Premed - USC, Penn, WashU, Notre Dame, Emory, or Berkeley...thoughts?

[Confused11]

I've been accepted to USC (University of Southern California), Penn, WashU, Notre Dame, Emory, and Berkeley. I do not qualify for any financial aid. I would pay full tuition, room and board at Penn, WashU, Notre Dame, and out of state tuition at Berkeley. The full tuition (and room and board) at any of these institutions would be possible, but it would be difficult since there are two of us going to college. As much as I liked Penn and WashU, I would rather not put this type of financial burden on my parents. I did receive a scholarship at USC (half off tuition for all four years) and Emory alluded to matching that scholarship. I intend on majoring in BioChemistry. I intend on going to medical school. Between USC and Emory, which school has a better premed program (counseling, undergrad preparation for med school). Should I reconsider WashU or Penn at full tuition? I have to make my decision by May 1. Any advice or suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

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[Davidfromcali]

Penn is definitely the most prestigious option but won’t make a big difference when it comes to med school admissions. Where you go to school doesn’t have a major impact on the admissions process.

Ultimately, you should pick a school that you’d be the happiest at while also taking cost into consideration. Not a school that has the “best premed program”

USC is a great school in a great location. If USC is your cheapest option, I’d strongly consider that program.

 

[efle]

Emory at 50% off. None of those other options comes close. It's one of the absolute biggest premed factories (3x as many per capita as USC, which is at the bottom end of all top schools for premed), has a fantastic med school complex RIGHT THERE integrated with the undergrad campus. You have all the advantages you would get at Penn and WashU for 50% off.

I'd also share any full rides to state programs. For example if you got National Merit, that automatically gets you accepted to the Honors colleges with full tuition scholarship at several state flagships across the country. These are definitely worth considering if you can save another 100k+ across the next four years.

 

[achilles0619]

I can speak a little bit for Wash U since I graduated last May and have been accepted this cycle. Wash U premed is very grueling but if you make it through you have a very high chance of being accepted. If you go to their pre-health website here Box, you can see that if you have a 3.6-3.8 science GPA you have an 87% chance of being accepted to medical school. Obviously that varies depending on your MCAT, ECs and other things but medical schools do know Wash U's reputation for producing pre-meds. The Wash U pre-health website has many more links and data for what their acceptance rates are if you want to look through it. I found that when I was applying to medical school the resources available to me were very abundant and there was a lot of professional application help offered for no additional cost. It's also really easy to do research at the medical school as a undergrad. All of the schools you are considering are great, I just wanted to tell you although Wash U premed was really tough at times I think it was worth it. I also think that when I was interviewing, coming from Wash U gave me a leg up in my interviewer's eyes. It's a household name in medicine no matter what part of the country you're interviewing in. Good luck with your decision!

 

[ReturnToMed]

As an alumn of one of the schools you listed and knowing someone who graduated from another one on your list. This is my advice based upon what me and others (N=3) would redo school if we could.

Go to state school. Save money and do well so you can be at the top of your class. Have more time for ECs and research. You may get a bit of an extra bump for "prestige," but it isn't gonna be the thing that breaks. Your goal is to make it to medicine and those schools will only make it more difficult. I highly recommend going to your state uni and just killing it.

You need: Good MCAT and good GPA then ECS. Pick a place where you will be able to maximize this and also enjoy your time.

Edit: I read your thing about counseling. Most college counselors aren't very useful. A better counselor is an upperclassmen because they know the best profs to get and how to schedule your workload.

Edit 2: Be very wary of undergrad school's "med school acceptance rate." Very often it is skewed because they try to weed people out hard the first few years so that they can say "oh look at us and our 95% acceptance rate even though our pre-med attrition rate is like 60%"

 

[achilles0619]

As an alumn of one of the schools you listed and knowing someone who graduated from another one on your list. This is my advice based upon what me and others (N=3) would redo school if we could.

Go to state school. Save money and do well so you can be at the top of your class. Have more time for ECs and research. You may get a bit of an extra bump for "prestige," but it isn't gonna be the thing that breaks. Your goal is to make it to medicine and those schools will only make it more difficult. I highly recommend going to your state uni and just killing it.

You need: Good MCAT and good GPA then ECS. Pick a place where you will be able to maximize this and also enjoy your time.

Edit: I read your thing about counseling. Most college counselors aren't very useful. A better counselor is an upperclassmen because they know the best profs to get and how to schedule your workload.

Edit 2: Be very wary of undergrad school's "acceptance rate." Very often it is skewed because they try to weed people out hard the first few years so that they can say "oh look at us and our 95% acceptance rate even though our pre-med attrition rate is like 60%"

OP I would definitely agree with Edit 2 here. Wash U can say they have a very high acceptance rate because they do weed out around ⅔ of people who come in freshman year as pre med. I should have made that more clear in my post.

 

[efle]

I'm also a WashU alumnus and will third their advice. I only attended it because it was actually cheaper than my U of California options. If you have a good state school, or an average state school with an Honors college that is offering you 100% scholarship, that needs to be given serious consideration.

 

[Osminog]

There’s a fairly high chance that you won’t be a pre-med by the time you graduate with your degree, so don’t choose a college solely based on its pre-med program. Pick the college that makes the most financial sense to you and your family, and where you would feel most happy and at home.

 

[ReturnToMed]

convenient that this video dropped today. pretty much sums up premed advisors at colleges

 

[Confused11]

Thank you everyone for your replies and recommendations. I really appreciate it.

Emory got back to me and said they wouldn't match as of now because they gave away all their scholarship dollars.

I do appreciate the advice of going to an in state university. Unfortunately, I would prefer a smaller environment and my state university is huge. It is a backup plan because I did get accepted.

I've narrowed it down to Penn or USC. I am heavily leaning towards USC because of the scholarship and I just found out that I got into the honors program (which guarantees small class sizes for introductory courses). Again, THANK YOU everyone for taking the time to offer your opinions.

 

[efle]

Thank you everyone for your replies and recommendations. I really appreciate it.

Emory got back to me and said they wouldn't match as of now because they gave away all their scholarship dollars.

I do appreciate the advice of going to an in state university. Unfortunately, I would prefer a smaller environment and my state university is huge. It is a backup plan because I did get accepted.

I've narrowed it down to Penn or USC. I am heavily leaning towards USC because of the scholarship and I just found out that I got into the honors program (which guarantees small class sizes for introductory courses). Again, THANK YOU everyone for taking the time to offer your opinions.

For 50% off and with the Honors college environment, I think you are absolutely making the right choice choosing that over full priced Penn. Good foresight, you will be thanking yourself down the road!

 

[ReturnToMed]

I would agree with @efle. You should focus on saving money. If the price difference is pretty negligible with your state uni, go SC.

I still have a slight bias towards your state uni just because of the weaker competition which means you have more time for ECs.

Either way, best of luck whereever you end up.

 

[efle]

How much was your scholarship to your state flagship? Are they a strong program (like U of CA, VA, MI, WI, GA, TX etc)? Do they have an honors college?

 

[Confused11]

How much was your scholarship to your state flagship? Are they a strong program (like U of CA, VA, MI, WI, GA, TX etc)? Do they have an honors college?

Believe it or not, I was not offered any merit scholarships at my state university. I'm number 1 in my class, got a perfect ACT 36, took AP classes my freshmen year, took college classes at my local university since my junior year, nationally ranked athlete, almost perfect scores in my SAT subject tests, and a National Merit Finalist. I couldn't believe my state university didn't offer me anything for merit. I was offered some merit at Case and Emory, but USC's offer was the most generous. I was offered full athletic scholarships at several D1 universities, but I turned them down. My state university offered a D1 full athletic scholarship and I was considering it, but the coach was inconsistent with communication and dropped the ball during the whole recruiting process. My parents also felt that it would be unrealistic to take on a science major with labs and potential research with a demanding D1 schedule. Again, I am okay with it because I really do not like a big campus like my state university.

Well, the May deadline passed and I put down my deposit for USC. Kind of weird putting down a deposit without knowing what I am getting. I wish they would have delayed the May deposit deadline until the schools had a better idea of their own plans. Again, thank you everyone. Hopefully, I will be back asking for more advice when I start college.