https://www.aamc.org/media/18901/download Table 1 on page 15 says that research is of medium importance in medical school admissions. Experiences that are listed as high importance are community service/volunteer (medical/clinical and non medical/clinical), physician shadowing / clinical observation, leadership not listed elsewhere, paid employment (medical/clinical).

1 Like
61

You don’t think that any of those things would be easier to get from a name brand school?

For example, if I come back from school for break, and I reach out to a doctor and ask to shadow, you don’t think that the fact that I come from that doctor’s alma mater would make them more likely to say yes? Or if I apply for a job in a medical/clinical setting, you don’t think that having University of Michigan on my resume would make me more likely to be successful?

I am, to some degree, playing Devil’s advocate, because I would love to believe that where I go doesn’t matter so I can just pick the cheapest school. But those statistics that I posted, and the link that someone posted here all seem to be saying that school does matter.

I’m not really asking about Harvard. I don’t think I have a good shot at Harvard. But is some place like CWRU, that might well come with some merit aid and has 8 times as many students go to med school make sense, even if the cost of attendance is higher?