We are in CA and my son applied to OSU as his safety… but he ended up falling in love with the school and almost ended up going there even though he also got into a lot of schools with much lower acceptance rate. OSU is an excellent school for engineering and the sciences, and it’s a great deal financially for an in-state student such as your daughter. Another advantage to OSU is that it is not difficult to switch majors between engineering and sciences, compared to some of the other schools on your list (like the UCs) which restrict major changes.
Anyway, I know your daughter is already planning to apply to OSU as a safety… but along with that, I’d strongly suggest she apply to the OSU honors program and spend some time writing a good essay (this program requires a unique essay). OSU has a great honors program which offers small classes, great access to professors and research opportunities, and an honors thesis for every student.
especially if she doesn’t want to attend OSU, applying to the Honors college would matter. You don’t know how many seniors didn’t apply to their flagships honors college “because they’d never want to attend /flagship/”, end up going there and have the extra bitter pill on top that they’re not even with their peers in Honors.
If she doesn’t apply to Engineering, U Oregon’s Honors college is excellent.
Fortunately with WUE she has lots of OOS choices at a decent price for your budget; in addition, her stats would ensure merit at many colleges supportive for premeds (if she decides that’s more important than Engineering) such as Whitman, UPuget Sound… So, if she wants to leave Oregon, she likely can and for less than 80k at a UC.
Could she be interested in a combination of
And
Their early financial aid guarantee - a bit like an athletic preread that tells you how much you’d be expected to pay- would be very valuable in determining whether it’d be a good idea to apply:
If she wants warmer she can look into Davidson and Emory or Emory-Oxford.
At Emory, merit scholarship apps are due Nov 15.
I completely agree. Is it just because it’s a California thing?
Is it because she wants to be in California for the possibility of transitioning to the UC’s medical schools?
The thing you need to tell your daughter is that the UC medical schools wipe the slate clean.
If she does her undergrad at UC, that does not necessarily mean that she is going to transition smoothly into their medical program. They start from scratch. Her chances would be better coming from Oregon’s undergrad program.
Why do I say that? One of my very good friends does interviews for the UCSD medical school. She says that they want to see what other undergraduate schools are encouraging. They know exactly what UCs undergrad programs are providing in the way of coursework.
The medical schools want to see a variety of new approaches, theories, and practices coming from very different undergrad programs. Be it a private, religious, public, expensive or affordable in-state university. For the UC schools, this is what their goal is in admissions.
They appear to want a variety of people, from different experiences, that will fit and add to their programs.