@nrtlax33 not sure that it’s relevant - but since you asked, I think her qualifications are pretty stellar:
ACT - 36
SAT - 1580
SAT subject - Chem 800 Math 780
GPA .4.0
Numerous APs all 5’s
University physics and calculus courses - A’s
4 year varsity sports
many community service volunteer hours
published research paper on air pollution measurement devices through university research intern.
your average high achiever that has accomplished more than I ever will by the time she is 18.
@jsnowut : Thanks so much. Your daughter will be successful at both schools. However, she won’t have many peers academically at Tulane. Tulane’s med school particularly likes its own undergrad students so I would say it is a good backup. She would miss the Brown experience. The question becomes “does she rather be a little fish in a big pond” or the opposite. The is a very personal question and different people have different circumstances. Most people who can get into Brown probably can get a free ride from their state flagship’s honor college, including my child. For my child, it is out of question even if I want my child to go to our state flagship.
@nrtlax33 You’re peddling misinformation. This student will have many, many academic peers at Tulane.
And as an additional note, I love that you think just because your student got into Brown, they’d get a full ride at the state flagship. I’ve heard that before on this site and it’s just plain false. First, most flagships don’t even offer a full ride. Second, the few that do are extremely difficult to win by even tippy top students who are accepted to Ivies. Most do not win. The Stamps at Tulane is much more difficult to win than an acceptance to Brown. Don’t try to minimize this student’s accomplishment. It’s huge!
@itsgettingreal17 : For real information, please read https://admission.tulane.edu/apply/getting-into-tulane Tulane only has 25% of its students whose ACT exceed 33 and has the same 25% of its students whose ACT scores are below 30. So how many of those 25% whose ACT exceed 33 would be near 36 like OP’s daughter? You might want to take a look at Brown’s data (https://www.brown.edu/admission/undergraduate/facts). 6% have ACT 36 and a whopping 56% exceed 33. That “many, many academic peers at Tulane” claim is not supported by data.
Thanks for pointing out that many state flagships don’t have full scholarships. I am fully aware of that. For example, Berkeley only has Regents’ and Chancellor’s Scholarships. With OP’s daughter’s stats, it is clear that she is not one of those “holistic” admits. I am addressing to her daughter’s situation that if they indeed reside in a state which provides full rides, she would probably get a full ride. Please ignore those “holistic” admits for this conversation. I am fully aware of the fact that a lot of kids got into top schools not based on merits.
@nrtlax33 You obviously believe top stats equal merit (above 33 ACT) and everyone else is holistic. You are wrong. OP’s daughter is also a holistic admit. Every student accepted to Brown or Tulane is a holistic admit. Your data fails to prove that the OP’s D won’t have many academic peers at Tulane. Your 33 ACT cut off is arbitrary and ridiculous. But as you believe standardized test scores are everything, there is no use in discussing it further.
Btw, most of the full rides offered by flagships are holistically awarded, which means many top students with 33+ ACT will not win. In fact, with sub 5% chances of winning and often minimum GPA and ACT/SAT to be considered, the odds are far from probable. That fact seems lost on you.
Hopefully the OP just ignores your posts. I know I will going forward.
@itsgettingreal17 said “You obviously believe top stats equal merit (above 33 ACT) and everyone else is holistic.” – this is absolutely wrong. Nuff said.
Might I remind users of the rules of the forum:
Our forum is expected to be a friendly and welcoming place, and one in which members can post without their motives, intelligence, or other personal characteristics being questioned by others.
Brown vs Tulane alone isn’t the real debate… If the costs were equal, most on this form would say Brown, but the real question is if Brown and the full pay costs worth more than a Tulane Stamps Scholarship that makes undergrad free for a student who is going to medical school. If money is no object, the answer may be simple (Brown) or if money is a problem the answer may be simple (Tulane) but the OP seems to be somewhere in between and looking for insight into the schools. OP, I am praying for you to make the right decision for your child and your family.
@ChangeTheGame Well summarized. It’s a good problem to have. Too early to tell leanings. We are just starting the discussion. She would like to go to Brown, but the scholarship is difficult to give up. I’ll keep you posted.
@jsnowut : Only you know your daughter, how she would behave in the face of adversity, what her mental state is now and will be a few years down the road.
In the most ideal scenario, a few years down the road, she would make a video like this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PthOO6XkIc). But I can see this girl is still obsessed with her lost chance to MIT. Otherwise she won’t even think about this or bother to make a video.Who needs a degree to be a programmer anyway. The best hackers are those who don’t go to school at all.
It is important that you absolutely don’t let your daughter go to ADOCH. Once she fell in love with Brown, you are done. My child knows its Daddy and Mommy are always behind it no matter what happens. My child has been working hard and enjoying all the possible opportunities. My child is realizing its dream. It is aiming high. Will it make it? Who knows, but dreaming is good. That is what life is about. And most importantly my child is happy.
Now if you quash your daughter’s wish to go to Brown, you must have intimate knowledge of how she might react later in case Tulane did not work out for some reason. If she chose to go to Brown and it does not work out, it is her decision and it is much easier to swallow. Percentage-wise, Tulane has a low percentage of students applying to Medical school (Yes, I have checked AAMC data), which might be due to the fact that Tulane Med has a program to let its undergrad get in early. If you daughter does not care which med school she goes to, you could use this to persuade her to go to Tulane. This is the best argument I can think of for you.
You do realize that Tulane is in New Orleans. Brown is in New England. Although they are both “New”, they are a world apart and very different. She has to live in one of them for four years.
OP, it sounds like your daughter will do very well wherever she ends up. I have two very bright, high stats kids who took large merit scholarships to schools ranked lower than Tulane. Neither has lacked for opportunity and both are receiving great educations. If this were my decision, it would be Stamps at Tulane. Tulane will give her a great education and the money that is freed up offers a variety of additional opportunities beyond that. Can Tulane put her in contact with current or recent Stanps scholars who can discuss with her their experiences with this program?
@jsnowut – I’ve been around CC for a long time. At the same time my daugher graduated high school (a dozen years ago), another parent (curmudgeon) had a daughter who was pre-med who was accepted at Yale without a whole lot of financial aid, and also offered a full ride scholarship to Rhodes, I think as a bio major. After some angst, she went to Rhodes. While at Rhodes she was awarded a Goldwater scholarship. Various other honors & accomplishments as well, though I don’t remember details. Later she was admitted to Yale for med school. Because of the cost savings from undergrad, I believe the father was able to finance medical school. I know that she went to med school straight after undergrad, no gap of any kind.
Obviously each student is different, but there is something to be said for the big fish in a small pond route, and by definition winners of prestigious scholarships like Stamps arrive at their campus as very big fish. Basically they have the attention of key administrative & advising faculty from day #1. They are viewed from day 1 as candidates for a variety of honors down the line.
Tulane is and always has been a highly regarded national university-- so coming from Tulane will not in any way limit opportunities for med school or other grad school admissions.
Obviously if you have the funds then you can allow your daughter to make the choice – but bottom line is that the 4 years of undergrad go by very fast, and after that there is grad school and life.
FWIW: According to “Bluedevilmike’s Ten Step Guide to Picking a PreMed School” on #41 –
“My Aunt Polly’s son went to our local school, and he’s doing just fine.
Congratulations to Polly’s son. Don’t make decisions based off of anecdotes. And don’t make decisions off of people like Aunt Polly, or the neighbor down the street, or that lady in your grandmother’s Mah Jong group. They don’t matter.”
A large number of students who got into top schools 10 years ago probably won’t get in today. Same for medical school. In fact, Yale’s data shows that 2/3 of its own premed applicants have one or more gap years. Gap year is good for the long term. Matching time is the final competition.
The girl in the video on #49 is a premed dropout (see her other videos you will know). I am not sure who would go to a morgue as a volunteer like her. No wonder it did not work out. At today’s climate, school name does matter. If you look at those prep school admissions data, they are much much more successful in terms of getting their students into top colleges. The same for medical school. Do you know any internship position today would have hundreds of applicants? Of course, in order to actually secure the position, it really depends on the individuals. However, our experience so far is that a good name like Brown DOES generate interests even for a freshman. Yes, my child has secured a clinical internship at a prestigious hospital associate with a top 20 medical school. Obviously those positions are also available to other people. Our current information is that my child’s friends who took the scholarships at our state flagship are not so lucky so far. They seem to have problems getting into the courses they really like.
@Parentof2014grad thanks for input. Your experience is very helpful. D has been in contact with Stamps scholars at Tulane, and you are correct that the information received from them is probably the best information. All are very high achievers and none of them regret their decision. One super amazing young lady is deciding between PhD programs at MIT, Stanford and Caltech - wow!
In many ways Brown would be the “safe choice” which I think is the point of @nrtlax33 posts. But as a parent I view my role as helping my D not to overlook an opportunity that might require more initiative but could yield an amazing and unique result.
@calmom thank you. Your information is also very helpful.
I guess for me if you believe that it is the student and not the institution that makes the difference in outcome [which I do a great deal] then the scholarship provides the unlimited opportunity for the student part of the equation to reach its full potential. The alternative route may prioritize the institution over the student opportunities because at that kind of cost there is little room to do much other than work hard to succeed at the institution.
My immediate response would be - save the money and goto Tulane instead - but it is not that simple. There are nuances to consider.
My D1 is attending JHU for her MD, so my info is recent enough, and in a school like JHU - selective enough. My D1’s classmates came from a large variety of schools - from state flagships (UMich, UWisconsin, UIUC, Rutgers, UVA, UNC etc etc…) to private names (BU, CWRU, Emory, WashU etc). Ivy or not, makes very little difference. There is a certain level of academic threshold exist (w/MCAT scores as a serious screen) and the more vigorous the UG curriculum, the better the prep for the MCAT (and you need VERY HIGH MCAT to get into a top school like JH). Then you have to consider the weeding process in these UG programs. Some schools would write recommendation letters to all the applicants desire to do so, some would take a softer approach of - hey, we think your odds are low, have you considered to do XYZ instead for your grad studies. Then the # of hrs in shadowing, volunteering, and/or research. How big is the pre-med cohort? The larger the cohort, the greater the competition the lesser the chance to get more personal feedback/help from faculty/advisers etc. What if you change your intention after Orgo Chem I/II or Human Physiology II?
These are questions to consider well beyond just the “brand name” of the school.
Tulane is a larger school, in the deep south, serious students but they do like to party. Brown is a smaller school, very un-structure core curriculum, more alternative culture (most liberal among the Ivies), some classes you can get an easy A (grade inflation) but would you learn anything interesting or applicable to MCAT prep and Med-school app? Have you visited both schools? Have you talked to the premed students there and most importantly - the premed advisory folks?
So lots of considerations. My D1 graduated from UMich - neuroscience/biology/pre-med track -very large state school, very large pre-med cohort, so state schools do put people into top MD schools. It all depends on the person, are you driven enough to take up all the opportunities available? Are you smart enough to maintain a 3.8+ GPA in core GPA classes for the Med-school prep (that means very likely you need to be the top 5% of the pre-med cohort)? Can you manage time well enough to do all the academic stuff plus 300 hrs of volunteering/shadowing and/or 200 hrs of research etc etc/. You have two great choices - at the end, a lot of factors depend on you. Price is definitely a consideration, but that’s just part of the equation.
FWIW: People who think Brown is easy need to read this (https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/education/edlife/26orgo.html). Open curriculum gives students a lot of freedom but for premed/engineering students, it makes no difference. Brown’s Physiology is one semester like Harvard’s. I have heard that the material lasts one year in other schools. State schools do send students to top medical schools. I have posted some stats before. It is much more difficult to stand out in state schools and those who can make it are truly outstanding. Just look at Berkeley you would understand. The top cohort in Berkeley is much stronger academically compared with Ivies in general. But it is much harder to stand out there. The “holistic” process creates a system that top candidates who got disappointed (discriminated) are all going to their state flagships. They are academically equivalent if not stronger compared with their Ivies peers, not to mention that there are a lot of them. That is why you would hear people say it is better to be a premed at Ivies. Brown is particularly friendly to premed.
Brown’s lack of general education (except for ABET accredited engineering majors) does mean that a premed has more freedom to cherry pick electives for A grades than if s/he must take general education courses in areas where s/he is more likely to have difficulty earning A grades. (Of course, A grades in premed and major courses are still required to have a decent chance of medical school admission.)
But $280,000 is pretty hard to ignore in the context of expensive medical school. Starting a medical career with that much less debt means having more options in career and life choices.
@ucbalumnus thanks for the input. I agree the cost is pretty extreme. @nrtlax33 you are right, the quality of students at state schools is beyond amazing, but I think quite a bit of that is due to the cost of private college education. There are many many many highly qualified students at state flagships I think mainly due to their parents being too successful to qualify for need based aid, but not so well financially situated that they can rationally spend the cost of a private college education.
“There are many many many highly qualified students at state flagships I think mainly due to their parents being too successful to qualify for need based aid, but not so well financially situated that they can rationally spend the cost of a private college education.”
There are also many,many highly qualified students at elite state flagships that don’t feel the need to spend more money for a private school. Not all private schools are elite remember. Actually, relatively few are.