Need help with these below
-SoCal local
-Biology / Cellular & Molecular Biology studies
-Premed track - Pretty sure for now wants to be a doctor
Narrowed down to -
UCR(invited to apply for honors college),
UCSC,
Occidental College ($60K Honors Scholarship)
or
Pitzer
Does money matter? Med school is expensive so you are planning years out. But perhaps a larger size doesn’t work for you? Or perhaps it works better.
UCR also offers this program - if you can partake.
Good luck.
School of Medicine Undergraduate Medical Education | (ucr.edu)
All fantastic schools, and each is very different from the others. You can get to med school from any of them. But they have very different vibes.
Assuming they are affordable, I suppose it’s time to narrow it down with some questions:
If Pitzer is full-pay, and the others are either in-state or come with a significant scholarship, that might be a consideration for someone who’s considering med school in the future. Then again, most people who are planning med school when they start college end up changing plans.
My first reaction is very similar to @tsbna44. If you are serious about keeping open the option of medical school, then finances matter. Medical school is expensive. Even doctors have trouble paying off their medical school debt.
Which leads to two questions. First for each of your acceptances, what would be the cost of attendance? Also, would any debt be needed for any of these, and would there be some money left over to save for medical school?
My second reaction is that you have some very good options to choose from.
Money matters but not a whole lot. Parents have planned and will cover for undergrad and med school both. No loans needed.
Student also has chronic illness and on nutritional therapy so important point forgot to add is food accommodation will be needed at these schools. Has a 504 now.
Ok with mid - large school anything about total 2000 students is ok for the kid.
That’s the thing - we have saved money for her education so me the day kid was born. I want kid to have very good quality education. Even though right now he’ll bent on being doctor- I don’t want to think of medical school and expenses as what of in 2 years it changes and she wants to go research route.
We need parent manual 
Right now she went to a very rigorous high school - did good. She will graduate with associates degree in Bio tech or something as that was her high school pathway. Was also very active in HOSA and won state awards.
Anyways to say that maybe if she goes to liberal arts school, she may get so much more exposure that she may end up switching paths. That’s why right now what if we just hang on to Bio and then she decides something else? For that something else, exploration, I want her to have options.
I don’t even know if I am making sense at this point.
This may change things in relations to long term achievement.
As far as a quality education, it can and should be had at all schools on the list but that often depends on the student too. Some go to large schools and have a great education and some go to small and don’t - but the student has to partake.
Yes, absolutely! College is what you make out of it. Coming from a college no one even has heard of I think I am doing very well. I tell kid this story all the time. It’s what you make out of it.
Are any of the schools close to home / closer to existing medical care providers?
You can’t beat a liberal arts school for exploring options - that’s what you’re supposed to do there, and it’s built into the system. Larger universities often have less flexibility and more general studies requirements. That might be a vote for Oxy and Pitzer.
With Pitzer, you get the best of both worlds: small liberal arts college with all the resources of the Claremont consortium, and a larger community than just the one school. More food options, too, because students can eat at each other’s cafeterias (sounds like this is important). If money is no object, that’s something to consider. Very distinctive vibe at Pitzer, though – this could be a positive or negative, depending on the student.
Oxy grad so I’m a bit biased - but Oxy has good research opportunities starting freshman year. Strong pre health advisors. 60k scholarship makes it easy choice for me. It’s small lac so world of difference compared to Uc’s.
The flip to the LAC is that you can get involved (not sure admission of the program) in medical studies at UCR as an undergrad.
And has a possible special path into the med school as well (Haider program).
So there are positives in all directions to this equation - whether LAC or UCR at least (not sure about UCSC).
School of Medicine Undergraduate Medical Education | (ucr.edu)
The Thomas Haider Program at the UCR School of Medicine | School of Medicine Student Affairs
UCR, Oxy and Pitzer will allow her to keep all her doctors and specialists and medical care team. She has remission visits every 6 months. She did get into schools out of state but after hard thought, we rejected those offers as with time we realized the care she gets better be continued so that way, one less stress of building whole new team
Sounds like UCSC wouldn’t be such a good choice then. The campus is kind of isolated up on its hill away from Santa Cruz proper, too.
Yes. We have taken a campus tour for next week and also have regional admit day. Will go visit but lowest on list. Took us 18 years to build this team of docs now I am getting anxiety just thinking about it.
This 100% makes sense. Then if money isn’t an issue, it’s just about finding fit, and figuring out which option will let her explore interests and take best advantage of available resources. Admitted students days will be helpful, especially if you’re local and can attend all of them.
Thank you 
Appreciate your inputs.
Yes, I think that this makes perfect sense. It is very common for university students to change their major, and even for students who don’t change their major, they might change what they intend to do with it. That is why I worded my response as “keeping open the option of medical school”. Most students who start university as “premed” end up doing something else. Thus you can plan to make sure that if they stick with medicine as the goal they will be able to afford it, but you do so with the knowledge that they will probably do something else.
In terms of “go research route” one daughter did exactly that. Her path might be relatively typical in terms of a student’s goals changing (although how they change will vary from student to student). She started university as a languages major, but got permission to take freshman year “biology for biology majors” because she was considering that as an alternate major. She liked biology and did well in it, and changed her major to biology at the end of her freshman year. She briefly considered medical school as a goal. However, due to her change in major she needed to take 4 lab courses at once sophomore year. At first glance this seems crazy, but she discovered that she loved lab work and was very good at it. She then spent as much time in a lab as was possible for the rest of her bachelor’s degree, graduated, and is now doing biotech research (and considering graduate programs). Students will change their goal over time as they get exposed to more, and university will allow them to get this exposure.
The kids do not come with a parent manual! We each do our best and figure it out over time.
And I agree with other responses that you are comparing multiple very good schools, and that finding a good fit might be the most important thing.
Thank you. The path you described above with bio pathway is exactly what I want my kid to do. Explore and do what sticks with you 
thank you for all the guidance.