Increase chance for merit aid

mom2collegekids
Sat, 11 Jan 2020 14:31:19 +0000

He wants to study in the biomedical sciences field (eventually either MD or PhD)

You didn’t ask this, but I feel I must chime in…

If your son wants MD, then he needs to avoid elite schools, and this is why…

As some here know, I help many premeds and their parents (I’m the parent of a newish physician …graduated from med school in 2017). Over the years, the most heartbreaking cases have been students like your son (perfect/near-perfect stats) who end up with GPAs that are borderline med-school worthy or worse.

Most recently, Duke, WashU and UChicago premeds (each with perfect stats from high school) are struggling in this med school app cycle. Why? Because each of them have a few “less than A’s” on their transcripts and their GPAs are in trouble. Each of them has BCPM (science) GPAs that are hovering around 3.3-3.5…which can be deadly for a traditional, unhooked applicant. So far, none of them have acceptances to med school…and it’s not looking good.

There’s a parent on College Confidential whose amazing stats child went to UChi as a premed. They had a very frustrating med school app year. Not one MD school interview because the GPA was around a 3.5. (Lower first year, higher final year…averaged to about a 3.5 with a strong upward trend).

Med schools do NOT give a student a “pass” for a lower GPA coming from a top school. Cum GPA and BCPM GPA needs to be about 3.75+ for an unhooked traditional applicant.

Your child may not have ever seen a B on a report card …and that can lead one to wrongly believe that college will be just the same.

Now your son is also considering PhD…again he doesn’t need a tippy top school for that, either. He needs a high GPA and high GRE scores and research opps.

So talk to your child about his goals. It’s easy for an 18 year old to get mesmerized by “big name” schools for undergrad. It’s fun to tell others that you’re going to EliteU. It’s not fun ending up with a GPA that will limit your ultimate goal.

My kid would have liked the fancy name undergrad, but he went to our state flagship and graduated with a 3.99 cum GPA and a 4.0 BCPM science GPA. That’s what mattered. He was accepted to half of the med schools he applied to. He’s now doing his residency at the #1 program for his specialty. That’s what will really matter.

Remind your child that their terminal degree/training is most important. And it’s important to choose a path that will get you there.