<p>Hi everyone I’m going to be applying to most of the Ivies and a few top 20’s in the States and I was wondering which of the schools (see title) are best for someone who is hellbent on going into the sciences.</p>
<p>I am currently aiming for medicine, with a career in health or chemistry as backups.</p>
<p>Originally, I was planning to apply ED to Washington University in St. Louis since I figured that I had a decent chance of getting in (not to mention that they also have a very strong “premed” track–I know that premed doesn’t exist, but it’s a good school for students going into med).</p>
<p>However I’ve been thinking of applying ED to some of the “mid” and “lower” Ivies: Dartmouth, Columbia and Penn. My reason for this is that I want to know whether or not I am of Ivy caliber. I chose these Ivies over the others because HYP is out of my reach; Brown is need-aware (I have a single parent, so I need a lot of aid); and Cornell’s aid is bad (according to the people on CC, at least). Dartmouth, Columbia and Penn are all need-blind for Canadians and also meet the full demonstrated need of each student, which makes these 3 schools very attractive to me.</p>
<p>I was wondering if anyone could give me a good comparison of the 4 schools I mentioned (WashU, Dartmouth, Columbia, Penn)? As of this moment I’m kind of on the fence as to which school I should apply ED to.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>It depends what you like… I imagine all three of those schools have great pre-med paths. Theyre Ivies, dur.</p>
<p>If you like Philly, look to Penn. If NYC in all its glory floats your boat, Columbia. If (for some reason) you like New Hampshire, Dartmouth. Its about the feel of the campuses and how you think youll fit in there - cause lets face it, if you graduate from any of those schools I highly doubt someone will meet you and say “You went to Columbia but had a chance to go to Penn?!?!?! What a shame, you have such a subpar education” The only person who might say that is a Penn grad, but then youll have Columbia grads anyways who feel (half jokingly, half serious) that Penn is a subpar education. </p>
<p>And WashU is a good school of which I know nothing. Sorry cant comment</p>
<p>All are excellent. If you have trouble choosing which to ED or you simply like all of them, just apply for regular admission and not ED. If you are good enough to get in ED, you will get in RD.</p>
<p>Viggy that is not quite true. It’s significantly easier to get into a school through ED vs. RD.</p>
<p>^People told me that ED admit rates are very high, in part, due to schools like Dartmouth, Cornell, and ‘lower Ivys’ (in my eyes, they are all the same) scooping up HYP kids in the ED round before they slip off to HYP schools.</p>
<p>So, basically, people told me that a large portion of these kids are legacies, hooked candidates, athletes, or are the super students (who are HYP material) that get picked up in the ED round.</p>
<p>IDK, it’s just stuff I’ve read and been told. Part of it makes sense though. Many legacies would probably apply ED to these schools and many low-stat URM/hooked students would probably apply ED as well. So, the admit rates are probably not truly indicative of an unhooked, international student’s chances.</p>
<p>WashU’s good choice for premed, since they have a really good med school, but I’m not sure about how generous they are with FinAid. </p>
<p>Penn’s good since it’s a very pre-professional school and has a very good med school as well (ranked #2 in USnews) as well as a pretty strong chem department (remember to mention the Vagelos Scholars Program in Molecular Life Sciences if you were to apply).</p>
<p>Dartmouth and Columbia I’m not sure about, but I presume they would be good, too.</p>
<p>There’s also Brown’s PLME. Here’s the excerpt from Wikipedia:
PLME</p>
<p>The Program in Liberal Medical Education is a single eight-year program that allows students to complete both an undergraduate degree (A.B. or Sc.B.) from The College and subsequently an M.D. degree from Alpert Medical School. Admission to PLME is highly competitive; each year approximately 50 students matriculate out of an applicant pool of 1,970.</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies–I never expected so many responses!</p>
<p>I think thatguy100’s comments best summarize my feelings at the moment. I do not have a clear preference for any of the schools or cities that they’re located in. Sure, Columbia’s got New York, but I’m not exactly rich (again, I need a lot of aid to begin with) and you can’t exactly have a social life there unless you have spending power.</p>
<p>I think the decision I have to make now is whether I want to apply ED to WashU or one of the Ivies that I listed. If I ED WashU, my chances are obviously better, but I’ll also have to pay much more. If I ED one of the Ivies and don’t get accepted, I could be sacrificing my chances of getting into a good American school, since applying ED definitely boosts one’s chances (I also heard that WashU is need-blind during ED since they haven’t used up all their endowment yet; they become need-aware in the late stages of RD since their endowment’s started to run out).</p>