I agree with everyone and just wanted to say that you should be very proud of getting admitted to Rutgers honors. From everything I’ve heard, it’s a super-challenging admit to get. I would definitely look into the opportunities that participation in the Honors College will grant you that would not be as easily available elsewhere.
As a Rutgers–New Brunswick honors student, you will have access to individualized advising, unique internships and research offerings, funding for study abroad, and dedicated housing options, with tailored community engagement and leadership opportunities.
I think they’re also doing some revamping of the honors program for incoming freshmen, so I would definitely ask about that as well, but it sounds like there may be seed funding for different research and experiential learning opportunities.
Any of these colleges is fine. You will be able to take the required courses for medical school applicants at any of them.
This is true.
And Pitt also has multiple hospitals and other volunteer opportunities.
Not for this student. They have clearly stated that all of these college options are affordable.
Now…having said that, medical school will likely be in the $100,000 a year range, so conserving finances for IF you get into medical school might matter. This is a conversation to have with your parents.
Happy students do better than unhappy ones, and that will be important in terms of your college GPA and medical school admissions.
There are some colleges that DO have a major called “premed”.
Here is my free advice. Put medical school out of the equation for now. Right now, you need to find an undergrad school where you will be happy to study and live for four years, so concentrate on that.
Agree 100%. Rutgers also has multiple hospitals nearby with plenty of volunteering.
Binghamton is an excellent school with plenty of successful premeds, but I would do some research regarding the ease of getting to these opportunities etc.
There is no track for pre-med other than the specified courses requirements.
Having a hospital nearby is not any special advantage. There is plenty of time to do shadowing or volunteering in summers. But more important is the fact that med schools are looking for applicants who’ve done something else after college. The average first year student beginning med school these days is 24 years, so most are taking a year or 2 AFTER college to do something else. So there’s plenty of time for that stuff later.
In addition, med schools are looking for a broadened list of qualities in there applicants these days. They’re not particularly looking for people who’ve been hanging around hospitals or labs. For example, empathy and caring about others are Hugh on the list, so volunteering in a soup kitchen is as important as volunteering in a hospital.
As others have said, med school is expensive, so most new doctors come out with a lot of debt. So, the cost of an undergrad education does matter. Instate STEM students who graduate in the top 19% of their high school class are eligible for free tuition at SUNY Binghamton. Bing has as highly respected as Pitt or Rutgers. Unless you are in love with one of the other 2 schools, I’d find it hard to turn Binghamton down.
Note that medical school is very expensive, probably over $400k total (“only” about $330k total for a SUNY as a NY resident, but most pre-meds get into 0 medical schools and those who get into any usually get into just 1). So if undergraduate costs are significantly different, the lower cost one may allow getting through medical school with somewhat lower debt, which is a heavy burden even at physician pay.
I can’t speak to your intended area of study and will only provide a bit of feedback from several good friends with kids attending/attended the Northeastern London program for their freshman year. These kids were well traveled with their family, fairly independent, more introverted and thought that studying in London as a freshman would be great - what they found was it was a lot of adjustment with little support - you have to shop and cook your own meals, classes can be from 30-45 minutes commute from your apartment and it was hard to build community- a lot when adjusting to college and living far from home. All of them had parents able to come visit and also the financial means to travel on weekends.
It sounds like they regret missing out on a traditional US freshman experience and wish they were able to be on a residential campus. With that said, all continued (or plan on continuing) at N’Eastern Boston. I think it is important you think about what you want in your freshman year of college and if this is a good fit with your personality and does this program offer a broad range of classes that align with your interests.
How much will you pay for all these schools? How important is cost? IMO, Northeastern at full fare is not worth it.
Bing is a very solid university and there are at least 2 hospitals near campus, so I am not sure where you got that information. There is a lot of information available on the university website and they collaborate with several other hospitals in the area. Pre-Health Professions Advising | Pre-health | Binghamton University
It is important to understand that many (probably most) students who plan to pursue medical school don’t end up doing so. It is really hard to get into medical school and there is much more that goes into than just taking the required courses.
Good premed advising is helpful, and Northeastern has a higher med school acceptance rate, but it is also important to remember that advising isn’t going to get anyone into med school on its own. You need to be a top student to get in. It may be that Northeastern does a better job of discouraging unsuitable applicants than Bing does. But I am in the camp that feels that paying that much for Northeastern over the other options is perhaps not worth the price tag.
Check the med school acceptance rates out for various colleges. Have a look at the premed forum and read all the posts by @WayOutWestMom . Med school is HARD to get into.
My recommendation would be Binghamton, given the cost savings, but we don’t have much indication of your preferences. I think all these colleges are good options, apart from NE, mainly due to the substantially higher costs.
But please understand that what the colleges publish for medical school acceptance rates can be “cooked” in many different ways. @WayOutWestMom am I accurate?
Northeastern, Rutgers and Bing all use committee letters of recommendation to control which students the school will allow to apply to medical schools.
Typically students who the committee feels have a lesser chances of gaining an acceptance to med school will be discouraged from applying OR will be outright denied a committee letter.
(Also a committee can tank a student chances for an acceptance by giving an applicant one of the lower rankings among med school applicants from the school. Committees typically rank students into one of 4 groups: Strongly recommend; recommend; recommend with reservations; or do not recommend.)
Med schools know which undergrads offer a committee letter and the lack of one will be considered a red flag on your application. Many med school secondary applications will require any student who does NOT have a committee LOR to explain why.
Having a committee letter will simplify the med school application process since every med school will accept a committee letter to satisfy its LOR requirements, even if the letter packet doesn’t exactly meet their requirements.
Some undergrad HP committees require lots of hoops to jump through to get a committee letter. So check out the pre-med advising process at each school to see what requirements they impose for students seeking committee letters.
Pitt does not offer committee letters.
This places the responsibility for making sure that any individual letters an applicant uses meet the specific requirements of individual med schools. (And the requirements can differ quite a bit among schools.)
When considering the med school acceptance rate, you should keep in mind that the use of a committee letter is one way that undergrad can inflate their acceptance rates. (There are about a half dozen other way undergrads can inflate the med school acceptance rates so take all undergrads self reported acceptance rate with a metric ton of salt.)
Since Neuroscience is your intended major, it would be worth it for you to check out the department at each of these schools to see if one or the other is a better fit for your long term goals. As I look at their websites, each seems to have a little bit different focus. Since this is a hybrid major between the pure sciences and the behavioral sciences, it’s natural that they may focus more in one direction than another. See which one better aligns with your interests.
IMO it’s not a heavy burden if you budget accordingly, e.g. by not buying a house or other lifestyle expenses priced relative to your pre-payment income, and instead living within your income after loan payments are taken out.
E.g. $400k at 9% would require around 4k per month. Even if you only make $200k starting as an attending (yes that’s low for an attending), that leaves you with over $100k after tax and loan payments.
Plus, many doctors are over 30 or even closer to 40 when they become attending physicians. Some are ready to move on with doing those things that cost money…like buying a new car, or a house.
That being said…the discussion about finances is for each family to have.
I would suggest also that every student take a personal finance course in high school, if possible, or in college. Both of our kids did and this gave them a huge amount of valuable financial information for when they started working.