Match Me as a US citizen applying internationally to America [3.7 GPA, 1510 SAT, <$40k, neuroscience, philosophy, art history, pre-med]

Chance Me / Match Me
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*US citizen Female

  • State/Location of residency: Tbilisi, Georgia (Fully Georgian, just born in the US)
  • Type of high school (or current college for transfers): Private
  • Other special factors: (first generation to college, legacy, recruitable athlete, etc.) : None

Cost Constraints / Budget
No particular restraints, but preferably <40k a year.

Intended Major(s)

Neuroscience Major, Philosophy or Art History Minor

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 3.7
  • Class Rank: Doesn’t Rank
  • SAT Scores: Still waiting on results, but the previous score was a bit above 1510

List your HS coursework

  • Took all possible AP Classes at school: Pre-Calculus in my junior year, Physics and Calculus in my senior year
  • Studied outside of school and signed up for AP Biology exam in junior year
  • Took all possible Honors Classes: History, Foreign Language (Russian), Native Language (Georgian), Chemistry, and English.
  • Intended Electives for Senior year: Art, History/Religion, Biology, English Literature.

Extracurriculars

Founder of a non-profit for Georgian children’s health,
Research project (planned in the summer),
Volunteer work and internship at a hospital (Still working on it),
Full-time summer job at a restaurant,
(Still have more things to plan, but this is all I have so far)

Essays/LORs/Other

I think they’ll be above average.

My Non-Negotiables

A college with a strong pre-med program but also great humanities (even though my major is STEM, humanities is truly where my heart lies, I want most of my curriculum to consist of it), preferably mid-sized community, holistic advising, no Greek life, I don’t particularly have a preference for climate or weather (less humid overall). I’d be open to liberal art colleges as well!

Thank you so much in advance! Any kind of advice would be appreciated. I’m the first in my immediate family to apply to America. I wish you all the best!

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Good luck with your applications!

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Woops, completely disregarded that. Thank you!

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Medical school is a very long and difficult path. Premed classes are very academically demanding. Both daughters had majors that overlapped quite a bit with premed classes and had many premed friends (one daughter is a veterinarian, the other is studying for a PhD in a biomedical field). As such I have heard multiple stories about how tough these classes are (and the amount of homework, and how hard exams were, and how strong many of the premed students were). You will need a lot of experience in a medical environment and strong references to get into medical school. Then medical school is tough. Then there is residency. This is a long and difficult path for anyone unless you are very committed to it.

That being said I have heard of art majors who ended up in medical school. There is in fact online somewhere a video of a surgeon painting a pretty good tiny picture of the hospital where he works using a robotic-assisted surgery system to do the painting. He had majored in art, gone to medical school, and ended up specializing in robot-assisted surgery. You can major in anything and end up in medical school, but you need to be very driven to it. Some students major in a field that overlaps with the premed requirements (such as biology), but this is not necessary at all.

Then we get to the good news. There are a LOT of universities that are very good for premed students, hundreds of them. Almost anything ranked in the top 200 in the US is quite good for premed students (a few specialty schools such as music academies might not be a good choice). If you end up in medical school, then you will find yourself studying alongside students who had graduated from a very wide range of undergraduate universities and colleges.

But “anything in the top 200” leaves us with a lot of schools to try to choose from.

Do you have any sense regarding how this compares to other students in your high school? Do you have some sense for example whether this would put you in the top 10%, or perhaps top 20% of the students in your high school? Different high schools just here in the US vary quite a bit, and most of us will not be familiar with what the grade scale is like at your high school.

Based on both your writing in your original post above, and your SAT score, it looks like your English is very good. Does your high school teach in English? If not then I would expect that you might need to take something like the TOEFL if this is possible, but based on what I have seen this does not look like doing well on it will be a problem if you can find a place to take it. If you do get to medical school and end up being a doctor, or a medical professional with any direction customer contact, then being trilingual will be a benefit for you and for a few of your patients.

One problem is that there are so many universities and colleges to choose from in the US that it is hard to know where to start. Do you have family anywhere in the USA? Are you fine with cold winters? Avoiding humidity makes me think that the southeast of the US might not be ideal, but that still leaves a lot of options.

Do you know if you will qualify for any need based aid? It is not unusual for students at universities in the US to come from families that make too much to qualify for need based aid but to nonetheless want to keep the cost down to a reasonable number (such as $40k/year). This should be possible. Most of the very most famous and highest ranked schools in the US cost more than this and do not have merit aid, but there are lots of universities that do provide merit aid and are very good for a premed student, and also for a humanities student.

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Brandeis meets the few non-negotiables you listed and is one of the few schools that meets demonstrated financial need for international students. They also happen to love Georgian students (my parents “adopted” an international Georgian student). I’m not sure how the numbers would work out for you, but you can try to run them.

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Student is a US citizen so is domestic admissions pool.
Agree Georgian is a positive for schools looking for some diversity. Two schools that I know value diversity by national origin/ background are NYU and Princeton, though both are reaches. I’m sure there are a number of others.

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What year are you in school? When will you be applying?

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I think when you have a budget, the non negotiables become negotiable. As you are US citizen, that will open up opportunities. But you can go, for example, at under $25K but you might encounter Greek life. It doesn’t mean you need to partake. But that’s the tradeoff to hit a low amount. A school like Alabama - where they have the McCullough Pre Medical Scholars - so it’s big, it has Greek - but it’s under $25K with your stats and has a formal pre-med type program…..so those are tradeoffs.

You can do pre-med anywhere and major in anything - so that’s not an issue - of course, you have elective type things for your humanities if you don’t major in one. Of course, many schools are trimming humanities offerings.

Looking at your criteria and $40K without need aid,

Do you want to be on the East Coast so closer to Europe - schools such as Christopher Newport, Salisbury, some SUNYs, etc. will work. There will be lots of publics in the South and Midwest as well that could work. Regional colleges, like UNC Wilmington or Tennessee Chattanooga, would likely work as well.

If you can go smaller, a lot of LACs will open from a Kalamazoo to Wooster to Rhodes to many more.

Schools like Brandeis, NYU or Princeton mentioned could come through but that will depend on your level of need. If you qualify for need, schools can hit. If you’re full pay, they won’t come close. So I prefer to find you schools that will assuredly hit.

So what is your financial situation? Do you qualify for need? Can your parents pay $95K a year and don’t want to?

To determine, they can fill out a school’s Net Price Caclulator.

As Brandeis was mentioned, here is theirs:

Welcome | Net Price Calculator

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  1. What does “strong pre-med program” mean? You can take the required courses for medical school applicants at just about every four year college in the U.S….arts conservatories excluded.
  2. You can major in anything you want to major in…and you can take the required courses for medical school applicants as electives.
  3. Many many students take a gap year or two between undergrad and applying to medical school. For some, this is so they can complete those required courses for medical school applicants. It’s also a time to beef up your ECs…volunteering with less privileged populations, working in a patient facing type of job (MA, EMS, CNA, etc), shadowing, etc.
  4. Do you have any geographic preferences? Would you consider a college with a religious affiliation?
  5. And I agree…do you have any family here? I’m thinking this would make things easier for you…if you stayed here in the summers, for example.