College comparison [Drexel vs Penn State for pre-med]

badgolfer
Mon, 01 Apr 2024 20:22:54 +0000

eagerparent4:

Iam not the top 20% of the class, so may need an environment that is more nurturing

Few 4-year colleges provide much of this. Sure they have office hours, counselors, and the like that you can seek out. But by and large they expect their students to be able to perform at college level and those that want A’s in the class to perform at a high level. Perhaps a community college would be a better fit. Not that they are particularly nurturing either but they are used to students not quite ready for college and that just a bit more time and instruction to get up to speed; you’ll find many remedial classes (usually absent at 4-years) as well as smaller classes and perhaps a less competitive environment.

But let’s suppose a 4-year is where you’re going. As you know students need to excel to get into med school. For most students that don’t do as well in college as they’d like it comes down to two things: they don’t know what to do or they don’t want to spend the time doing it.

Instruction in how to learn is seldom given to most HS students, they’re expected to figure that out for themselves. Sometimes they do, sometimes not. There are a number of websites and books that explain how to study better such as " Outsmart Your Brain: Why Learning is Hard and How You Can Make It Easy" and it’s worth making sure you’re doing the best known things.

As for time, you’ll be taking 2-3 math/science classes a semester and each will require 10+ hours of class and study per week to do well. Add in 5-10 hours more for each class that has a lab section. And if you fall behind on mastering the material it becomes exponentially more difficult to catch up. So I suggest a gut check to ask if this is what you really want. When other kids around you are going to parties Thu nite or heading somewhere fun on Saturday, those studying things like engineering an premed are in the library. Or they aren’t in those majors for long.