Help Building a Balanced BS/MD + Pre-Med College List (Rising Senior, CA Resident) [3.94 GPA, 35 ACT, <$50-60k]

Chance Me / Match Me
1

Hi everyone,

I’m the parent of a rising senior from California, and we’re working on building a well-rounded college list. My daughter is aiming for BS/MD programs, but since those are extremely competitive, we’re also looking into Early Assurance Programs (EAPs) and strong pre-med schools as part of a balanced plan (Reach, Match, Safety).

We’d appreciate any suggestions or feedback on schools that might be a good fit based on her profile:

Demographics

  • US domestic (U.S. citizen)
  • State/Location of residency: California
  • Type of high school: Public high school, enrolled in Middle College program at a community college
  • Other special factors: Not first-gen; not legacy; not a recruited athlete but nationally-ranked archer with international competition experience

Cost Constraints / Budget

Budget is flexible, but merit aid and/or scholarship consideration is welcome. We are using NPCs for estimation.

Intended Major(s)

  • Biological Sciences / Pre-Medicine (interested in BS/MD or Early Assurance Programs)

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 3.94
  • Weighted HS GPA: 4.48 (based on school’s 5.0 scale with honors/AP/college courses)
    (Dean’s List since 10th grade)
  • Class Rank: School does not rank
  • ACT: 35 (E: 36, M: 35, R: 35, S: 34, W: 9)

List your HS coursework

  • English: English Honor(H), Composition(collage, this summer), Critical Thinking Through Literature(collage plan)

  • Math: Integrated Math 2, 4(H), Analytical Calculus and Geometry(college), Honors Analytical Calculus and Geometry(college), Intermediate Calculus(collage, this summer), Differential Equations & Linear Algebra (planned), Differential Equations(planned)

  • Science:

    • High school biology
    • College biology (planned)
    • High school chemistry
    • College Engineering Physics – Mechanics with lab.

  • History and social studies: AP World History(H), Principles of Macroeconomics(collage), American Government(collage)

  • Language other than English: Spanish1, 2(H), Beginning Spanish(collage)

  • Visual or performing arts: Survey of Film - Star Was Trilogies(collage)

  • Other academic courses: Introduction to Administrative Justice(collage, dual enrrollment)
    Introduction to Sports Medicine(collage, dual enrrollment)
    Understanding Stress - A Multidisciplinary Perspective(collage, dual enrrollment),
    Honors Modern Fiction(plan, collage), Human Nutrition(plan, collage)

  • Will earn an Associate’s Degree in Mathematics by high school graduation

Awards

  • President’s Volunteer Service Award – Gold, Bronze
  • Sports - State, Nationalm international
  • Scholastic Art & Writing Silver Key
  • Community college Dean’s List (from 10th grade)
  • other language speecj -1st place

Extracurriculars

  • Sports: Regional/national/international award winner; 2x selected for regional team

  • Medical volunteering: 100+ hours at local hospital; info/patient desk

  • Physician shadowing: 20+ hours

  • Caregiving: Cared for terminally ill grandparent; performed CPR at time of passing

  • Research: Topological data analysis and machine learning project to identify gene-drug interactions (independent research, preparing for publication); presented poster and oral presentation

  • Summer programs: Scholar at competitive medical summer program (10th grade), then selected as a Teaching Assistant (11th grade)

  • Teaching: Taught academic and cultural programs for younger students

  • Programming & STEM: Python, data science experience via research

  • Other volunteering: 200+ hours of total service across educational programs, and community

  • Leadership:

    • TA at medical camp
    • Program leader/tutor for local students
    • Guided patients/families at hospital
    • Presented original research
    • Team rep in archery
    • Responded to medical emergency with CPR
    • Honor Program in Collage

Essays/LORs/Other

  • Personal statement will center on her caregiving experience and independent medical research project, highlighting empathy, maturity, and scientific curiosity.
  • Anticipated letters of recommendation:
    • High school biology teacher – can speak to her scientific aptitude and academic engagement in life sciences
    • School counselor – will provide context on academic rigor, college coursework, and personal growth
    • Physician mentor at the hospital – observed her during volunteer and shadowing experience, can attest to professionalism and genuine interest in medicine
  • Additional strong recommendations available from:
    • College math professor – has taught her multiple advanced courses and witnessed academic excellence and leadership in a college setting
    • Former 5th-grade teacher (now a supervising teacher at her volunteer site) – can speak to her long-term character, mentorship of younger students, and consistency in service over many years

Schools
(List of colleges by your initial chance estimate; designate if applying ED/EA/RD; if unsure, leave them unclassified)

If a scholarship is necessary for affordability, indicate that you are aiming for a scholarship and use the scholarship chance to estimate it into the appropriate group below; also, for colleges that admit by major or division, consider that in chance estimate.

  • Assured (100% chance of admission and affordability):
  • Extremely Likely:
  • Likely:
  • Toss-up:
  • Lower Probability:
  • Low Probability:
    Korean (heritage speaker); college-level foreign language speech competition (1st place)
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By flexible, do you mean you can afford any full price university?

Since you mentioned NPCs, have you already run some NPCs (at which schools?) to estimate whether you are likely to be eligible for need-based aid?

If you’d like people to suggest schools, it’s helpful to be more specific about your budget, so that people don’t suggest unaffordable options.

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For financial planning purposes, we are aiming for colleges where the annual cost would ideally stay within $50,000–$60,000.

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Ok, that’s helpful. And just to confirm, you are full pay (not expecting need-based aid)?

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We are planning to apply for need-based aid, and our budget will depend on the aid package.

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Any preferences regarding location?

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A safe and supportive environment is something we value when considering college locations

8

So any area of the country would be ok?

Pitt has the GAP program but she needs merit to get to your price point.

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She is strongly committed to pursuing a BS/MD pathway and hopes to attend a college where students support and uplift one another in a collaborative environment.

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So you are looking for schools? First, you can look at lecom - see link. If you are accepted, it’s auto acceptance - DO.

@momsearcheng is doing via Rhodes and I think they are $40K and under with merit.

Then you have a U of Alabama - you’d be - let’s say $22-24K after $28K automerit- and they have the McCullough Medical Scholars - also linked.

Honestly, for pre med, there will be tons of schools to hit your budget. If you are applying for aid, you might look at Whitman in Washington. They’ll do a pre-read - or fill out a net price calculator of a school with no merit that meets need - an Ivy or an LAC like Bowdoin or Middlebury and see what they say. You’ll know if you’ll get need.

But other than BSMD, with the info you provided, hundreds of schools will make your budget - some (like Alabama) may have a special pre-med Honors type program/cohort and some definitely have health career living learning communities.

Good luck

active affiliates 1-13-21.xlsx

McCollough Scholars – Pre-Medical Studies at the University of Alabama

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If you haven’t already done this, a good first step would be to run some NPCs, just to get a sense of your family’s likelihood of receiving aid. This would help to determine whether your family can afford private schools that don’t offer merit scholarships.

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One could argue that’s most any college - but a lot of that is dependent on the student, not the school. And many schools, inexpensive and large schools, will have Honors programs and sub honors programs - so you have a cohort of like minded kids. My daughter was in two - and it was amazing - so they are out there.

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Here is my suggestion. I think you should start by finding a regular four year college or two where your student would be happy to attend, is affordable, and has a strong likelihood of acceptance. Those would be your student’s sure thing colleges. The student can pursue premed coursework at those colleges.

Then look at the early assurance programs. Remember, many of these don’t guarantee admissions…but they might guarantee an interview, or need a specific MCAT score or something. YMMV on these schools.

As noted LECOM is a DO program and offers a BS/DO with a number of partner colleges. Students need to apply to LECOM AND the partner undergrad schools. @momsearcheng can explain that.

There are other BS DO programs as well.

Then look at BS MD programs. As you noted, these are highly competitive…highly. And some of these programs also don’t guarantee a spot in the MD program unless you meet a certain bar.

@WayOutWestMom likely can have some input here.

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Can you explain this a bit?

Our kids all ended up in urban locations (and indeed, that’s where they live now many years after finishing their educations) but we were quite satisfied with the safety aspect, even though many people we know consider any “inner city” type location as dangerous. We found that urban campuses are much better at communicating situational awareness, have things like the vans for late night trips from the library or lab back to the dorm, and that kids actually use things like the escort services (either campus police or vetted student employees) for going to the gym after dark or coming home from an off-campus job at night.

The more suburban campuses- and certainly the rural ones- seemed to believe that their campuses were safe- even though the statistics (most crimes on campus are student on student, not some stranger) AND seemed to be manipulating the statistics quite heavily. Etc. I can give you detail if you care.

RE: Supportive- again, this depends a LOT on your kid, and much less about the actual college in question. One of my kids- the least likely to ask for help as far as I was concerned- probably used the support system the most! It was a campus often described as stressful, cut-throat, filled with anxious and competitive students-- but that was not our experience. Abundant TA’s for every class who were there for the dumb questions you didn’t want to ask during the lecture. Every professor with office hours and a plea “Please just make an appointment at another time if you can’t make it during office hours”. Really helpful advisors, deans, RA’s, etc. And Pass/Fail first semester to make the transition to college less stressful.

So it depends on the kid- what I’m describing is not unique. But I know a lot of kids who flounder at college and it never seems to be because the college doesn’t have these things. The kid is doing poorly academically- is he going to review sessions? No. Is he asking the TA to go over that week’s problem sets? No. Is he waking up on time to make it to a 9 am lab? No. Well- colleges can put supports in place, but it’s up to the kid to access them!!!

So give some context to what you are looking for and I’m sure the group can help you narrow down the very broad field of terrific places for your very talented kid!!!

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RE: early assurance programs.

Most EA programs only accept students from its own undergrad or a limited number of other schools. For example, Tufts EA program will only consider Tufts undergrads. Georgetown SOM’s EA is only for Georgetown Univ. undergrads. UMD has new early assurance program that will only consider students at UMD’s COE with majors in engineering or data science.
Univ of Rochester’s EA program will only consider students from: Amherst, Bowdoin, Carleton, Colgate, CUNY-Hunter College, Hamilton, Haverford, Middlebury, Spelman, Swarthmore, William and Xavier University of Louisiana. (All highly selective colleges, perhaps even more selective than UR’s own undergrad.) GW’s EA program will only consider students enrolled at: George Mason U, Morgan State, Univ of Mary Washington and North Carolina Ag & Tech. (note that half of the list are HBCUs.)
So before deciding on a Early Assurance program, be sure to do your research.

EA programs are highly selective–as selective as BA/MD programs and typically take only 5-8 students/year.

EA programs are binding–the student cannot apply to other schools without forfeiting the med school seat.

I would not count on a EA acceptance since the process is so competitive and and so few are accepted that way.

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As @thumper1 suggests above, I would concentrate on finding several undergrads your student would be happy to attend that are affordable without loans and offer a wide variety opportunities (including the opportunity to explore other careers besides medicine**).

** A national study of premeds at 102 major US universities found that only 18% of freshmen pre-meds actually finished all the med school pre-reqs. Most pre-meds fell off the med school pathway not because of academics, but because they found other careers that were a better fit with their interests and strengths, and did not require them to take on massive debt (med school COA is at or above $100K/year at most schools) or require 11-20+ years of education and training before they got their first “real job”.

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We may be able to receive support for approximately half of the tuition. My kids received a perfect score on the PSAT and is planning to apply as a National Merit Finalist. Given these circumstances, would this potentially narrow down the range of schools we should consider?

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Here’s a thread from a couple of years ago discussing schools that give big scholarship packages for NMF/NMSF. You would have to double check each school to make sure the package is still being offered. Big merit NMF/NMSF schools and their specialties

For someone potentially thinking about medical school, saving lots of money on undergrad could be a great choice.

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That’s up to you.

You can go for free (Tulsa), near free (Alabama - 5 years tuition, four years housing, $4K a year scholarship) - and then there are others like U Houston with tuition…some of the Florida schools and more.

At many schools NMF means nothing financially or very little, at least in regards to scholarship.

So if you want to go free or say $25K over four years, if you are NMF, you use that golden ticket. Or if you use a free tuition school, then your cost is $15-18K a year room and board.

Or you can go to other schools that with normal merit might be $40, $50K, etc.

Or you might get aid somewhere - fill out a net price calculator, say for USC or Boston U or Middlebury to see how much these schools estimate in need aid.

And then some schools have full rides - W&L Johnson is popular because 10% of their incoming class get it (and they meet need too so check out their NPC). SMU has the Presidential. Other schools have programs that might entail less students but still some. My daughter was in the Charleston Fellows program at College of Charleston - she had free tuition but not all did - and the have Medical U of South Carolina down the street (walking distance) so lots research opportunities.

You need a max budget - but then you also have to play the - we could spend $40K a year, but if we can spend less than $20K or less than $10K, etc. type games…how would that save help you? And would you want that save over other choices?

And I gave you the Mccullough Pre Med cohort link above at Bama - note, if you look at their outcomes, not all enroll in and likely don’t intend to attend med school vs. other medical type programs, etc. because at 17, do you 100% truly know what you want to do??

So:

  1. Max budget first

  2. If you find out you are NMF (or SF) and can go for a fraction of that max budget, how does that change your feeling about whether to spend that initial budget. In other words, would saving 6 figures (assuming your budget is more than $25K a year) be meaningful to you or funding grad school?

Hope that helps.

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I am having some trouble parsing courses/titles, but make sure kid has 4 solid years of English, math, science and history/social science and at least 3 years of Foreign language. Less than that will add even more of a challenge for acceptance to highly selective schools…

I am not sure why so many “summer” courses are mentioned. Are they taking semesters off for archery? Universities don’t expect you to be in school all year.

maybe this is different for directly BS/MD programs, but extra letters are usually just extra. most universities only want the recommendations they require. 5 is way too many IMO. 2 teachers who have taught kid in classroom (and counselor) is right for most places.

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AND I know of 2 family friends who did the opposite - are starting med school and had no intention of being pre-med upon university entry…just proving kids don’t know what they want at 18:)

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