Brown vs UVA??

[ZooperLooper]

Which is better uva or brown undergrad for med school? im in state for uva, so much less tuition. but is brown worth? i favor smaller schools, but it is far from a deal breaker.

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[mydogmolly]

EDIT: just realized this is a sdnhs thread. don't know how i got here.

Yea UVA is great, but Brown is the golden egg for premeds. Inflated grades, Ivy league reputation, insane access to research, lots of great connections with ivy med schools (they disproportionately send a lot of kids to yale, harvard, columbia, alpert (obviously). Not to mention, if you realize you don't want to pursue medicine during college, you'll still have an ivy league degree to flaunt at the end of it. I've heard from multiple sources that the only difficult class a premed has to take at Brown is organic chem. Everything before and after is pretty much cake.

If you can afford it, Brown is a really great option. UVA, on the other hand, is easily one of the best public schools so you can't go wrong.

 

[aSagacious]

They're both great colleges with more than enough opportunity for undergrads (clinical exposure, ongoing research, miscellaneous extracurriculars). I would highly recommend attending UVa in your case if it would result in a significantly smaller debt. Med school is expensive enough; no reason to head into it already saddled with upwards of $200k(! )in student loans.

 

[ZooperLooper]

UVA would put me in significantly less debt. Being a high school senior, I understand that I could quickly learn that medicine is not for me, and I do know that if this was ever the case, I would love to go into the world of finance. Is Brown worth the additional debt just so I would have better options in switching paths?

 

[mydogmolly]

UVA would put me in significantly less debt. Being a high school senior, I understand that I could quickly learn that medicine is not for me, and I do know that if this was ever the case, I would love to go into the world of finance. Is Brown worth the additional debt just so I would have better options in switching paths?

both schools would set you up extremely well for a career in finance. UVA has a reaaaaally good b-school for undergrads and has a lot of connections with finance in the DMV area. Brown grads likewise find a lot of success in Boston/NYC.

 

[Sharknad0]

Another good thing at Brown is that if you get a C- or below, the class is removed from your transcript and you can retake it. Take Brown and run, the ivy degree will put you more ahead of the general crowd. Brown is worth the debt.


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[ZooperLooper]

@Sharknad0 don't all grades appear on the final transcript for med school though?

 

[Sharknad0]

I'm not sure but I would call and ask. Because they do A, B, C (with no + or -) and S, so you may or may not have to report them. Definitely call because I'm not sure about them.

 

[Instatewaiter]

Another good thing at Brown is that if you get a C- or below, the class is removed from your transcript and you can retake it. Take Brown and run, the ivy degree will put you more ahead of the general crowd. Brown is worth the debt.


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Let's not act like Brown is Harvard.

Brown is like the redheaded step child of the ivy league. To those where an "Ivy" degree matters are going to look down upon Brown as a lesser IVY. The rankings are basically the same between UVA and Brown something like 15 vs 24 on US news. When we are talking about a 200K difference in cost that difference in ranking is insignificant.

UVA has a much better social scene. UVA actually has sports to attend. UVA has more attractive women/men. The difference in where you end up is going to be negligible. For the OP he/she is instate which means he/she will be closer to his/her folks to go home on the weekends or holidays which is a nice thing when you're in college. For someone out of state, it would be a different situation. For anyone instate they'd be a fool to give up the chance at UVA unless they had a negative visceral reaction to Charlottesville or UVA.

 

[efle]

1) get admitted and get your financial aid packages first! It might surprise you. The private schools ranked similarly to Brown that I got into offered me much bigger aid packages than I expected, and actually ended up being cheaper than the state schools I thought I'd end up at for financial reasons (UCLA/Berkeley. Terrible aid)

2) Brown has an extraordinarily happy/low-stress student body. A big part of this is probably the rampant grade inflation (average GPA is up around 3.65 these days). Compare that to UVA at 3.3 average. And while Brown might not be Harvard, let's also not act like UVA is an Ivy either, even a "lesser" ivy like Brown or Cornell. The resources and Ivy status can help, not just for med admissions but also if you end up choosing a different path/profession. Go visit campuses and think long and hard about whether you'd be just as happy at both places.

 

[gyngyn]

Everybody gets an A at Brown!