Academics:
GPA Unweighted: 3.94
GPA Weighted: 4.54
ACT/SAT Scores: 30 ACT, 1330 SAT CR+M, 1940 SAT with writing
APs: AP Chemistry (3), AP Biology (4), AP Psych (current), AP Calculus AB (current), AP Physics I (current)
All of my academic courses are honors (my school does not offer any non-honors academic courses. I go to a private school in which 100% of students are accepted to college (pretty rigorous). I do know that I only have 5 APs, but I also am not looking at Ivy schools, either.
Extracurricular:
Hospital Volunteering (over 100 hrs)
MUN (4 years, officer Senior year)
NHS
National English Honor Society
Science Honor Society
Technology Advisory Committee (2 years)
40 hours of physician shadowing
Biology tutor (while I was in 10th grade)
Art Show (had a photograph shown in an art show last year, and continue to do photography)
Awards:
NHS
National English Honor Society
Science Honor Society
Presbyterian College Fellows Award
Other colleges I applied to:
USF (Accepted), UCF (Accepted), FSU, UF, UMiami, Emory
I am looking to following a pre-med path. I am hoping to get a good merit-based scholarship because I know that I do not qualify for need-based financial aid. I am hoping to stay somewhere in the South. I would appreciate any recommendations from anywhere in the South, but some other Florida specific recommendations might also be nice too. Also, any recommendations of where I might have a decent chance at a full ride would also be great. (I just want to try to get as much money as I can so I am not in debt when (and if I eventually get in) go to medical school.
“Rhodes, Sewanee (not East coast, but if you are considering Centre, not so different), W&L, University of Richmond, Elon all have good merit scholarships. W&L’s full-ride Johnson is awarded to nearly 10% of the class.”
Are there any other good ones in Florida? I would preferably like to be able to bring my car to college, but if there aren’t any good ones in that range then I understand
I’ve actually looked at W&L, but I did not like the area. I want to be near a city with good medical volunteering (or work) opportunities. Also, they need to have a decent sized Jewish population. I forgot to mention that. It is very important to me.
I have gotten quite a bit of mail from Sewanee. Are they a good school? I’ve pretty much written them off because of the amount of spam I have gotten.
Sewanee is a very good school but a little secluded (13000 acres of land if you like hiking). If you checked the box on the SATs to allow colleges to send you information then it’s not SPAM.
Oh, I don’t really want to go to school in the middle of nowhere.
I didn’t check the box; I started receiving it before I took the SAT. It could have been from the PSAT, though, when I took that a couple of years ago and I didn’t know better. Either way, I have gotten a lot from them.
Also, for pre-med, am I better off attending a FL state university like USF (where I have FL Prepaid - 4 year tuition/4 year dorms, will get Bright Futures, and I have been offer 4k a year as an admissions scholarship) where the total cost of “Tuition & Fees” is $6,400 (which most of is going to be covered due to FL Prepaid), and “Room/Meals” is about $9,500 (which, again, most of is covered due to FL prepaid, Meals is not covered under that). The estimated direct cost for the 2016-2017 year is about $15,810. This will most likely be reduced greatly after factoring in the prepaid (I am grandfathered in most fees due to when the plan was purchased). I am estimating the tuition and fees to be reduced to about $2,000-3,000 and the 4 year room and meals to be reduced at least by half with my plan (possibly even 75%). Taking all of this into account. I would have about $7,000 to $8,000 per year due to bright futures and the admissions scholarship. After all of this, I will be graduating debt free because I would only have to pay probably a few thousand at the most to attend (but I could end up being paid to attend, it depends on how much the prepaid covers).
After all of that math, my question is: should I even worry about applying to other schools or just take the debt free education that they are offering me (since I want to go to med school and, unless I am going to an ivy, I am led to believe that undergrad does not matter all that much)?
Sorry, I know that was really long and wordy, but I wanted to get it all out. Thanks for taking the time to help!
Graduating debt free is very desirable if you are pre-med especially since med schools are relatively prestige insensitive. Take a look at New College in Florida to see what you qualify for there as an instate student. It’s probably not much more expensive than USF. U of Alabama is often mentioned here for their full-ride for OOS students: http://scholarships.ua.edu/types/out-of-state.html
Keep in mind that medical volunteering doesn’t have to be at a hospital - in fact, you may be better off volunteering in another setting where you can get more hands on experience: hospice, birthing center, rehab facility, clinic serving low income patients, etc…
I was going to add this as an edit, but I ran out of time. i see that for U of Alabama, it doesn’t seem to cover full costs. Only full tuition (also, I am 2 points on the ACT shy of full tuition, unfortunately).
I’ve also looked at New College. I do qualify for an in-state student; however, there are two problems. They do not give GPAs (which is of concern for applying to med school), and they are well known in the area as a “hippie” school that is very lenient on drugs, and I prefer to stay away from that. My friends that have visited it have all come away very disappointed, which is unfortunate because on paper it looked like an amazing school.
Are there any other colleges that you know if in which I might qualify for a full ride (3.94 unweighted GPA, 30 ACT, 1330 SAT)?
Fau’s Wilkes college is especially good for premed. It’s got its own $ so you don’t have to bear daily shenanigans but you can still go for parties and games on weekends. Very different atmosphere from ncf.
Why do you want to be a doctor? If your college gpa didn’t turn out what you want it to be for med school- would you look into pa, or pt, or nursing ? The great majority of students who plan to be premed senior year in high school change their minds. That’s why choosing your undergrad does matter.
Apply to several universities. Make sure you have choices. Used is a great choice(especially since I assume you got honors college )
Undergrad does not matter for outcome unless you’re first or urm but the experience at a large public school in Florida, with required online classes AnD summer session, will be different from that at a LAC or Tulane or Emory. A lot of the big scholarship deadlines are coming up so try for them. You know you have a great choice at usf so the rest shouldn’t too stressful: you just want a university that will provide better value and environment, better learning conditions, than usf, so that if it’s a bit more expensive while still affordable without loans, it needs offer something usf doesnt. And this way if you end up choosing usf you’ll know you chose it because it truly was the best choice for you, not because you didn’t have alternatives.
LBad96, Oh, yes it is. Of course…haha, that would be really bad if it was not. I usually just tell my critical reading+math score because that’s the one that most scholarships seem to be based off of.
Thank you for that MYOS1634, I’ll take a look at a few others. I did get into the USF honors college, by the way. The summer session is one thing that I am not looking forward to, but I don’t believe that there are required online classes for all Florida public schools. That could just be a UF thing (I’ve heard about them doing some weird stuff this year). Either way, I would do the best that I can do.
I looked at FAU and it looks pretty nice, my only concern is that it is not as well known, even in Florida as USF. Would that have any affect on med school admissions? I realized the other day that the USF honor’s college does not offer honors classes for general classes like gen chem or bio. They offer their own different courses. I would still have to do the lecture style classes. Is that a detriment?
Also, if I could not get into med school based on my college GPA I would look into dentistry (if that were an option) or pharmacology. If those were not options, then I would either consider PA or try to see if going the DO route would be possible.
