<p>Hello. I am looking to apply to some good pre med colleges. I’m already applying to some higher tier colleges, like Rice, WUSTL and Vanderbilt, but I plan to also apply to some less competitive ones as safety schools. Only problem is, I’m not sure which schools are best for pre-med. Beside UT Austin, what are some other good pre med’s to apply to? (I’m talking about Grinnell, Bucknell, Rochester, colleges around that level).
Thanks a ton for your help!</p>
<p>Many schools will work as safeties for premed. </p>
<p>Since most safeties don’t give much fa, will your prents pay for wherever u go? If not, then your safeties need to be carefully chosen. </p>
<p>What r your stats. </p>
<p>What is your budget.</p>
<p>I think Bucknell, Rochester and Grinnell students would find it offensive to have the label “lower tier pre med” attached to their schools. (For record I have a D attending one of those schools as pre med. She’s a Amgen Scholar who beat out several thousand kids, many of whom who were from the so-called “higher tier” colleges like Stanford, Duke, Rice and WUSTL, to get the fellowship.)</p>
<p>And none of those-- Bucknell, Rochester or Grinnell–can be considered safety schools. All of those school have acceptance rates in the low to mid 30s. Not quite Harvard’s 7% but significantly lower than UT-Austin’s 50%.</p>
<p>pitt is pretty good</p>
<p>I agree with wowmoms post. Those schools aren’t safeties.</p>
<p>I didn’t mean to be offensive at all, and I apologize if it came out that way. I am applying to one safety school- UT, which I am guaranteed acceptance into for being in the top 10 percent at a TX highschool. However I would rather attend a school farther away from home, so I was wondering which of these colleges would be my best bets.
I also realized that these colleges are also very competitive and by no means low tier. I simply meant that they are lower in prestige compared to the commonly mentioned pre med schools like UCLA.
As for my stats and budget, let’s just assume for the sake of argument that I can get in wherever I wanted and afford any price (I wish, haha). I just want to know which schools would be the best in that category.
Thanks to you all and sorry again that my question was badly phrased.</p>
<p>I’m a little baffled by #'s 3 & 5. Isn’t “safety” a term relative to the person-in-question’s application? There are some folks who would consider Duke and Penn safeties, there are some who would consider UCLA a safety, and there’s some who don’t get safeties until they’re looking at schools with 100% admissions rate.</p>
<p>It’s not some kind of absolute term, and it certainly isn’t some kind of quantifiable insult.</p>
<p>Bdm. I’ve seen the op’s current stats. She may raise them but at this point those schools aren’t safeties. And if finances are an issue then getting accepted is only a minor issue when it comes to safeties. </p>
<p>Btw. Bdm… are u from an affluent fam who is paying or has paid for undergrad, med schl, and now law schl</p>
<p>Yes, those schools are definitely not safeties for me. As I already stated, I phrased my original question pretty badly. However since I already have a guaranteed acceptance to a good school, I’d like to try for some more competitive ones.
So can anyone please tell me what would be some good schools? Even if they are reaches, I would like to apply.</p>
<p>Grinnell has beautiful, state-of-the-art science facilities, a rigorous science curriculum, amazing faculty in chem and bio, the smallest class sizes of any top LAC with no class (even intro bio and chem) greater than 30, and a huge endowment that funds student research. And you will know your professors well enough to get the letters of recommendation you need for admission.</p>
<p>Thanks a ton, M’s Mom. Sounds like a great school. Do you know if student research is common, or limited to student with high stats or incomes?
Anyone else know anything about the other schools I mentioned?</p>
<p>Rochester is a small research university. Its biological sciences and physics depts have the highest amount of NIH/NSF funding for any university of its size (6000 undergrads) in the US. This means that there are plentiful opportunities for students to get involved in research if they want to pursue that course. Rochester does not have a core curriculum–which allows for significant latitude in course selection. The med school & hospital is literally across the street from the main campus. Rochester is a medium sized town and the UR campus is in a low density urban setting. Approx 40-45% of all incoming freshman are pre-meds. Lecture classes tend to run around 200-300 students for intro level courses. Upper level courses are smaller–typically anywhere from 5-100 students.</p>
<p>Bucknell is basically a liberal arts college with an engineering program. Bucknell is acknowledged to have a strong bio/pre med program, but is not close to any major medical centers. (The nearest would be Geisinger in Danville which is 30 miles away. You’ll need a car to get there as there is no public transportation.) Undergrad research is available, but it’s been a while since I was a student there so I am not familiar with its current funding situation. The Bio Bldg is 20 years old and the university has kept its labs state of the art. Bucknell has a more traditional curriculum and has distribution requirements. Lecture classes tend to run around 200-250 student fro intro level classes. Upper level courses can be anywhere from 8-40. The university is located in a small town in a rural location. Campus is very pretty. (And used to smell like chocolate in the spring because the grounds staff used cocoa hulls from the Hershey’s plant to mulch all the scrubbery.)</p>
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<p>Oh. Objection withdrawn.</p>
<p>Alright. Thanks, WOWM. These schools all sound pretty great the way you guys are describing them. If anyone has any suggestions for a good pre med school that I haven’t mentioned, please let me know.
Thanks to all of y’all.</p>
<p>PyroQueen–</p>
<p>It’s not the school that makes the pre-med, it’s the student herself–her drive to succeed, her willingness to jump thru the relevant hoops (research, community service, medical volunteering, physician shadowing, leadership roles, etc) and her dedication and passion for medicine. Finding that passion is important. Many high school students have this idealized image of what a career in medicine is like; the reality of same is quite different.</p>
<p>Any school can be a good pre med school. Medical schools accept students from places you never even heard of every year.</p>
<p>Please don’t get so focussed on finding the ‘perfect’ pre med school that you lose sight of what’s important in life and what’s important in choosing a college. (Read BDM’s excellent advice here: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/1122176-bluedevilmikes-ten-step-guide-picking-premed-school.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/1122176-bluedevilmikes-ten-step-guide-picking-premed-school.html</a>)</p>
<p>Alright, thanks for the advice. I’ll take at look at the link. I’m not much worried about the name or prestige of the school, but I know that many smaller or less competitive schools often have fewer opportunities for their students. But I will definitely keep in mind what you said.</p>
<p>There are many opportunities to do research for interested students at Grinnell. Less variety of course than at larger schools - but no competition or intermediation from grad students either. It’s you and the prof. Of course, there are also lists and lists of summer research internships (at NIH and elsewhere) that you can apply to and get funding from Grinnell to cover your expenses over the summer.</p>
<p>If by your estimate you can get to any school, I would assume that you can get very high college GPA at any UG also. With this assumtion, the next one would be that if you study hard enough, your MCAT will be in a decent range. And since opportunites for medically related and other EC’s are available everywhere, my suggestion is to go to any UG that you personally love. There is no such thing as perfect pre-med. But there are happy pre-meds. Happy are the ones who get accepted to Med. School after have been pusuing everything that they have planned to for their UG years.</p>
<p>And there are even some happy pre meds who don’t get into medical school, but find different opportunities to pursue. (Like D1’s BF who is now getting a PhD in oncology thru the very same med school that didn’t accept him into its MD program. He didn’t even know such programs existed until very recently. Plus the school is paying him to go to school!)</p>
<p>^Yes, sounds promissing!</p>