We are lucky that in this country, with our educational system, no kid has to decide at age 17 that they are going to become a physician. I’ve got doctor cousins in other parts of the world, and although they thought their system was much better than ours when they were 19 and 20, now that they are all middle aged or heading towards retirement, and have the benefit of hindsight- they have said that they wished they’d had the luxury of the American system.
OP- your kid can take all the terrific courses to take advantage of the T-20 college, double major, go abroad, do all the things that the college may afford. If med school is in the cards- then do the post-Bacc. Or not.
But to orchestrate a sup-par med school application ahead of time- that seems unnecessary to me.
I know a couple of kids who have tried your plan (not every single med school pre-req-- but organic chemistry for sure and I think the bio requirements as well) and not one of them made it in to med school on the first or second try. I am not suggesting that this was the issue that kept them out- but if you’re graduating from Columbia but took your med school pre-req classes at a SUNY (one student), or graduating from Dartmouth but took your med school pre-req’s at CUNY over the summer- you are raising unnecessary questions about your academic program.
And the irony- the CUNY classes were MORE cut-throat than Dartmouth, according to this student. The expectation that a public college pre-med program would be filled with low-end students was ABSOLUTELY not true! Every quiz, test and problem set graded on a curve; one or two dumb mistakes could set you back an entire letter grade. Dartmouth was far more generous!