Future MD/PA looking for a medium sized city school on the east coast with a strong public health program - 3.85uw, 1350 SAT, 5 APs, lots of volunteer hours + admission to allied health

Chance Me / Match Me
21

Three SUNY campuses with strong public health tracks will come in at under $30,000 as the result of automatic scholarships for qualifying out of state students. You qualify. The 3 campuses are Oneonta, Cortland, and Geneseo.

Oneonta in particular might be of interest to you because they have a an early assurance partnership with Albany Medical College for their Physician Assistant program. This PA program is particularly attractive because it is completed in just 28 consecutive months (2.3 years), which is shorter than most. This saves money by shortening the time in school that you have to pay for and by getting you out earning professional pay sooner. There are other ways to help with costs as well. A number of states are now offering loan forgiveness programs to PAs and certain other health care professionals who are willing to work in a wide range of underserved areas. Some are also paying signing bonuses due to shortages.

5 Likes
22

I’m not sure this will meet your budget, but check Ohio University in Athens Ohio. There is no hospital on campus, but there is a DO school, and excellent allied health professions. Athens is a great small college town.

3 Likes
23

Two issues: first is financial aid. Does your family income qualify you for fin aid? Because in state tuition at public schools in PA is not gonna meet 30K/yr unless you qualify for merit money; same goes for OOS. Usually, OOS public with max merit award will bring you close to your in-state unsubsidized cost, which, at Penn State, I believe is over 40K/yr. So if you’re trying to stay at under 30K/yr, and if your family does not qualify for significant financial aid, you might want to consider looking at smaller private schools that are less selective, where your very nice academic record might bring you a merit award that could bring you down close to 30K/yr.

Second. Premed/prehealth is not a major at most colleges, and mostly not at the highly selective schools. Public health is usually a masters degree. If you’re thinking premed (and PA has gotten quite selective too), you want to major in something, anything, that you love, so that you can get a high GPA in it. For many people, that is not necessarily chem/Bio/physics. You’re going to have to take those for the premeds, anyways. I would shoot for premed, and if you wind up deciding to apply to PA school, you will have the pre-reqs for it.

For in state, Temple and Pitt are great choices, because of the affiliated hospitals within easy reach. Penn is out of your league, probably, and I think that it’s so competitive, once you’re there, in the premeds, that it could tank your dreams. Same goes for Hopkins, Georgetown, Emory, all the highly selective colleges. I don’t think that Penn State main campus has close proximity to a training hospital, so while I think you can get in there, you’re better off in a city with training hospitals where you can do clinical and public health type research, and clinical contact work.

Honestly, I felt that med school was easier than the premeds at my Ivy undergrad. You can get into med school from most undergrad colleges. I think that it is easier to compile the academic record that you will need at a less selective undergrad school.

3 Likes
24

Btw, at PSU look into Millenium scholars, see if the eligibility criteria match you - I think they do and that’d be a terrific scholars program to join (+ it comes with financial support).

3 Likes