St. Louis is not in the midwest? Where are we then?
Wash U has good scholarships and meet need
WashU is also a terrible environment for premeds since so many students there attend with the hopes of becoming doctors, so many are highly qualified and the school weeds. In other words, kids who’d be qualified elsewhere can’t be in that environment. The best environment for premeds is supportive, not competitive. But there are so many would be doctors at WashU that encouraging them all is impossible.
Its financial aid isn’t at the level of equally prestigious institutions (it was the worst offenders wrt enrolling middle class kids) but next year it’s partnering with Questbridge.
Students who can get merit aid from washU are well positioned as premeds since they rank above other applicants.
The midwest is positively crawling with very fine LACs where she can get all the pre-med requirement out of the way. Not all of them have so many pre-med students as to become pressure cookers. One physician I know graduated from Iowa Wesleyan College which isn’t even on the radar here. One possibility would be to plan a road-trip for Iowa Private College Week next summer. You could hit up as many of the privates there as you feel like, and she’d get a sense of what she likes for size and location.
But do bear in mind that a lot can change between 9th grade and college application time. By then, hercareer goals and preferred college environment might bear little resemblance to what she’s thinking of now. In 9th grade, Happykid wanted to become a pastry chef. She ended up as a theatre tech/design major and now is a professional stage lighting designer who bakes the occasional wedding cake for her pals.
My doctor and my dentist both did their undergrad at Xavier, in Cincinnati, and it seemed like a wonderful place on my campus visit.
So she’s, what, 14 and you’re already working on assumption of premed with a specialty in peds, 12 years down the line?
I’d dial things back and just focus on learning and enjoying high school. If she is meant to go to med school she can get there from most any halfway decent school. I’d be more worried that she’s getting set up with a lot of pressure about something so far in the future that she won’t enjoy today.
You’re much better off staying in-state. Out of state costs 2-3 times more and it offers no additional benefit except for a very expensive bachelors degree. Your parents would either have to absorb the high tuition cost or cosign loans, leaving you with 70k or more in student loan debt. That’s a bad idea. Medical schools look at grades and MCAT scores.
I’m a senior right now and I’ll just say UPITT seems like a solid school and is personally cheaper than schools like SLU, Creighton, and other schools I applied too. Oos publics like PITT and OSU and other schools will probably become cheaper than UIUC since u of i instate tuition is kinda high. You can also go for top 20 schools like ND, Vandy, Washu, Northwestern but they’re very expensive, offer little merit, and hard to get into.
Check out Case Western Reserve University
If you want to go pre-med then also think about:
- The cheapest reasonable college so you/your parents can use the money for med school
- The college needs to prepare you for MCATs but still allow you to get a good GPA
- Access to volunteering opportunities (e.g., near a hospital)
- Success in graduates getting into med school
- Options if you don’t go to med school