This is for students to get an idea where people are going (or went) for premed and why they chose that school. Please post any stats or relevant information. Money is often a big factor for pre meds as graduating with the least amount of debt as possible is important, so please provide any scholarship/financial aid information. How has your experience been at that school? Would you recommend it to prospective students? What made you choose this school over other choices? What are you majoring in? People who have already gone through the medical school admissions process are also welcome to provide any insight and tips. Seniors can also discuss which schools they are looking at and why they are appealing to them. This thread is meant to provide insight to high schoolers who have their sights set on med school and are in the college search process.
D1 graduated from the state flagship. Why? Close to home (parent & grandparent with terminal cancer diagnoses at time of high school graduation) and she had a full tuition scholarship good at any instate public university. Graduated with little debt. (Scholarship is offered to all in-state high school grads who meet certain high school GPA requirements.) Majors: physics & mathematics. Did med school pre-reqs in a do-it-yourself post-baccs at the flagship after graduation.
D2 graduated from a top 30-ish private research U that has an associated top 30 med school. Why? She wanted to go OOS and this college was the highest bidder—err…make that offered her the best merit aid package. (Full tuition plus a research grant to be used on a project of her choice. Scholarship based on combination of stats, ECs, community activism, leadership and “potential”.) She spent 2 years post-grad as a clinical research coordinator at a Top 10 med school while deciding between a MD and MD/PhD. Majors: biological neuroscience & mathematics.
Speaking as a parent–I saw very little difference in the opportunities available to each of my children. Both did research, received mentoring, held paid TA positions, were active in campus organizations, found clinical & non-clinical volunteer opportunities. Both were able to form meaningful relationships with their profs (despite that fact that D1’s state U is 15x the size of D2’s private U). However, both girls are pro-active self-starters and good at self-advocating.
The common denominator–both graduated with little debt, allowing them to pursue professional career plans post-grad.
D. graduated from Miami U (OH). She has graduated from Med. School this year and still believes that she choose the UG that was the best match for her. D. did not choose her college to match her stats. She choose it based on her own personal criteria that was organized in the priority sequence, meaning the most important criteria had the heaviest weight in her selection. Her criteria included being accepted to the combined bs/md program (preferably non-accelerated) , being as close to home as possible (but not in the hometown), NOT being at the Ivy / Elite (her reason was that if she attended there, then she would be with the same type of students that she was in HS while she wanted to broaden her social horizon and learn to connect to any type of people, which was accomplished).
D. graduated #1 in her HS class from #2 private HS in our state. She was the only one in her class with the GPA = 4.0 uw. Her ACT was 33. She was accepted to 3 combined bs/md programs, all at the state schools and choose non-accelerated one at Miami that had only 10 spots. The program has been cancelled since then, but I believe that it still exists at Cinci. She did not like the location of Cinci Col of Med. where she was accepted automatically based on her college GPA=3.98 and the MCAT=35 (old MCAT), so she applied out of the program to 7 other Med. Schools. She was put on hold at 2 and accepted at 3 additional Med. Schools, 2 of which happened to be in the top 20 at the time of her application. She was on full tuition Merit award at Miami. She graduated from Miami with the Zoology major / Music Composition minor and while pursuing minor in Neuroscience, was 2 classes short to complete minor at graduation. Later on in Med. School, she actually discovered that while she possesses a talent for psych, she dislikes the Neurology. So having great interest in Neuroscience is not an indication of your future specialty. The overall opportunities for pre-meds at Miami were way beyond our expectations as well as overall D’s experiences and the end results of her UG education. After graduating from Med. School (she choose private as price was irrelevant for her), she was able to match to her top choice of residency in very selective specialty. All along while at Med. School, she was told by many (superiors, peers, patients) that her ability to connect to others and being helpful is superior. That was one of the objectives of her D’s education, which apparently was accomplished.
Good luck to all who is planning to start on this very hard path!
Do not listen to others (including me) where you want to attend. Create your own criteria list and try to match it as close as possible. Believe me, the pretty campus was important for my D. and we did not object at all. You deserve to respect your own wishes first and foremost!
I’m currently a junior Applied Math major at Johns Hopkins University. Ironically, Hopkins wasn’t my first choice, and I wasn’t premed coming in.
I don’t think I’m going to have any debt when I graduate, but it is pricey, and financial aid isn’t the best. I really love Hopkins, but at the same time, I know enough people who don’t love it to realize that you probably have to be a specific kind of person to enjoy the rigor of the school and the busyness that comes with managing the courseload and extracurricular activities.
Contrary to rumors, I don’t find this school to be cutthroat at all, and even though many of my classes were challenging, I’ve never been in any with curves that made me feel like I was in competition with anyone else. But I also don’t really see why people say this is the best school for being premed. There are not very many clinics in the area, and Hopkins’ hospitals, which are the largest and most accessible in the area, are very difficult to access due to the lengthy process one has to go through to even get a volunteer position. It takes a lot of effort and pro-activeness to get meaningful premed opportunities.
Overall, though, I think that Hopkins has helped me gain a lot of independence and maturity, and I think it’s actually made me less concerned about my grades and more invested in living a meaningful life. I guess only time will tell whether or not this was a good investment in my future career, but it’s definitely been an enjoyable college experience.
Thanks for all the great responses. This is very helpful for prospective pre meds.
Look at it from another angle - what makes the worst pre-med environment? large class, tough grading curve, no/lack of tutoring support, … For example, UNC (Chapel Hill)’s most notorious weeder class: chemistry 101, 830 enrolled, 211 dropped, with the class average grade being C. Saw a med school adcom said “Cornell is probably one of the more difficult Ivies to get a decent GPA at, besides Princeton”.
My son went to our state flagship…a mid-tier southern school. He wanted to go there after visiting a few times (older brother went there).
He received large scholarships…free tuition plus $4500 per year in other awards, so the cost was quite low.
It’s not an easy school to get a high premed GPA in. I belong to a Facebook group of premed parents from that school, and weeding is heavy. Kids who were “A students” in high school get smacked in the face with their first B or C or worse.
You can easily drop a grade or two if you don’t follow directions, miss too many classes, etc. Tests are difficult, and if you’re used to having info “spoon fed to you” (by some high schools) then you can easily fail or do poorly on tests…until you change strategies.