@2018mom2018 : in PA, LACs know the cost situation with the “state related universities” and price accordingly, so that it may cost you less to attend a LAC than PSU full price. Also, LACs are less likely to have weedout classes so a collaborative LAC (from Dickinson to Muhlenberg to Allegheny) would likely be better for a premed than a large state school and definitely better than PASSHE schools.
Also, look into the honors colleges at Pitt, PSU, and Temple.
@lexmom18 : ask your daughter - what is more important to her right now, the possibility of becoming a doctor or attending a school of her choice/going OOS for the particular experience it offers?
If she doesn’t become a doctor (and odds are, she won’t), do you still consider UT Honors her best choice?
What can you afford?
What about colleges that she could earn scholarships at, even if you’re not full pay, yet are more expensive than UT Honors?
At this point, focusing on UT Honors only seems unnecessarily limiting.
The question is actually complex because we don’t know how motivated your daughter REALLY is for medicine. Has she volunteered at a clinic for instance? Shadowed doctors? Spent time in an ER? Has she completed a CNA, is looking into being an EMT? What makes her think she’d be well-suited for medicine? Some kids have done all this and more, other kids have a romanticized notion of medicine based on parents/parents’friends, the laudable will to be helpful, and to combine interest in people and in science - we don’t know which represents your daughter.
Other criteria to think about:
The difference between a LAC and a state school is more clearly marked than between a state University’s honors college and a prestigious research university, but the difference still exists in terms of resources, experience, and “signalling”.
Not all honors colleges are the same so investigate carefully.
Vanderbilt isn’t a very good pick for a premed but could be if she wanted to work in other fields.
UT Honors would be a great choice for premed but what if she changes her mind?
I would recommend looking into the colleges named above (Dickinson especially) as well as Rhodes and St Olaf - she would likely get admission with merit aid, as long as she starts expressing interest now (filling out request info form, asking questions wrt medical opportunities: internships, volunteering, study abroad…)
<<<I was glad to read this thread. I just had this discussion with my D who is a senior in HS and considering medical school some day. Her dream is small LAC, but finances might not let that happen. She is under impression that going to a state school would hurt her chances to go to med school. I will show her this thread and hope she believes!
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There is much about the premed to med school process that is counter-intuitive and that why so many students end up making mistake that derail their plans. Med schools don’t care where you go to undergrad as long as it’s a “good school” and they don’t care what you major in. They don’t care about double majors or minors. They care mostly about GPA, MCAT, medically related ECs, research, volunteering, etc.
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Unfortunately, we live in PA where there is not a cheap option for an in-state school. But some OOS school would be cheaper than PA and LAC.
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I don’t know what your DD’s stats are, but if she’s likely going to be a successful premed then she likely has the stats to get good merit scholarships at some schools. If her scores aren’t high enough, will she be retesting?
@MYOS1634 - I agree with LAC being less likely to weed out. I am just getting concerned that cost will be too high. Of course we are in situation where out EFC is more than we can actually afford and I don’t want her to have $60K in debt after undergraduate.
I just want D to understand that if the LACs are not affordable, it won’t matter as much where she goes to school as what she does while she is there.
I am researching schools that have honors colleges that might come in under our EFC with merit. Youngstown and Bowling Green come in significantly cheaper than even a PASSHE school for us. But are they better? I just don’t know. Pitt and PSU are out - she wants nothing to do with either.
@mom2collegekids - She is looking at Dickinson, Muhlenburg, Wooster, Mount Union, OWU, and Baldwin Wallace and I think she can get into them with her stats (30 ACT, 4.6 GPA, 10AP, good EC’s). I am just the practical one and want to find financial options in case none of those are affordable. She is retesting for ACT in September, but she hasn’t put much effort in studying. So I don’t expect much more than a 31-32 on retest.
It depends on the LAC. Some, such as Holy Cross, boast incredible med school admission rates (80% or better). The way they do this is to use the committee letter to dissuade any but the strongest students from even applying to med school.
@2018mom2018 well, as for studying for the ACT…you might explain to her that it’s important for her to work on her standardized test taking skills because she’s got many more ahead of her if she makes it to med school…MCAT, shelf exams, Step 1 exam, Step 2 exam, Step 3 exam…
What do you want your net costs to be?
Maybe some here can suggest some LACs that would give merit for an ACT 30/31 and 4.6 GPA that would get costs down to your goal.
Perhaps make a new thread with a title: Need LACs with a net cost of (XXXX) after merit with an ACT 30 & 4.6 GPA
And in the body mention that you won’t qualify for need based aid, so need merit for those stats to get net cost down to your goal.
Mention that your DD is premed and she likes (the ones you mentioned) but are unaffordable.
@2018mom2018 : what’s your EFC and what’s your real budget? Have you run NPC’s on “meet need” colleges?
I wouldn’t consider YSU and Bowling Green all that much better than PASSHE schools. Youngstown is rejuvenating/renovating but… it’s urban Youngstown. It’ll be a while till it’s okay. Bowling Green is just a generic directional university. They’re probably better funded thn PASSHE and do offer an OOS experience but that’s about it. Ohio U may be worth investigating (better than YSU/BGSU).
For many scholarships, the “magic number” tends to be ACT 32, but even a 31 could yield thousands in scholarships. Tell your daughter that she needs to earn scholarship money and the way to do that is to study methodically to raise her ACT score. (30 is excellent, but if she has “college wants”, she needs to bring that up to make her “wants” happen).
BTW she can’t get 60K in debt unless you let her - don’t, it’d be a great disservice to her and your family. It’s hard for kids to understand the burden of debt so you may have to be the bad guy about it. You have to establish a budget, then she can add whatever she earns in scholarships (keeping in mind scholarships come primarily from the college itself and depend heavily on test scores), whatever savings from her job, plus federal loans and work study if she gets it. She’ll quickly see raising that score is the most time efficient way to earn scholarships.
You can even show her the automatic scholarship grids on Truman State and UMW’s websites so she can see how she can “earn” more money through tests.
With an ACT 30 she’d get excellent FA at York, Elizabethtown, Juniata, Capital OH, St Washington&Jefferson, Chatham. Run the NPC on Muhlenberg, Allegheny, Clark, UScranton, Wheaton MA, Earlham, Drake, Gustavus Adolphus.
See if Towson, Morgan State, UMBC, UMW, CNU (through presidential leadership), WVU, Truman State, Grand Valley State, Shepherd, might be affordable through their merit scholarships.
If she’s not interested in Pitt nor PSU*, have her look into West Chester and Temple.
@MYOS1634 My daughter is not limited to UT honors, as a matter of fact, she hated UT! We are interested in honors colleges to get that smaller school feel on a bigger campus. Did I mention that her passion is college sports? She wants that rah rah atmosphere and the opportunity to go to a big time college football or basketball game. So the flagship honors colleges suit her well. We are looking at South Carolina, Kansas, Alabama and Oklahoma - which all have strong honors programs.
As far as medical school goes, I agree, she needs to show a lot more interest there. She volunteered at a hospital last summer but needs to do more to see if this is what she wants to do. She does like science and loved the anatomy class she took junior year. Not interested in engineering, unfortunately. Wish there was a way to get her more interested as I think she’d excel. Maybe Physical therapy or physician’s assistant - which will require great grades, hard work and commitment too. Thanks again for all of the feedback!
Honors colleges offer valuable perks and let you meet some of the top students at your college. But too often they’re oversold with glossy pamphlets suggesting a small LAC has been set up giving an elite private education at the public school price. On the forum you’ll see posts that say/imply that.
Depending on the program offerings may range from separate honors classes to taking just one honors seminar per semester. And some of the “honors” offerings may just be a standard large lecture class with a special weekly discussion section with the other honors kids. You really need to dig in to find what a particular school offers.
Honors programs typically offer the small classes and hand-picked profs the 1st two years of college. It doesn’t take that many classes to come up with a set that will meet the lower-division requirements for most majors. But it’s rare to find more than a token amount of upper-division classes since the honors program simply doesn’t have enough faculty members to create entire majors. So the last two years most or all classes are the regular U’s classes. The teaching of the profs will be geared towards the normal level, the discussions and student involvement in class will be dominated by the regular students, and so on. Class sizes may balloon, too, if you’re in a popular major.
Honors colleges offer perks in addition to the classes. Typical ones include early registration so you get the classes you want (a perk worth its weight in gold!), special counselors, guaranteed housing, special library privileges. Your diploma will proudly bear the honors insignia. But is it a small school inside a larger U? Not really.
According to the very sound advice in this thread and many other sources I’ve read over the past year or so, I’ve allowed my son to do the exact opposite. Instead of accepting the NMF scholarships at OU or Alabama (or other NMF scholarship schools he elected not to apply to), he’s going to a full pay top private school. Why on earth would I do this? I repeatedly explained to him the many solid reasons given in this thread to “take the money” since he is set on becoming an MD. However, in the end, I acquiesced in his desire to go away to a smaller school where he will be immersed in a high achieving student body who, like him, have little interest in college sports, the Greek system, and so forth. We talked extensively about the need to keep his GPA high, volunteer requirements, leadership positions, etc. Because my son is a very responsible young man, a dedicated and high-achieving student (and college entry test taker), and found a school that appears to be an excellent “fit”, my wife and I ultimately said yes to the very expensive option. Of course we wanted him to go nearly for free to our state university or, if he had to go out of state, to U of Alabama, a wonderful school. But, we just couldn’t bring ourselves to force him to go where he really didn’t want to and pass up where he really did. Many, if not most families, don’t have the financial ability to allow this and I do not advocate following our path. Fortunately, we do. A little assistance from my in-laws also helps. In the end I gave him two options: (1) go to the NMF school and I’ll cover any remaining undergrad costs plus med school; or (2) I’ll pay for full-pay undergrad private school and med school is on him. He felt very strongly about option 2. Of course, an 18 year really doesn’t comprehend exhorbitant med school debt so his choice wasn’t a surprise. If he survives the pre-med grind of a top private school and is accepted into med school (which two of my work colleagues kids did at this same school), I’m sure I will help him financially as much as I am able. But that wasn’t part of our deal. In the end, I love my son dearly, am exceptionally proud of him as a person and as a student, and am rewarding his strong desire to go this particular school because he’s proven himself responsible and dedicated enough to excel. He seems to understand it will be a tougher slog to med school acceptance and is ready to take it on. We will keep our fingers crossed.
@MYOS1634 Thanks for all of the wonderful advice. Our EFC is about 18K and we can only do $10K because I do not want to tap equity or do parent loans. That leaves D to take out $5500 in loans plus $8K in private loans. Not the ideal situation. That is why I am looking at places like BGSU and YSU - she qualifies for honors college and merit aid there that brings the cost down to what we can afford. It seems that most of the LACs have a cap of half COA as their highest merit aid (Wooster, OWU, BW, etc…) and then you are at mercy of FA and that only brings the cost down to the EFC if you are lucky. She will be applying to a few colleges that have competitive full tuition.
I have looked at several colleges you mention and will look at the others - thanks for all the suggestions!