Alabama State Colleges for Pre-med

As of now, I’m trying to determine a good safety school fit for me. The main colleges I’m considering in Alabama are Auburn, UA, and UAB. I only wish to apply to no more that two of these universities.

I’ve already been accepted to Auburn, and I absolutely love the atmosphere and the vibe there. I feel like everyone there wants to help me succeed. I feel that Auburn would do a good job preparing me for medical school; however, I feel that there might be other options worth considering, so that’s why I’m creating this post.

With UA, I haven’t toured or done too much research, but I’ve been to campus informally and it was okay. I don’t really see myself going here, but I’m not going to completely knock it off the table.

I’ve been to UAB (not on a tour but for various non-college related events) and I’ve been to Birmingham several times. I see how my friends live at UAB, and while they seem to enjoy it, I just don’t feel that this is a good fit for me. I realize that UAB is probably the strongest college for premed, but I feel that I would be miserable if I were to attend, just because the vibe I usually feel when I go to UAB.

Of these colleges, I’m considering Auburn the most, simply because of how I feel on campus and because it’s not a bad premed school. If anyone can offer me insight on how they think Auburn will fare in terms of my success in the future, please let me know. I want to go to Auburn, but I don’t want to completely ignore any of the other colleges. Again, I really don’t want to spend to much time worrying about my safeties, so I can spend more time on my reach schools, so please let me know anything important. Thanks!

Does cost differ or matter?

@ucbalumnus cost isn’t too much of a factor or worry for me for my instate schools

Did you get into the Honors College at any of these? (If you’ve not applied, do it ASAP.)
It’ll give you an estimation of where you rank in the school - you want to get into the Honors College for the better advising and for the priority registration - further, if you don’t get into Honors, it means you’re not part of the top students and thus your odds of making it as a premed as very low.

@MYOS1634 is correct.

There is a Sr. in uab here on cc, @paul2752 , he can give you some insight about the school. And @mom2collegekids has a S who is in med school now from UAB will also comment.

Basically, if you are not qualified for those automatic scholarships thus admitted into the Honors College, you have little chance to succeed in premed.

I can’t tell you much about Auburn other than I “hate” that school lol…

On a serious note, U Alabama is fine for Pre-med studies in my opinions; our research labs are very large and well-funded, and its very easy to find good research opportunities. Our school also has a program called “Emerging Scholars” that help you explore the research opportunities in your major department. We have Alpha Epsilon Delta society that help you find volunteer opportunities and advice on pre-med studies/MCAT/med school admissions.

However, I can tell you that our biology department is not in good shape; not many professors, too many biology majors have resulted in too large a class size and decline in teaching qualities. IIRC, there is only one professor that teach Cell biology for 300+ students. It was not good. Math/chemistry/physics departments are fine, and depend on what you make of them.

Also, our pre-med advising is mediocre IMHO, but that is a common issue for many other colleges. Most of the ‘advisors’ aren’t informative enough to help students, re-iterating things from MCAT websites.

So overall:
research/extracurricular opportunities: A
Class/department qualities: B(C in biology)
Resources: C

I have the academic credentials(ACT score and GPA) to get into honors programs at the schools and to qualify for automatic scholarships, I just need to apply for both. Thank you all for your insight! I will definitely take this into consideration!

If you have those stats, look into AES/collegiumV at UTD, ukentucky’s new honors college, if you like co-ops UCincinnati, MiamiOhio…

You may want to consider net prices after scholarships. If the price difference is significant, consider whether going to the lower cost school will allow saving money to apply to expensive medical school costs, so that you will have less debt after medical school. High debt after medical school can significantly limit your career options.

Honors College in UA offer honors classes-of course…- and early registration, which is why most people with good credentials want to be in honors college. Other than that, there aren’t much to honors college.

Yes, run your calculator. You really want ot have zero debt if you want to go to med school

Also, run the NPC and look at merit aid from Rhodes, which would be a safety as Lin g as you indicate interest (fill out the request info, apply EA, email admissions to ask about premed opportunities) and is excellent for premeds and med and health graduate school.