My daughter is very happy and doing well academically. Only non-As have been in the Honor’s College Great Texts papers, and that is mostly a matter of learning to align her style with the professor’s. She is currently a University Scholar rather than technically pre-med, but med school is still her plan. She is working very hard, surrounded by others who are working hard, and still finding time to hang out in the common areas, play games on weekend nights, and enjoy being at college. She has no interest in sororities or “college parties” – just wants to have a lot of good male/female friends to enjoy being with who enjoy being with her.
One caveat: scheduling was not easy, and may become harder. Departments schedule their classes to make it work for their majors, but taking a multi-disciplinary schedule can be hard to make work. She likes neurology, but they have made it clear that the upper level classes will give preferences to the students in that major. She is currently a University Scholar with concentrations in neurology and music, but she may have to abandon that, sadly, to be sure that she can get into the upper level courses that she wants.
As far as ECs, I advised her take it easy her Freshman year, but she is not listening to me. She has joined two pre-health societies, and applied for and been accepted on councils in each. I still think it is too much, but she is an adult now and can make her own decisions…how else will she learn? It is very easy to get involved in pre-health ECs.
My daughter is a very bright, accomplished girl and mostly considered top schools that are non-Ivy (just no interest there).She was accepted everywhere she applied, but nowhere was nearly as generous with merit offers as was Baylor. In the end, the decision was heavily influenced by the scholarships, and we all had some trepidation about whether or not it was the “right thing” to save the $200K+ and drop the “top” school name. It’s an easy practical decision to make, especially when going pre-med, but is very counter-cultural and takes some self-convincing. So far, looks like a great choice all around. She is happier and doing better than her friends who went to those “top” schools. But to be honest, it is still way too early to draw any conclusions.
