Maybe it will help him to know that some of these classmates will be surprised to find themselves attending their safety schools next year. No matter where he goes to college, instead of being in AP classes with folks who look down on schools like Alabama, he will be hustling his a** off in a challenging premed curriculum with plenty of brilliant classmates. But sometimes it takes first-hand experience to change someone’s mindset.
Where to apply- please advise! [NJ resident, 3.5 UWGPA, 34 ACT, 1450 SAT, biochemistry/premed, $30K]
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It’s 58% OOS and nearly 2k go from NY/NJ/CT. Why. They buy kids in. Maybe u can visit. Kids that go love it or maybe he’ll learn he doesn’t want big and social after all. Then u can see UAB and UAH. Or Ms Stste - much smaller - just 90 mins away. These all work $$ wise.
Love who loves u. Especially when you’re not a tippy top student. And apply for the MCCullough pre med program if still open.
He’ll need that focus, guidance to keep grades up for med school.
You might look at Georgia College and State U, Salisbury, and Christopher Newport and see their cost after merit. Again W Carolina works with budget - $20k full price all in oos.
When you have a tight budget it dictates where you can go. Charleston, short of being a fellow, was never a good choice at your budget for example.
Sadly many NJ school districts, especially the highly competitive, high performing districts are chock full of kids that look down on schools that are not T20. Rutgers frequently gets knocked (it’s now ranked #40 by US News - maybe that’ll lead some kids to view it more positively). NJIT and Stevens are other great schools that are undervalued by NJ kids.
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Louisiana State (LSU) would meet a lot of what he’s asking for, and though I’ve heard it reported that they’re pretty slow in sending out their scholarship packages, once they do, people find the packages tend to be pretty generous.
Also, has he given thought to any HBCUs?
North Carolina A&T has about 12k undergrads and hits right around budget before any merit aid is even considered and has good school spirit.
Smaller than either of those would be Clark Atlanta or Morehouse (men only) in Atlanta. They’re smaller schools (3500 and 2500) but are part of a consortium with Spelman, Emory, Georgia Tech, and others, so the opportunities of a much larger university are there, but he’d have a smaller home base. Lots of very proud alums from those institutions.
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Interesting. OP is doing their son a real service in this case. Some of the classmates will likely be unhappy when they are rejected by the T20s and end up in NJ schools. OP’s son will have applied to a balanced list and will have choices. Let’s hope he can experience an attitude refresh and get excited about some of them.
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@Audreyma my suggestion is you sit down with your son and clearly lay out the family financials for his college costs. You can tell him that any college that comes in under $30,000 a year is one that can be considered for attendance. If he can find an OOS one that meets that price point then he can consider that as well.
I’m not sure lower grades during COVID will be considered as many many many students had that issue.
Check this website. You might find a college there that will give good merit aid to bring your costs down. Juniata has a lot of health care majors.
And agree with others, one can fulfill the premed required courses for medical school applicants at just about any four year college in this country, arts conservatories excluded.
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My kids who wanted to go OOS chased merit. One got enough from UDel honors to bring it close to Rutgers, but she only had one B (freshman year). Before Covid merit seemed to be based mostly on test scores (she had a 34). She was exercise science, so took premed classes (getting her dpt now). The lowest tuition my OOS kids were offered were from Saint joes in Philadelphia and SUNY Bing. They would’ve had lower tuition at most of the NJ publics besides Rutgers NB and TCNJ.
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My daughter is in her third year majoring in Biology/premed and currently attending local in-state school. It was the best decision for her (and for us too 
), since she can get support from school, family and local community. We were chasing merits when she applied but found out that it’s still much cheaper to stay in-state compare to cost of attending OOS schools.
Since he is a senior, it’s a bit late to apply for EA, but he may try to apply to Temple, University of Delaware, Pitts, and/or several colleges that was advised here with the hope that merit aids that can bring the cost down to your budget of 30k COA.
I think New Jersey has several good public schools that can prepare him for medical school like Rutgers, TCNJ or NJIT. Even with merit aids from Alabama and Arizona, the cost will still be higher, that even before you add in the cost of travels, health insurances in some cases , and some of the miscellaneous cost when students attend OOS.
Good luck to you and your son and I’m sure he will choose the right school that is affordable and fit him.
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Due to the 3.5, eliminate Arizona. They are gpa based on scholarship only.
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My personal opinion is apply in-state for this student. NJ has several schools where he can get his education, not breaking the bank and get support from family and local community. My daughter got most of her doctor shadowing and clinical volunteer locally. She goes home most weekends and breaks for home cook meals and volunteer work.
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Just because you are in state doesn’t mean coming home on weekends, my students who went to Rutgers and tcnj rarely came home weekends, and my kids’ friends who attend NJ colleges don’t come home often.
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I will add a few points just in the off chance that any of this might help you in discussions with your son.
I happen to have discussed this issue with a couple of doctors. They have both said regarding the choice of undergraduate programs that other students in their MD program came from “all over the place” (this is an exact quote from one of them). They have also mentioned that it took them quite a while to pay off their medical school loans. However, medical school keeps getting more expensive, which implies that future doctors are going to have more difficulty compared to current doctors.
One daughter is currently studying for a DVM. If all goes well then in three more semesters she will be “Doctor TwoGirls” but her patients will be large and furry, and say things like “moo” or “neigh” when asked about their medical problems (one baby alpaca seemed to be saying something closer to “eep”). This is the same daughter who was not happy about the strict limit that we (mostly I) placed on the cost of her bachelor’s degree, but who thanked me after she had her bachelor’s degree with no debt. She has told us that the large majority of students in her program are taking on way too much debt, and that most do not want to talk about it. It is going to be a problem for them for a long time. She also said that the few students who are going to get a DVM with little or no debt also do not want to talk about it, because they do not want to make their friends and fellow students feel bad. This last group does however know how fortunate they are.
One last point about premed at highly ranked schools. Premed classes are very tough. Both daughters had majors that overlapped a lot with premed classes, and had multiple friends who were premed. The competition in these classes is tough. Harvard or Stanford might get a higher percentage of their undergraduate students into medical school compared to Rutgers or Alabama, but at least most of this, and probably all of this, is due to the consistent across-the-board strong level of the freshmen students who show up at Stanford and Harvard in the first place. If you look at the top 1/4 of the class at Alabama and Rutgers, they will be very strong. An academically very strong student showing up in the middle 1/3 of the class at Harvard will probably have the same likelihood of getting into medical school compared to what the same student would have showing up at Alabama or Rutgers in the top 1/2 of the class.
My other daughter wanted a small school, and had the grades and recommendations suitable for top New England LACs such as Bowdoin (which we toured twice) or Williams. However, she did not have the budget for them. She instead went to a small “primarily undergraduate” university in Canada (for less than 1/4 the price – she has dual citizenship). Her high school friends were bugging her about it, and saying things like “where?” and “why?”. I told her than when we got to Canada “where” would change to “great school”. She and I flew up for orientation. We went to the immigration booth and were ask “why are you traveling to Canada”. We showed him our passports and I said that my daughter was coming up for orientation and would start university in September. He asked “what school”. She pointed to her t-shirt. The exact next two words out of his mouth were: “Great School!”. First semester she had two classes with 15 or fewer students and great professors. She got great research opportunities, and even personally applied for and won an award from the provincial government to continue her research over the summer (and got academic credit, and got paid, and got to gather information for her honours thesis all at the same time). After graduation she returned to the US and got three job offers in five weeks. All of this was attending a small university in Canada that most people in the US have never heard of.
And someone I know very well got her bachelor’s degree at Seton Hall (with merit aid), and then got two graduate degrees from Columbia. She still speaks well of the quality of the education that she got at Seton Hall.
The point is that you do not need to attend a big name expensive university to get a great education. High school students are often obsessed with the prestige of the name of a university. However, great educations can be obtained at a very wide range of universities. At any university it is up to the student to take advantage of some of the many opportunities that are there.
Alabama and Rutgers can certainly provide a great education and prepare a student very well for medical school, or for whatever else they want to do next. I happen to know, or have known, or have studied with (in graduate school at Stanford) quite a few Rutgers graduates, and ALL of them have made the school look very good.
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Student wants warm and there are affordable options, one of which the student got into. The issue is then the student disowns the choice which makes one wonder why they applied ? They may not realize the # of NMFs at Bama for example. It’s got tons of smart kids - and less academic kids - but there is zero shame in going. Mine just graduated ahd is doing very well. He chose it over higher ranked schools.
I don’t disagree with the NJ schools - only that OP isn’t interested and they can go for less OOS, travel costs included.
Interestingly I just had a college junior in my dermatology appt. A bit uncomfortable. They gave the option but after learning about pre med on here I felt ok to allow.
I put out a lot that might hit budget and someone else mentioned Louisville, a bit cooler but another great choice in a fantastic city. OP might look ay Arkansas too. It’s gorgeous and the area is bustling. LSU was another great one mentioned.
Warm, social and cheap = south.
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But that is a great option when students go to schools locally. For premed students, finding clinical volunteers and doctor shadow are not easy unless they have connections. For us, she was able to reach out to her doctors, and local friends for the volunteer work.
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My daughter was # hours away at UDel, got tons of shadowing hours at their PT clinic, plus got paid PT jobs over breaks at home. I think going away to college is a special time, and my kids were immersed. I also have one who dropped out at Rutgers and now commutes to college from home, much different experience for him unfortunately.
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Additionally, as an industry, doctors are making relatively less than in the past. That is something to be considered when applying to undergrad and discussing budget… and hopefully avoiding loans.
The exact conversation our family had with our premed student. She developed her application list accordingly with the understanding we would allocate any under budget savings to med school costs. That meant she applied to some schools she would not have considered if she were not on a merit hunt, but it helped her to focus on her long term goals.
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The student doesn’t have to stay in NJ if he doesn’t want to. Sure, he can apply to NJ schools, and attend one if that’s his choice. But there are OOS schools that meet his criteria and the budget. I like some of the ideas mentioned upthread, including University of New Mexico.
Some kids want to go away for school, and that’s okay. Some kids don’t want to come home on the weekends (and that’s something they don’t have to do even if they stay close to home).
As for job shadowing and volunteering, scores of premeds manage to do that successfully away from home every year. For example, the U of Louisville hospital is surrounded by a bunch of other hospitals. There will be opportunities everywhere for the motivated student. U Delaware doesn’t have a med school but an upthread poster’s kid shadowed just fine there.
OP’s kid can apply to OOS and NJ schools, wait for the offers to come in, and make a choice within budget. If he’s salty about staying in-state, he should choose OOS. His GPA has ruled out the “prestigious” schools and the budget has ruled out some others he might prefer. But the important thing is that he will still have excellent choices.
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I really hope he can get over himself and get excited! He has some great opportunities.
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Thank you!
This sounds similar to my kid… I would add a few more schools here that have not been mentioned that would be likely admits: James Madison and George Mason - both in VA (so sorta warm?). Both good schools but with 80-85% admit rates. I’m not sure about out of state financing, but might be worth looking at. JMU in particular has a good campus feel / lots of spirit / football and is focused on undergraduate education (more so than some of the other big state unis). George Mason a little less campus-y (and no football) but excellent faculty, rising reputation and proximity to DC with lots of opportunities.
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