My daughter is finding it difficult to narrow the list further. The current short list has Caltech vs. Harvey Mudd vs Duke vs JHU-BME vs Berkeley. Her intended major is Biomedical Engineering or Computational Biology. There is a good chance that she may go the route of MSTP or Research Physician after undergraduate degree. As we are out of state and will have to pay pretty penny to attend Berkeley, we may remove it from consideration. She likes Harvey Mudd & Caltech as they are strong STEM schools. She is considering JHU-BME because it is well regarded in her intended major. Duke offers everything but she is worried about social hierarchy issues and southern vibe (fit reasons) and she wants to be away from a red state. She actually had fond memories of Duke from summer camp. Her ideal school will be a private research U where there is entrepreneurial vibe and is strong in STEM and life sciences with a collaborative culture with play hard and work hard culture and an inclusive student body. Good healthy food and active life style are very important considerations too. Our puzzle is to figure out which among her current options will be close to her ideal school.
As for finances, We do not qualify for need based aid and we are not wealthy but we are willing to make needed sacrifices to pay for college.
Any suggestions/opinions will be greatly appreciated.
Harvey Mudd is known for grade deflation, which is bad for a pre-med. I would check on grade deflation at the other schools. Neither HMC nor CalTech are known for life sciences.
I’m a student at Duke right now and I love it here. There’s definitely not a southern vibe and the red state thing is a nonissue because our campus is really liberal. But, I would say that Duke is significantly more “social” than the other schools you’re looking at. Greek life/SLGs are fairly dominant on campus, although I don’t think this social segregation is unique to Duke by any means. I personally found the social atmosphere to be a good fit for me, but I can understand how people who don’t plan on rushing could feel excluded in the process. Keep an open mind though- I didn’t come into Duke thinking I would be in a sorority, but our Greek life is definitely not stereotypical in that we have our fair share of down to earth, non-economically exclusive groups. Let me know if you have any more specific questions about the school!
My kid is a Mudder, and I agree about grade deflation and pre-med. Other grad programs seem to understand this about Mudd, but med schools don’t give any quarter on that front.
Based on what you said, it sounds like Caltech would match what she wants more closely (except for the good healthy good part, I don’t know.) Caltech is like a mini grad school and would thus prepare her well for a MSTP program.
I don’t think you understand if her goal is med school that GPA is very important. The average GPA at Mudd graduation hovers around a 3.3 or 3.4, and everybody there was a very high performing student in HS.
If you visit Harvey Mudd, try to talk to some profs in the bio or chem departments. I have heard some say that the conventional wisdom is a little too quick to say that Mudd is not the ideal place to try to get into med school. It’s true about the average GPA, so the student has to really evaluate her chances and fit at Mudd.
Right now, a student needs a 3.6+ to have a shot at med schools. This is the average GPA at Brown, best college for premed :p.
Look at stats published by the AAMC.