<p>Well since the University of Michigan thought my 35 ACT, 300 volunteer hours, sports, leadership, 3.84 GPA, and 6 APs with 5s on all tests weren’t good enough, I need another option for premed. </p>
<p>I test well so I don’t need a super challenging school to do amazingly on my MCAT. I was looking at Grand Valley State, but I’ve heard MSU and some other places are good. I could go out of state to Indiana or try Notre Dame or something. Any advice? Thanks</p>
<p>Apparently your 3.64 UW GPA wasn’t high enough (tell the whole story). Mich State would be a fine choice. Can you afford IN OOS or Notre Dame? You stated on another thread you could only afford UMich. Try looking here for other options:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships.html</a></p>
<p>University of Michigan may have done you a favor if you are a serious pre-med. Find a school where you are likely to be at the top of the class in terms of GPA (testing well on the MCAT isn’t good enough - you need around a 3.75). Most reputable schools can provide the preparation necessary to do well on the MCAT. </p>
<p>Take a look at some of the liberal arts colleges in the midwest. The small class sizes and close faculty relationships are a boon to med school applicants. Some are generous with financial aid. Take a look at Kalamazoo for example to get a feel for what a comparable LAC might be like. They seem to offer some generous financial aid as well, but you’d have to look into it in more detail.</p>
<p>There are many others.</p>
<p>Western Michigan does seem to have relatively high GPAs for a non-flagship state university: [url=<a href=“http://www.gradeinflation.com/]National”>http://www.gradeinflation.com/]National</a> Trends in Grade Inflation, American Colleges and Universities<a href=“see%20list%20at%20the%20bottom”>/url</a></p>
<p>Of course, there could be variation between departments within a given school.</p>
<p>Is it too late to be considered for MSU’s merit scholarships?</p>
<p>How much will your family pay? </p>
<p>Indiana might be too expensive if your budget was instate UMich. </p>
<p>You’ve missed a number of school’s scholarship deadlines.</p>
<p>You might look at UDayton for their larger merit scholarships.</p>
<p>Hope College has an amazing pre-med program. It’s in Holland, Michigan. It’s smaller, but 90% of students applying to med school with a 3.4GPA or above get in. They’ve got TONS of undergrad research opportunities in the sciences. They give pretty good merit scholarships (around 17-20k) and only cost something around 32k/yr without scholarships.</p>
<p>I agree w/what M’s Mom is telling you.
Take a look at some of the private Midwestern LACs.
These schools will look at your application holistically; they should be less likely than a selective state university to get hung up on one number (your UW GPA).
Run their Net Price Calculators to see what your bottom line might be after aid.</p>
<p>Possibilities:
Beloit (Wisconsin)
Earlham (Ohio)
Grinnell (Iowa)
Kalamazoo (Michigan)
Kenyon (Ohio)
Knox College (Illinois)
Lawrence University (Wisconsin)
Macalester (Minnesota)
Oberlin (Ohio)</p>
<p>Beloit, Knox, and Lawrence are need-blind, full-need schools ([Need-blind</a> admission - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Need-blind_admission]Need-blind”>Need-blind admission - Wikipedia)). They should be realistic targets for your stats. Grinnell, Kenyon, Macalester, and Oberlin are more selective than the others. All of these schools are likely to be more generous with need-based aid than OOS public universities. Depending on your family circumstances, their net costs may be lower than some in-state public schools. The average total cost to attend Grinnell, after average need-based aid, is about $19K. </p>
<p>Are these schools as good as Michigan for a pre-med/life science student? Grinnell and Earlham are among the nation’s top 10 schools for production of PhDs per capita in the life sciences. Midwestern LACs that have produced at least 30 PhDs in the biological sciences in 2006-2010:<br>
Carleton (79 for an annual enrollment of ~2000 undergraduates)
Oberlin (66)
Grinnell (58)
St. Olaf (53)
Colorado College (42)
Ohio Wesleyan (37)
Kalamazoo (36)
College of Wooster (32)
Macalester (32)
Augustana (30)
Earlham (30)</p>
<p>Compare to:
University of Michigan (228 for an annual enrollment of ~27K undergraduates)</p>
<p>Carleton, Oberlin, Grinnell and St. Olaf, with total undergraduate enrollments of < 10K students, produced 256 PhDs in the biological sciences in 2006-2010. That’s more than Michigan did, even though Michigan has approximately triple the undergraduate enrollment of these 4 schools put together.
Source: <a href=“https://webcaspar.nsf.gov/[/url]”>https://webcaspar.nsf.gov/</a></p>
<p>In the last 4 years, Carleton, Oberlin, Grinnell, and Kalamazoo together placed as many graduates into the entering classes at Vanderbilt Medical School as UMichigan did, despite Michigan’s much larger enrollments. (<a href=“https://medschool.vanderbilt.edu/admissions/undergraduate-schools-represented[/url]”>https://medschool.vanderbilt.edu/admissions/undergraduate-schools-represented</a>)</p>
<p>About 60-70% of classes at these LACs have less than 20 students. 0%-4% or so have 50 or more. At Michigan, the corresponding numbers are ~48% and 17% respectively. These numbers probably understate the discrepancy because of the relatively large number of low-enrollment upper-level classes at a school like Michigan. You’re likely to find much larger enrollments at Michigan, and correspondingly less faculty attention, in your entry and intermediate bio, chem, physics and math courses.</p>
<p>UMinnesota</p>
<p>Hope College has an amazing pre-med program. It’s in Holland, Michigan. It’s smaller, but 90% of students applying to med school with a 3.4GPA or above get in. They’ve got</p>
<p>Where’s the stats for that? I really doubt this claim. 3.4 and above? sure. What about MCAT score?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>But far fewer than 90% of intended freshmen pre-meds get a >= 3.4 GPA and apply to medical school (some do not apply after doing poorly on the MCAT; others do not even get to taking the MCAT after doing poorly in pre-med courses).</p>
<p>
Strongly seconded. Hope was the college I immediately thought of when I clicked the thread title. I think the OP could get a fair amount of tuition covered, especially if (s)he is a National Merit Finalist. Hope has extremely strong science programs, much stronger than its overall reputation would suggest. (For that matter, stronger than those of many more highly ranked LACs.) A few years ago it had the highest undergrad publication rate of any college in the country. </p>
<p>As a caveat, Hope is a Christian school, though not an overtly evangelical one, and is somewhat conservative relative to other good LACs in the area.</p>
<p>Further away but still in the Midwest, you have Cornell College. Its “one course at a time” system is nice for pre-meds, and its merit scholarship offerings are very good.</p>
<p>More Midwestern LACs:</p>
<p>Hillsdale College (Hillsdale, Michigan [Hillsdale</a> College | Colleges That Change Lives](<a href=“http://www.ctcl.org/colleges/hillsdale]Hillsdale”>Hillsdale College – Colleges That Change Lives))
Full sticker price is ~$31K. According to Kiplinger, 76% of students receive non-need-based aid averaging $10,100. It shows up on many of the Princeton Review top-20 lists (“professors get high marks”, “most accessible professors”, “students study the most”, "great financial aid, … “most conservative students”, “most religious students”, “don’t inhale”, “LGBT unfriendly”, and #1 for “future Rotarians and Daughters of the American Revolution”). So it sounds like you’d have to be rather conservative to be happy there.</p>
<p>Denison University (OH)
Hiram College (OH)
Wabash College (IN)</p>
<p>Public Midwestern universities with total OOS costs < $25K:</p>
<p>UMinn, Morris
Truman State (MO)
UWisconsin, Eau Claire
UWisconsin, La Crosse</p>
<p>Well hoboslayr I’m surprised UMich rejected you even with a 3.64 GPA. If I had to guess maybe they deferred you? Still, some good options would be GVSU, MSU, Hope, Kalamazoo and Hillsdale. Still Hillsdale is sort of known for grade inflation so watch out for that. Also, you did mention low cost and with your stats GVSU would be the cheapest school. You would get the Faculty Scholarship at GVSU with a 3.6, and would get anywhere from $2000-$4500 a year from GVSU. That would bring the total cost of attendance at GVSU to about $13-14 thousand a year, which would be lower than every other school. MSU does not give out a lot of merit scholarships, but you could test well and get their ADS scholarships. I still think you might get into UMich.</p>
<p>Sorry grade deflation at Hillsdale*</p>