<p>Which one of these schools are good for pre med? Which are challenging and known for high med school admit rates, but that aren’t so tough or grade deflated that I’ll be living in the library for the next four years, only to end up with a 3.0 gpa? How about each school’s atmospheres? A school with a friendly atmosphere is preferable, but I’m the type of girl who’d rather spend the night with some close friends doing something fun or memorable rather than getting wasted at a frat party. Lastly, which schools are known for giving good aid, both merit and need-based.</p>
<p>Oh, and these are my stats, so which one is more of a fit for me:</p>
<p>GPA: 3.84 (unweighted) 5.13 (weighted)
Rank: 9 (out of 661)
In international baccalaureate program
ACT: 34, SAT: 1540/1600 and 2310/2400
Subject Tests: Chemistry~730, Lit~780, Math2~750
APs: Human Geo~5, World History~4, Calc AB~5, Chem~4, Lit~5, GOPO~4
IB tests (so far): SL Pysch~6
EC:
founder of community service project: Students against homelessness, started club at school to raise awareness for homelessness, book/canned food/ hygiene kit drives. Volunteered at homeless shelter’s day care for children of lowincome/homeless families, Interned at HPRP, an organization that tries to find housing for homeless
vice coordinator of ib tutoring, students tutoring at risk students
treasurer of national Spanish honor society
Indian student association for 4 yrs, organized annual fall festival, performed
national honor society for 3 years
fencing for three years
Organized a science olympiad event at my school for the regional event… made the test, judged, and scored, was in charge of >50 students
*Independent Research: Wrote a 4000 word essay on the impact of global organizations such as the UN in the Kashmir conflict, all independently researched.</p>
<p>National Merit Semifinalist, AP scholar with distinction</p>
<p>sorry for the long post, but please help me with some of these questions!</p>
<p>One thing to consider for pre-med is that you will be spending a lot of money for med school, where the name/reputation of the school matters more, so make sure you’re not going into crazy debt for undergrad.</p>
<p>If you are in-state for UF? If so, how close to a full-ride will you get with Bright Futures? Considering the cost of med school, that is probably the way to go.</p>
<p>It actually sounds like you’d do well on a suburban or semi-urban campus, where you have access to clubs and organizations that have weekly dinners, small outings, on campus but where you can also go out to the city. I feel like a campus in too urban an environment could be overwhelming and quite honestly lonely as students tend to run into the city and there is less on-campus space for small gatherings. There is no school more guilty of this than NYU.</p>
<p>If I were you I’d add more schools I would say look into Brown (perfect for you I think - not a grade deflation factory, great friendly community, in a city), Northwestern, Tufts, Emory, Penn, and Rice. I think you need to add some more schools to your list to hedge your bet.</p>
<p>Duke is known for pre-med and attracts many such students, but weeding out is very common. A whopping 46% (!) of my freshman class came in pre-med, but that figure had more than halved by senior year. I was in the orgo section designed for freshmen, and I had never encountered such competitive and stressed out individuals. Admittedly, those who do end up applying to med school do rather well in the admissions process. </p>
<p>Saving money for med school would be a good idea. There are many colleges willing to throw money at NMFs. Keilexandra compiled a very useful list of such scholarships.</p>
<p>“A school with a friendly atmosphere is preferable, but I’m the type of girl who’d rather spend the night with some close friends doing something fun or memorable rather than getting wasted at a frat party. Lastly, which schools are known for giving good aid, both merit and need-based.”</p>
<p>High admit rates for medical school may just mean that the weeder classes are especially aggressive, so that doesn’t really mean much. What you need are schools that have strong sciences, good pre-med advising and a supportive atmosphere.</p>
<p>You should take a look at the midwestern LACs, especially Grinnell (which has merit aid, no distribution requirements and excellent sciences), Carleton, Macalester and Oberlin. The advantage of LACs is that the class sizes are small, you get to know your profs really well for letters of rec, they don’t have the ‘weeder class’ mentality where half the pre-meds are expected to bomb out, and the culture at all of these places tends to be a little more laid back and understated. Most top LACs don’t have frats, by the way. If urban is important to you, then Macalester is in Minneapolis. All the others are about an hour to one or more cities.</p>
<p>Ditto UF- if instate. Great school. My friends children, both top students went there. One stayed for Vet school, other is now in grad school there as well. Her D’s boyfriend, UF as well recently applied (and accepted) to a good med school.</p>
<p>Other- UMiami. You’d likely get 3/4 tuition merit award and invite for Singers (full tuition) or Stamps (full tuition and room and board, I believe).</p>
<p>Agree with above posters: save $ for med/grad school.</p>
<p>might look at holy cross and tufts in the boston area for great pre-med pgograms. holy cross has january 15th application due date and holy cross has very high med school acceptance rate.</p>
<p>I would recommend Rice. Great supportive and inclusive community, no Greek life, and excellent placement into medical schools (90%+ applicants from Rice get into a medical school). Plus, it has a beautiful campus in a safe, bustling part of Houston- right next to the world’s largest medical center, Texas Medical Center.</p>