Hey everyone! I’m a transfer student from Sacramento area. I’m not very familiar with the surrounding areas. I’m a pre-med student majoring in biology. I applied to 8 schools: 4 UCs and 4 CSUS, Cal Poly SLO, CSULB, SDSU, SFSU, UCSC, UCSB, UCSD & UCD. The only ones I visited are UCD and UCSC. I loved UCSC but I didn’t really like UCD. I need other students/parents opinions and experiences at these schools. What are the good things and bad things about them? How about the UC and CSU system comparison? Which one do you recommend and why? Anything about these specific campuses can help so please share!
It is great that you are trying to get information about the schools on your list but you should wait until all your acceptances are in to help narrow the list. You can only get so much info from CC posters about the campuses. Your best bet is see where you are accepted and try to visit your top 2 or 3 schools.
Many posters will say that as a Pre-Med major that you should attend a UC however; if you are accepted at SLO or SDSU, these two CSU’s both have excellent pre-professional advisors and services available to you as a Pre-Med major. All the UC’s will give you a great education, so it will all come down to where you are accepted, what you can afford and which school is the best “fit” for you.
Thank you for your reply. That’s true I should probably wait, but I’m very overwhelmed and excited. I feel like I don’t have enough time to make the right decision. I already got one acceptance at CSULB, and still waiting for the rest. I should hear from all UCs by 3/18 maximum. And the rest by 4/1. I’m not worried about getting accepted because I meet all of the requirements and I have a GPA of 3.89 so I should be fine.
Pre-med advising is very important and I was wondering which of the CSUs have that, thank you for providing that info. Also, I need to maintain my high GPA and everyone says that it’s harder to get high grades at the UCs, what do you think about that?? Do med-schools care which school I attended for my pre-med education (most prestigious or whatever)?
For the UCs, read through here: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/uc-transfers/
SDSU used to have a really good pre med advising program, but it’s been a while since I have been on campus. SDSU is impacted in certain majors so you need to check that.
My dd is a student at Davis. She loves the school. I don’t know where you visited at Davis but the town is very accessible. Long Beach is a good school and is also impacted. You really need to visit some of these schools and make your own decision about your comfort level.
I am a medical doctor. I would suggest that if your goal is to get accepted to med school that you look at med schools and find out what colleges the accepted students come from.
Here are my thoughts based on the MDs that I know.
The more rigorous the school, the greater competition and stress you have to maintain a high gpa (due to higher curves) and gpa is king in med school admissions. Thus you would think that you should go to a “less rigorous” college. However, the thing is that the ones who do usually become MDs are from the more rigorous colleges. (At least all the MDs I meet are from more rigourous colleges). I’m not sure why this is or happens.
So based on number if MDs I know, top choice should be UCSD followed by UCD. I’ve actually never met any MD who attended any of the other colleges, although I do know an anomaly who attended CSUN. So my order would be UCSD, UCD, ucsb, UCSC, SLO, and then the other CSUs.