Pre-Med college search

<p>I’m looking for college suggestions for safeties, matches and reaches that fit most of the following criteria.</p>

<p>Strong pre-med/biological sciences program
Abundant research opportunities
Relatively large city
Generous financial aid
Low student to faculty ratio and small class sizes
Above average weather</p>

<p>Here are my basic stats
GPA - 4.0 UW
SAT - 1440 M+CR, 2060 total
From Hawai’i, Asian, income ~119,000</p>

<p>Thank you!</p>

<p>UCLA, Harvard, and Vanderbilt. If you can’t get into those you’re SoL.</p>

<p>bump</p>

<p>I second UCLA, Harvard and Vandy. I’m also going to throw in Tulane, Johns Hopkins and Georgetown.</p>

<p>Duke, Hopkins, Holy Cross, Tufts.</p>

<p>bump</p>

<p>bump</p>

<p>we cant provide sensible answers without more info.<br>
the recommended schools in the above posts are assuming that your family will pay your EFC. …or </p>

<p>in the case of the suggested UCLA, people are assuming that your parents will pay their EFC plus 23k per year…which is practically full cost of attendance which is NOT consistent with your desire for good aid. lol</p>

<p>How much aid do you need? UCLA wont give you anything with that income and OOS costs. besides, there is no point to going to UCLA as an OOS premed…only negatives.</p>

<p>You will have a high efc…probably around 25k that your parents will be expected to pay, so even a school with great FA is going to expect your family to pay a lot…unless the school is HYPS and your SAT may not be high enough to be competitive at one of those schools. </p>

<p>You will also have to figure in costly travel from Hawaii…so add a couple thousand to your EFC for that.</p>

<p>How much will your parents pay? If your parents cant pay their EFC,then forget most generous FA schools, you will need schools that will give you HUGE merit scholarships.</p>

<p>are you a likely NMF? what was your psat?</p>

<p>@mom2collegekids My projected EFC right now is ~23,000. My parents are willing to pay 15-20k, but the lower the cost the better. Sadly I am not a NMF and my PSAT was 189,</p>

<p>because of hawaii travel costs, you need to assume that your efc will be at least 2k more than whatever is calculated. estimated travel costs arent including the very high costs of hawaii to mainland costs. </p>

<p>Ok…so your parents will pay less than their EFC, so…</p>

<p>all the UCs are out (not a biggie, since being OOS as a premed makes the UCs not good choices)</p>

<p>the super-aid schools (HYPS) can be your high reaches because the amount that they will expect your family to pay would be in their budget.</p>

<p>the competitive HUGE merit schools (at least full tuition merit) can be your matches. the remaining costs (room, board, books, fees, travel) can be covered by your parents. </p>

<p>the assured merit scholarships of at least full tuition can be your safeties. </p>

<p>Strong pre-med/biological sciences program…virtually any good school has this
Abundant research opportunities…the national univs will have this
Relatively large city
Generous financial aid…except for HYPS, you need huge MERIT awards for stats
Low student to faculty ratio and small class sizes…most schools will not have this for science lecture classes…even smaller schools will have large lecture classes for the intro classes. you need to just accept that. the labs will be small.
Above average weather…the lower half of the mainland states</p>

<p>bump</p>

<p>How about Rochester? They have an excellent pre-med school and they give great merit scholarships with your stat. Of course Bama and Ole Miss have been highly discussed on the CC. They are safeties.</p>

<p>In addition, not sure if LAC schools like Williams, Reed, Amhurst and Middlbery will provide enough scholarship for you. You need to go to each one and find out. Emory, Duke, Rice, WSTL and Vandy are several large Unis I can think of right now.</p>

<p>The idea is to get a full ride in a lower ranked school (from HYPS) while your GPA will shine in premed and if you score Mcat big then med school is not a problem.</p>

<p>Thank you! @artloversplus</p>

<p>I just wanted to say that I improved my SAT to 750/730/720, total 2200</p>

<p>That is great! Are you a rising senior?</p>

<p>Creighton. Tons of kids from Hawaii, terrific merit aid, great Honors Program (which your higher SAT’s would now qualify for), and they have their own Med School. Also, they give preferential admissions to their own undergrads for admissions. They have a very impressive pre-med advising system in place, as many of their ug’s are on that track.</p>

<p>^^
Creighton does give some merit (not terrific), but his merit would just get applied to need and his family would still not be able to pay their EFC plus HI travel costs. It also doesnt meet need, so he could get gapped as well.</p>

<p>I guess much depends on what you mean by terrific merit. This student might get a $20k award (if lucky), but that isnt terrific when he needs his costs down to 15k to 20k…including pricey travel. </p>

<p>Plus the weather doesnt fit his desires.</p>

<p>OP …congrats on your scores.</p>

<p>Run the NPC and see what the results are. </p>

<p>I wanted to make a comment about your desires for small classes. There are probably only a handful of schools that have small classes for those premed prereqs. Most schools, including privates, will have large classes for those courses. Schools will often have smaller labs, but the lectures will be large. </p>

<p>What schools do you have on your list now? </p>

<p>Go to the financial aid forum and look at the pinned threads for some merit aid options.</p>

<p>OP should get $25K merit from Creighton. Not sure if this is important, but Creighton has developed a “niche” among Hawaiians and other pacific islanders, with a surprising number matriculating to Omaha.</p>

<p>With $25K, price should drive down to below $20K, including air fare.</p>

<p>@‌mom2collegekids</p>

<p>Currently:</p>

<p>American
Brown
Creighton
Drexel
Duke
Northeastern
Occidental College
Rhodes College
Syracuse
Temple
U of Denver
U of Portland
U of Rochester
USC
Vanderbilt
WashU
Tulane
UW
UH Manoa</p>

<p>Factors in my college search are now:
Financial aid
Good surrounding city/social life
Strong biological sciences
Above average dorms
Not cutthroat environment
Good research opportunities
Good weather</p>