Match Me: Looking for some positive vibes, 4.62 W, 1470 SAT, Pre-med but also a variety [MA resident, ~4.0 GPA, <$60k]

Chance Me / Match Me
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I’m looking for schools that have great pre-med programs, but also a lot of variety in what they’re offering. I don’t know if I stick with pre-med, so I’d love to attend a school that also offers great selections in other fields. I’m interested in mid to large sized schools anywhere in the US. I don’t have the most impressive ECs because I struggled with some health challenges in Freshman and Sophomore year. I know there can be some stress and harmful comparisons on this site, so I’m just looking for some help matching me with schools.

Demographics

  • US domestic (US citizen)
  • State/Location of residency: MA
  • Type of high school (or current college for transfers): Rural public school
  • Other special factors: Legacy at Duke University

Cost Constraints / Budget
At most 60k a year. I’d like to apply to places that have merit scholarships to help reduce cost.

Intended Major(s)
Undecided major (leaning towards bio) on pre-med track

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: ~4.0
  • Weighted HS GPA: 4.62
  • Class Rank: 3/144
  • ACT/SAT Scores: 1470 (taking one more time

List your HS coursework

(Indicate advanced level, such as AP, IB, AICE, A-level, or college, courses as well as specifics in each subject)

  • English: 9H, 10H, AP Lang (5), AP Lit
  • Math: Algebra 1 H, Geometry H, Algebra II H, Precalc H
  • Science: Bio H, Chem H, Physics H, AP Bio, Anatomy dual enrollment
  • History and social studies: World History H, US History I H, APUSH (4), AP Psych
  • Language other than English: French 1H, French 2H, French 3 DE, AP French
  • Visual or performing arts: Art 1, Art 2, Ceramics H, Metalsmith H
  • Other academic courses:

Awards

  • Honor roll (all quarters)
  • Yale book award
  • World Language (French) Honor Society

Extracurriculars
(Include leadership, summer activities, competitions, volunteering, and work experience)

  • Cross country - Captain, varsity
  • Indoor track - Varsity
  • Outdoor track - Varsity
  • Future Medical Professional Club - President
  • Hosted school blood drive (done by myself as sort of a passion project)
  • Local doctor’s office summer volunteering (~88 hours)
  • School magazine editor
  • Community service club (will have ~80 hours)
  • Drum set (played and practiced consistently since I was 5)

Essays/LORs/Other
(Optionally, guess how strong these are and include any other relevant information or circumstances.)

  • LOR 1: 8-9/10
  • LOR 2: 7/10
  • Essay: Still finishing it but I’m confident in my topic 8/10

Schools

(Just listing one school I’m definitely applying to, match me with others)

  • Low Probability: Duke University
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Are all of your grades A grades?

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I have like 2 A-'s but other than that all As, I’m not sure if those are also counted as As when weighting for GPA

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To me this reflects a great deal of common sense and maturity. A lot of students start university thinking “premed”. Most end up doing something else. Some end up with a something else that is somewhat related such as biology and possibly going on to some type of research. Some end up doing something completely different (computer science, math, law, …). Regardless it is very sensible to keep your options open at this point.

This again makes a lot of sense. On the one hand as long as medical school is an option you should budget for a full 8 years in university (or at least budget to make this possible without crushing debt). Also, some alternatives may include other types of unfunded graduate school, such as a master’s degree or a law degree. Keeping some $$ in the bank or college fund is a good plan if you can pull it off.

I think that you should take U.Mass Amherst very seriously. It has a very good premed program. It is very strong for a large number of other potential majors. I have worked for years in high tech alongside many U.Mass graduates, and most of them are really excellent.

I do realize that your GPA in high school and SAT scores are a bit higher than would strictly speaking be needed to get accepted to U.Mass. However, premed classes are going to be tough at any very good university (including U.Mass) and your excellent results from high school mean that you will be arriving on campus ready to do well in those tough classes. Also, the strongest U.Mass graduates who I have worked with in high tech are very much on the same level as the MIT and Stanford graduates who I have worked with [In an earlier thread I mentioned a problem that stumped two MIT graduates and was solved quickly and very well by a U.Mass graduate, who also happens to be a friend and a very nice and responsible person].

And of course your excellent results from high school is likely to bring you at least some merit aid at U.Mass.

Otherwise you are competitive at a wide variety of universities. It is hard to know where to start in recommending schools.

For private schools (BU, Northeastern, …) you could spend significantly more than $60,000 per year, and it is not clear to me that you would gain all that much compared to U.Mass. Some have need based aid. Some have merit based aid. You could have your parents run the NPC at a few schools and see what it says.

Sometimes with students from the northeast (such as Massachusetts) who know some French McGill comes up as an option. Montreal is certainly an attractive and interesting place to spend four years. Admissions would be very likely with your stats, and they won’t care about ECs (or at least did not even ask when one daughter applied 10 years ago). The big problem that I see is that McGill is famous for grade deflation, and this reputation is well deserved. I do not think that McGill would be helpful in terms of easing your admissions to medical school if you stick with this path. Concordia University is just up the street from McGill and would be another option, although I do not know how it is for biology and I do not see any significant advantage over U.Mass other than getting to live in Montreal for four years.

UVM is another option. Without merit aid it would be a bit over $60k/year, but I think that you would probably get quite good merit aid. For us the NPC predicted merit aid, and ended up being correct. Burlington is an attractive small city. UVM has a good premed program and also a good pre-vet program, and since the required classes are the same the pre-vet students would be in some of the same classes with you. However it would cost somewhat more than U.Mass and again I am not sure what you would gain for the additional cost.

You might want to visit a few schools to get a sense regarding what appeals to you. At some universities we were able to sign up for tours, talk to a professor, and sit in on a class. All of this can be useful as you decide where to apply. You might want to start with visits to schools near you, just because it is easier to see a few schools that way before you get more of a sense regarding what to look for while you are visiting.

Best wishes with this.

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The vast majority of colleges fit this description. You can take the required courses for medical school applicants at just an out every college in this country. Except for music conservatories, arts schools, you will find a lot of majors almost anywhere.

You are a Massachusetts resident. UMass should be in your list.

I’d suggest you look at University of Delaware also. University of New Hampshire would be another. University of Vermont. Actually most flagship universities match what you put in your post.

For merit scholarships…look at University of Alabama, University of New Mexico, University of Arizona, Arizona State University.

Look at the SUNY schools. They will be under $60,000 a year.

If you save money during undergrad, will your parents divert those funds to medical school IF you apply and get accepted?

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If you have not already, my first suggestion would be to run the NPC at a college like Princeton. Not that you need to be applying to Princeton, but they have particularly generous need-based aid, so that will give you something like a best-case scenario for need-based aid.

Armed with that information, we can likely give you a better idea of what colleges could be on budget for you, either with just need aid or possibly need+merit.

That said, I would agree the obvious answer, your state flagship, in this case UMass, is sometimes a really good answer! Particularly for people with pre-med interests, including because they check that box of being good for other things too in case you decide to go a different direction. And in-state it would be comfortably below budget–they estimate about $37K total even if full pay, and you might want to run an NPC there as well and report those results to us as well.

And then the other thing I think would really help us provide suggestions is to hear your thoughts on UMass. Like, what sort of school, if any, would you prefer to UMass, and why? And how much would you pay for that difference? Or would you be looking to pay less than UMass (which is sometimes doable)?

And it is OK if you do not know for sure, you can collect some options then decide later. But some thoughts on what else you might want to consider would help guide our suggestions.

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Hi, thanks a lot for the help! I went through the Princeton NPC with my dad and came out with 53k in aid and a total cost of 28k per year (much better than I expected). I’ve done a few other calculators, and they’ve come up with aid numbers from 0-20k depending on the school.

In terms of your UMass Amherst questions, I’m definitely going to apply. I just didn’t include it in my initial post because I wanted to leave it open for recommendations. I am interested in UMass, however, it’s a bit bigger than I’d like and most students from my school end up going there. While I don’t hate the people at my high school, I’d like to go somewhere where there’s less of a chance of seeing people I know.

I’d be okay paying a bit more to go somewhere that fits more with my interests, but I still see the value of UMass and I will apply.

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Thanks for the help! I’ll definitely end up applying to Umass Amherst. In terms of Canadian schools, do you have any other recommendations? I’m actually technically a dual citizen with a Canadian passport, so I don’t if that would also help with aid. I have looked at McGill, however, my Canadian mom has cautioned me about recently passed language laws in Montreal enforcing policies of speaking French. While I am studying French, I definitely am not fluent enough to take classes on different subjects while speaking it. Did you have any trouble with language restrictions at Mcgill?

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So one immediate thought is Rochester. They have great departments for premed stuff, but also a very flexible curriculum so you can explore options. It is a bit smaller than UMass but still a full research university. Their need aid might not be as generous as Princeton’s, but they also have merit that might make them competitive.

A similar idea is Case Western. Not quite as flexible as Rochester, but otherwise has all the same virtues in terms of lots of strong departments and decent merit in a midsize research university.

Any interest in even smaller colleges? There are many with strong STEM departments, flexible curriculums, and possible merit. Like, just an example, but Kalamazoo has a cool curriculum structure called the K Plan, is popular with premeds, and offers good merit.

I note something like Kalamazoo is not necessarily “better” than UMass, but nor is it worse, and it very different!

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Another school to consider is Pitt. Great access to hospitals and research in the area. It’s also a relatively big school with lots of good departments. And it has the nice advantage of being on rolling admissions, so you can get a decision very quickly if you apply soon. Also does offer some merit aid.

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SUNY Binghamton- they give merit to OOS students, and the OOS cost without merit is about $50,000.

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SUNY Buffalo @aunt_bea

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The Quebec restrictions have been amended to something very manageable: you would need to reach a B1 level for speaking only (basic autonomous conversation). That’s roughly the AP level for oral interaction and with a bit of practice around the university you’d be fine but if need be you could always take a conversation class which would be useful in any case as a Canadian.

If you have Canadian citizenship, McGill&Concordia will be a bargain, and universities such as McMaster, Dalhousie, Mount Allison, Ottawa (automatic scholarship if you take a bilingual stream!) or on the West Coast UBC or SimonFraser would be good academic&financial safeties.

At UMass, apply to Honors.
UVermont, UDel, Pitt (+Honors) are all likely to work for what you want.
What about Miami-OH? uCincinnati? SUNY Binghamton?
Run the NPC, look into their Honors Colleges and scholarships, check out the environment.

Seconding URochester and Case Western Reserve for reaches (more reachable than Duke).

If you’re okay with smaller colleges, look into St Lawrence, Bates, and Skidmore in addition to Kalamazoo.

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Our California girl went from San Diego to the tundra of Buffalo in New York at SUNY. They had a really good premed program. They have something like it now, and it targets you for medical schools for New York. Amherst is a family community but it’s really accommodating for its students.

At first, students don’t like to think of Buffalo because of the snow and they assume that it’s old. The main campus is in Amherst, north of Buffalo. This campus is always underrated. But if my honor student, who got into several top ten colleges, received a very good education there, then you will too.

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Yes, this would help at universities in Canada!

My daughters and I similarly have dual US/Canada citizenship, but live in the US. At one point I asked a university in Canada via email whether my daughter would pay international or Canadian tuition. I still remember the first sentence of their response: “Your daughter is a Canadian citizen”. Yes, if you have Canadian citizenship, then you would pay tuition at any university in Canada as a Canadian. Whether you would pay even lower in-province tuition at universities in Quebec would depend upon some details, and I am not sure whether anything has changed since we checked on this roughly ten years ago.

A small nit: I am assuming that you already have your Canadian passport in hand. If you were born in the US, this would suggest that you already have your Certificate of Canadian Citizenship. If you did not already have this then I would have suggested applying ASAP, because it can take a while.

None of us attended university at McGill since one sibling went there graduating in the 1970’s. I am under the impression that the language restrictions are not too onerous, and only come down to graduating with some passing ability to speak French. Others including @MYOS1634 seem to understand this better than I do. Classes are in English, with the exception of classes which are specifically intending to teach some other language.

My understanding is that the US and Canada share a system for accrediting medical schools, and that you can get your bachelor’s degree in one country and then attend medical school in the other. This is something that would be worth double checking.

However, the grade deflation at McGill remains an issue.

There are three universities in Quebec that teach in English. They are McGill (in Montreal), Concordia (in Montreal), and Bishop’s. Bishop’s is a small university, similar to what here in the US we would call a liberal arts college, in a nearly fluently bilingual small town right next to the overwhelmingly French speaking city of Sherbrooke.

One daughter got her bachelor’s in Canada and is currently getting a PhD (in a medical related field) at a very good university in the US. Her major overlapped quite a bit with premed classes, multiple friends were premed, and she did provide at least one proof by example that it is possible to get a medical school worthy GPA in premed classes at a university in Canada. Her high school stats were only very slightly lower than yours, and we considered any university in Canada to be a safety for both admissions and affordability.

We did not consider universities in Ontario but there are a bunch of very good universities there. @MYOS1634 suggested McMaster, which is very good. I have heard good things also about Queen’s. Toronto most likely suffers from the same grade deflation issue that applies to McGill. There are more very good universities both in Ontario and further west.

I think that you will find a number of very good options, regardless of whether you look in the US or Canada or both.

If you do seriously consider universities in Canada, feel free to ask me about other details, such as getting health insurance, a social insurance card and a bank account, filing tax returns, and so on. We also had the experience that some schools missed the fact that my daughter is a Canadian citizen, and along with the acceptance letter sent information about how to apply for a visa and costs for international students. We were able to clear this up quite quickly.

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Would Duke be $60K? Have you run the net price calculator? Sure, they have small opportunities for merit but they’d be highly unlikely. It’s $90K. Has your family run the net price calculator? Otherwise I’d likely remove unless you’re ok with doing a lot of app work for likely no reason.

As for $60K, there are many schools that cost less than $60K full pay or with your stats, will easily get you there.

What do you seek in a school - a mid size Duke (you might look at a Case Western, for better merit and possible Scholars (enrichment) College of Charleston or larger but not crazy large Pitt, Miami of Ohio, or Delaware).

Or do you seek a UMASS type school?

I would start with figuring out what you want school wise. $60K won’t be an issue - so you should define the type of school you’d like - environment (city or rural), sports, size, weather, and more.

You noted Duke and Princeton - so are suburban mid size what you seek?

U Denver could be a good fit - it would hit cost - it’s on the outskirts of Denver. U Miami could be possible with merit.

Good luck.

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