Should I go to the University of Utah?

Applying to College
1

Hello Everyone!

I am currently applying to colleges, and I recently looked at UofU, and it looks really amazing. I only have a few issues that I was hoping you guys could answer.

  1. Is the University safe for black people? Like, in terms of me fitting in. I don’t really care if a college is diverse, just as long as the people there aren’t racist.
  2. How are the healthcare opportunities? I am planning on going to your pharmacy school later in the road and soon after, go to medical school, so I wanted to ask if UofU provides great opportunities for those kinds of people.
  3. How separate would Mormons be from me? Obviously, since this is Utah, Mormons are going to come up from time to time, and since I am a Christian, I don’t want to be involved in stuff, so I was curious if they are pretty separate from everyone else
  4. How is the Social Scene? I love when colleges are in cities since there can always be good opportunities, so I wanted to ask if Salt Lake City is the same thing.
  5. How often do they give scholarships? My parent don’t really get any federal money since they make too much, but I do have amazing extracurriculars, and my GPA is 3.58 weighted, plus my high school courses are mainly Honors and AP classes, not sure if that could impact anything, but I am still curious.
2

Mormons are everywhere in SLC and UU, but if you are asking if they’ll try to recruit you or interfere with your religion, I don’t think so. I know a lot of Mormons and they are always very inclusive and invite me to things knowing I’m not interested in joining. My daughter’s best friend in middle school was LDS (still is!) and daughter knew if she stayed over on a Sat night that she needed to bring church clothes as they would be going to the Ward on Sunday morning. D love it as everyone was very friendly and there was always food!

SLC has a good airport (Delta Hub), lots of outdoor activities, and now has an NBA team and an NHL team. No NFL.

3

  1. Why not reach out to the school and ask to speak to a student ambassador who is a minority, who could better answer the question. Per the common data set, 65 of 6001 first years are black and 331 of over 27K total. Hispanic seems to be a much larger population - but you are talking 1% are black. Are any athletes? I linked the ambassadors below - many show no picture but none that show are black - but you might ask if any are or reach out to a club on campus. Given I’m not black, I can’t answer but often friend groups do form by race so I can see where it might be concerning. But i’m not you.

  2. Pharmacy and Medical?? Why not one? I’m sure it’s fine - most any college is good for pre med. I put a link below - they have a med school so I’m sure it’s fine - but you’ll have to seek research, etc. It doesn’t mean it will happen. Frankly, this is the type of info you should research - online or by talking to admissions or a professor in the department of interest.

  3. They’ll be in class with you, potentially in study groups and more. Different people socialize differently. Will you with them or vice versa? That would be hard to say but yes, often people socialize in cliques but that doesn’t mean they always will. I don’t know your personality, etc. to know.

  4. There’s definitely lots going on in Salt Lake - from bars/restaurants to outdoors activities - skiing, hiking, etc. My son spent 6 months in Ogden (an hour or so north) and hiked, biked, and skiied. He loved it. Niche gives the school an A- party scene.

  5. The U is known for scholarships and some say you can get residency the last three years. Many public schools are GPA and test based - not EC based. Last year, they show 1168 students got on average of $7830. That includes in-state too though.

Here’s a better question - what is your budget. For the first year, the full price for tuition, and room and board is $49,190 before merit. That doesn’t include transport, pizzas on friday night, a lift ticket, etc.

So what can you afford? What is your home state? Are you open to other schools that will better align with your budget?

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4

Indeed, “What’s your budget” is the most important question.

A 3.58W GPA, with many weighted classes, implies an unweighted GPA in the low 3’s or even high 2’s. UofU does give merit money, but I think it’s unlikely that you’ll get enough to move the needle, affordability-wise.

Even if you’re from a WUE state (which in addition to Utah includes Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, and Wyoming), you need a 3.3UW to qualify for the reciprocity discount.

If you don’t get merit or WUE, you can still get a discount by taking the path to residency that’s offered in Utah. You’d be full pay OOS for the first year and then pay in-state rates for years 2-4. Could you family afford that?

What is it that looks amazing to you, about UofU? Why pharmacy, and especially why pharmacy and medicine? (Your college grades will have to be significantly higher than your high school grades to get into med school, plus you will need a strong MCAT score; do you have an SAT/ACT score?)

It’s fairly late in the application season to be at the stage of figuring out where to apply, but folks here can probably help you best if you do a “chance me” thread with more information including UW GPA, test scores, home state, budget, and where you’re already applying.

Have you looked at U of New Mexico? It’s also in a city (Albuquerque); it’s much more diverse than UofU (the black population in particular is still small, but bigger than Utah’s); and it has excellent and affordable medical and pharmacy schools that give an admissions advantage to its own undergrads even if they’re from out of state. It also gives the WUE discount with a lower GPA threshold than UofU, if you’re from a WUE state.