Hi all, I’m a senior in high school from the southeast US. I’m so grateful to be in this situation but confused on which school to attend. I will 100% be doing pre-med probably pursing neuroscience, integrative/computational biology, or biomedical engineering. I want to do an MD and pursue a surgical specialty (ortho or neuro).
I was also offered the Yale Engineering and Science Scholar (YES Scholar) offered to ~100 students and Columbia Rabi scholars program offered to ~10-15 students. The YES scholars program guarantees 1 summer internship with a Yale prof and 5K of funding in addition to some nice networking with professors/deans at Yale. The Rabi scholars program seems similar to YES but has much more structure, funding, and lasts for all 4 years of undergrad.
Stanford and Princeton are simply regular admission.
Any opinions would greatly be appreciated, thank you.
Beyond academics, do you seek, for example, the decidedly urban experience of Columbia? A characteristic such as this can represent a strong draw for some, while lacking appeal for others. Or perhaps there’s some general aspect to one your other choices that appeals to you personally?
It doesn’t matter. This student will be able to fulfill the required courses for medical school applicants at all of these colleges. And that is what matters.
This kid needs to decide where they want to be for the next four years. I would suggest putting premed aside in the decision making as that can be done at all of these options. Look at the other characteristics of these colleges and go from there.
The educational opportunities and resources are all equivalent. Where are you going to be most happy to spend 4 years? Geography, weather, urban, suburban, close to home/far away from home all matter. Have you, are you going to accepted student’s day to get a sense of the student/campus vibe?
You say that you are 100% sure of your degree path, but sometimes plans change (for the better) as part of your college experience. All these schools provide amazing opportunities for that kind of exploration. I would narrow it down to Stanford, Yale, and Princeton. That’s mainly due to my personal bias against studying/living in NYC as an undergrad.
I agree you can and should just pick whatever feels most promising in terms of the four-year experience.
Like, some kids are excited about being in the Bay Area. Others NYC. Some like Yale’s residential college system. Some like that Princeton is relatively undergrad focused. And so on.
So it is a question of identifying what actually matters to you the most in terms of a total four-year experience.
Contrary opinion here: Consider spending your college years at a place where it is UNLIKELY you will want to settle in the long run. If you see yourself as a doctor in the Northeast due to preference or being close to family in the long run, then maybe a detour to the SF Bay Area for four years could be fun. After all, you have a LOT of schooling ahead of you (med school, internship, etc.). College should be an enjoyable experience.
I’m fond of that idea as well. I also had like zero success convincing my S24 to see it that way. But I for sure think the OP should consider that logic carefully.
The overwhelming portion of students who start pre-med do not become doctors. The OP is probably an exceptional student who is unlikely to be weeded out by subpar grades/scores, but many students also switch from pre-med for other reasons, such as deciding that they’d prefer a different field that they first became exposed to during college. If the OP is among this overwhelming majority of pre-med students that ends up in a different field, then being in a location where he’d like to live may be advantageous. Local companies often favor local colleges for on campus recruiting, internships, and various other special opportunities. There also tends to be stronger networking among local companies than at companies on opposite coasts.
I speak from experience. I am originally from upstate NY. I completed the pre-med track at Stanford – one of the colleges the OP lists. I decided to pursue graduate school in engineering rather than medicine, as I thought it would be a better fit. Stanford also has a good co-terminal masters program, which permits simultaneously doing MS+BS, in my case without any extra years of college for the MS. My search for first job was mostly going through the campus career fair at which in-state companies were tremendously overrepresented. I chose to work at an a relatively small in-state company that only does on campus career fairs at colleges within a few hundred miles, and still live in that region today. Had I instead chosen to attend a college in the northeast, I think it is likely that I’d live in a different region today.
It sounds like the OP has abandoned the thread. If he is still reading, I agree with other posters to consider other factors besides just pre-med. For example, the first major the OP lists is neuroscience. Stanford doesn’t offer this major, so if a neuroscience major is important, don’t choose Stanford. However, Stanford does offer exceptional Biomedical Computation/Engineering majors. Human Biology also tends to be very popular among premeds, and allows a lot of customization to unique personal interests across multiple departments.