If @WayOutWestMom posts something, it needs to be said!
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As a student who will be pursuing a premed track, your daughter may appreciate that students at the University of Scranton regard its science lab facilities highly:
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This exactly - my grad school experience was that freshmen at our R1 university had no difficulty finding a lab in which they could help out. They did all kinds of necessary work for the projects faculty, post-docs and PhD students were engaged in. It got them started in thinking about research, and they got to be part of “the lab,” though much of their actual mentoring was done by grad students until they were more senior.
Compared to the LAC where I was an undergrad: at my LAC, there were no post-docs, no PhD students. The faculty worked directly with the undergrads, and things that would have been reserved for grad students at my R1 grad school university were done by undergrads at my LAC. The equipment at my (not elite) LAC was decidedly inferior to that available at my grad school, and there were fewer total choices of research projects (fewer total faculty in field). But every undergrad that wanted to do research - it was encouraged - did it, mentored by a faculty member, and a surprisingly high percentage published. So I would argue that LACs are not a DISadvantage for students interested in research, unless they’re really focused on a specific equipment-heavy field that the LAC does not support.
On a per capita basis, LACs do quite well in med school admission - 10 of the top 30 med school feeders are LACs, on a per capita basis. Top Feeders to Medical School (though note that this website only looks at “elite” med schools, so leaves out the bulk of med school admissions.) Data about PhD admissions show even heavier representation by LACs - many of them obviously train students well in research, if the students want that.
Go debt free and don’t look back!! 
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I think we’re kind of losing track of the key question though:
Is UDelaware worth 80k in undergrad debt for a student who hopes to get into Med School and has a debt-free option at UScranton (a LAC in PA)?
Will UScranton limit this student’s options more than 80k in debt?
(Are those the only 2 options)?
Considering UScranton has a well-known, well-funded science program I don’t think there’d be a problem with the courses’quality or on campus research experience.
Next step is pre med support:
Asking questions about support is important at all universities considered to compare apples to apples, in case one university stands out.
Ultimately though this is a question about undergraduate debt.
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The average age of beginning Med School students these days is 24. That means that the typical med school applicant has done something else for 2 years after college to enhance his/her application, so the application depends on a lot more than the undergrad credentials.
Here’s a current case with which I’m familiar. HYPSM grad, 2 years out of college who’s worked in a health care related business since graduation. Straight A student undergrad (one A-). 97th percentile on MCAT. Did research as undergrad and was published. Applied to 27 med schools coast to coast, and was offered interviews at 3 tippy top med schools. That’s it. Three. Currently waiting to hear about the decision.
Moral of the story? Have a Plan B. It’s become insanely competitive.
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I had two kids at SLACs and one at an R1.
The honest answer is it depends on the school, not the school type. Even some highly rated SLACs with deep resources per student are having trouble adapting to the demand shift for certain majors or pre-professional programs. As an example, as someone still on the parent group, pre-med students at Davidson College are having so much trouble getting their required pre-med courses that the school is advising them their choices are either summer school (somewhere other than Davidson) or a 5th year in some cases. The core STEM classes they need are just so over-subscribed that they can’t get into the classes they need and then those classes in turn are pre-reqs to other classes they need.
In general many LACs have a faculty ratio that was designed for a broad distribution of studies across STEM, humanities, social studies and arts majors, but a higher ratio of students are opting for pragmatic STEM or pre-professional majors and the colleges haven’t been able to adapt their faculty ratios adequately yet (and are conflicted on whether they should). Since most of these schools don’t admit to major and let students choose in sophomore year, it’s even harder for them to correct the imbalance.
To be clear, there’s a similar issue with many R1 schools having issues getting the classes you want too that predates this trend. Which is why I say the answer is really school-specific. If the goal is pre-med, I would research the specific schools to see if there’s any buzz about the ability to get critical classes, let alone research gigs.
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Med school admission difficulty goes in cycles. Lately it’s been difficult --similarly difficult to the economic downturn years in the mid 90s and the Vietnam War years in the early 70s. One thing that has changed is that students now apply to more total schools, so each school receives many more applications and thus has a smaller individual admit rate. But it’s more important to look in composite. In the mid 90s and early 70s, the composite admit rate (i.e. percentage of applicants in a cycle who were admitted anywhere) was ~35%, so actually slightly worse than nowadays.
So yes, have a Plan B. But don’t start believing it’s become impossible or something, because it isn’t. And I wouldn’t be discouraged by stories of strong students shotgunning 20 schools and then getting interviews at only a couple. Just like undergrad institutions, medical schools have their “institutional priorities.” Why should a med school in Nebraska admit a student who has never lived anywhere near the Midwest? Why should a rural med school admit a student who has only ever lived in cities? Why should a med school with a well documented mission of service admit a candidate who has a track record of prestige seeking?
A student’s best chances are always going to be at schools where they are an institutional priority. A student will have low chances at schools where they are not a fit, no matter their stats. So rather than shotgunning, be strategic. Apply to your in-state schools. Apply to schools in other places you have lived if you can make an argument for having put down some roots. Apply to schools affiliated with your undergrad college. [So in the case of a student who attends Scranton, really embrace the Jesuit ethos of service during your 4 years there, and be sure to apply to the Jesuit medical schools: Creighton, SLU and Loyola.]
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Mission fit. It’s the most important part of a student’s application for med school–assuming they have the GPA/MCAT to be competitive.
(BTW, Georgetown is also Jesuit and subscribes to the same ethos of service as the other Jesuit med schools.)
Subscribe to MSAR and use it.
Make sure your stats are competitive for the school. A student with sub 500 MCAT isn’t going to get accepted to WashU or NYU (which have median MCAT scores of 522-523) no matter how compelling their story is.
Don’t apply to OOS public med schools unless you have close ties to the state. (Immediate family living in the state is a tie. Graduating from high school or college is state is a tie. Having lived there when you were in middle school is not. Having cousins or a grandparent living in the state is not.)
Don’t apply to OOS public med schools that interview/accept few OOS applicants. (Few is up to your discretion. But generally under 10-25% OOS is few.)
Make sure your PS tells the story of why you want to be doctor. Don’t dwell on someone else’e experiences (including those of family members!) . Talk about your own.
Make sure that your secondary essays are written specifically for each school you apply to–even if the question seems to be identical. Copy pasta is easy to do when you’re filling out dozens of applications, but it tells the adcomm you really did not think about why you’d be a fit at their particular med school. Med schools have extensive webpages–use them to do some research about the school.
Also please read each med school mission statement before you drop $100+ to apply there. Look for what the school values. (Service. Research. Specific communities) Take them at their word. Don’t apply if you don’t have the experiences to support what the school values. IOW, don’t apply to Geisinger UNLESS you have lots of experience working in rural communities. Don’t apply to Duke or WashU unless you have a strong research portfolio and a strong LOR from your PI.
If you live in a highly competitive state, or a state where there are no public med schools you will need to apply more broadly than most people. CA, FL and MD all export more med students to OOS med schools than attend school in their home state.
(As an aside: PA doesn’t have any public med schools. It has 3 weird sort of public-private hybrids where the state of Pennsylvania will pay a tuition-reduction subsidy for instate students at Pitt, Penn State and Temple. The number of subsidies is capped and changes depending on legislative funding. So PA students don’t get much instate advantage in acceptances.)
Fluency in another language besides English is always useful. Spanish is especially useful-- and not just in the West or Southwest.
Applying to medical school is expensive. $3000 for a single round of applications is the norm. (Higher to MUCH higher if in-person interviews become widespread again. And some med schools have already returned to in-person interviewing. )
Apply smart with best possible CV you can manage.
Getting accepted into med school is not easy, but it’s impossible either.
(And this is why having good advising at your undergrad is important. There are all these unwritten rules applicants need to know if they want to be successful.)
ETA–all pre-meds must have a Plan B. In the back of their mind if nothing else.
If you get accepted–Great!
If you don’t, then do some introspection about how you can improve your application. Apply again ONLY after you’ve fixed what is lacking in your app. (Again this is a good pre-med advisor is invaluable. It’s hard to see your own flaws.)
Or consider alternative careers. There are plenty of jobs in healthcare that do not require MD/DO after your name.
Or find something else altogether. You don’t need to be in medicine to help people or to have good life.
You don’t want to spend years and years stagnating, waiting for that med school admission that may never come.
The stats on reapplicants aren’t especially encouraging. 40% get an acceptance the first time they apply, 30% get an acceptance on their second attempt. More than twice…your odds go way down to less than 10%.
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This is fantastic advice. Don’t apply to a med school with a focus on Community Medicine/Underserved populations if your entire CV is filled with bench research, genetics, etc. with nary a human being in sight.
A recent success story I know- a young woman who did NOT do the research heavy-up as an undergrad, but worked for several summers (and then during the Gap/application year) at a hospice. By the time she was done, she’d worked almost every function that did not require licensing (i.e. no nursing, no administering IV meds, etc.) But communication with patient’s families- lots of it. Sitting with the patients and singing- lots of it. Working with the pastoral staff on who was needed where and when- tons of it. And of course- meal service (which is labor intensive in hospice since many of the patients need help eating).
She reported that every single interview she had wanted to talk about her experiences in hospice. Every med school interviewer acknowledged that they needed to do a better job teaching death to their students, and every interviewer was intrigued that she’d spent so much time with dying patients without flinching. Not something most doctors are good at or want to do.
So figuring out who you are- and how that will translate into being a physician- step one. Step two is matching up your own priorities with those of the institution.
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To address research opportunities while attending an LAC.
My D attended an LAC and was offered research at her LAC. Professors at LACs will often conduct research in the summers. In addition, many LACs provide grants for exactly this type of thing. So my D had a grant which she used to fund her expenses during her summer research at a state flagship. She found that opportunity on her own after reaching out to a professor whose work interested her. Her project there involved daily interviews with participants in a study.
Her friend attended the same LAC and also used grants. This young woman did two years of summer research at an Ivy League university. After graduation, my D and her friend both obtained research jobs at a well known hospital. In my D’s case, her research involved daily interaction with patients.
Neither woman pursued med school, but my larger point is that being at an LAC would have been no hindrance had they chosen to do so. These women were not unique in finding opportunities.
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Just want to note that UScranton (the school considered by the OP) is not a typical LAC but rather a mid-size Jesuit University that offers Masters programs. UScranton also has a robust health sciences program. I’d imagine there would be ample opportunity for students to get involved in research at the school.
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I dunno. Am I the only one who still thinks there is something special about going away to college and that there’s nothing wrong with preferring one to another so long as the family can afford it?
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Agree with that as a general rule. If a college is comfortably affordable (no hardship, no or minimal debt) then personal preference/fit should be the key decision factor.
In the OPs case it sounds like UScranton is the only debt-free option and med school might be in the future. So it comes down to schools with “significant” (per the OP – see third post in thread) undergrad debt or UScranton with no undergrad debt. In that case I’d lean towards UScranton as it sounds as if the student does like the school.
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I lost track of what the actual preferences were as most of the discussion has focused on whether SLACs were competitive with R1 universities when it came to med school admissions. As the answer seems to be “It depends on the SLAC”, I’m sensing some ambivalence in the OP’s answer:
I imagine this is often the case when finances play a part in the college decision. But finances are a meaningful part of the college landscape in today’s world.
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Oh, I agree with that. If everyone involved was in agreement that U of Scranton was the most affordable and “has her heart” there wouldn’t be a thread.
As with many decisions in life, there is a trade-off. The OPs family will need to weigh the options and make a choice.
And we don’t have the whole picture.
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Well, we know attending UDel would be 80k in debt (parental loans) just for undergrad and OPs parents can’t afford it (parent said “not affordable”).
U Scranton is debt free and OPs child like it - but less than UDel.
What we’re missing is whether there are any debt free or federal loan-only choices that OPs child likes better than UScranton, even if they’re not UDel - or if UScranton is the favorite among the affordable ones.
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This is what I’m confused about. Where does the OP say how much debt they are required to take out?