<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I am a parent of a 10th grader in Florida, so we are in the early planning stages. He has a weighted 4.8 gpa, 3.987 unweighted, standing #1, no SAT yet, earned high school credits back in 8th grade due to being gifted so by doubling up he already has 4 years of science with labs, and is taking calculus and currently 3 AP courses, took 2 APs in 9ty grade, got 5s, went to ISSEF last year placing second, so I assume his preliminary academics give him good chances to be admitted.</p>
<p>He is a very high achiever and undergad will only be his first step, he wants to go to Medical School or Grad School. I am an attorney, and when I applied to law school everything was gpa and LSAT, along with quality of undergrad. My son loves NCF, the interaction with profs really excites him, he does not want to be in a giant class taught by a ta, he wants to be challenged and guided by a real professor.</p>
<p>So here is the issue for me: He loves NCF and he feels he will learn more there than he could at any other college. that is good, but I worry about the next step, namely Med School or grad School, with the no grades policy how will he get into post graduate programs? For law school I know how important grades were, and I advise him to consider UF as his top choice. Has anyone heard of the successes of NCF grads in getting into Med School etc? Does NCF have a premed program?</p>
<p>Congratulations on having such a driven and talented academic in your son! His stats should allow him to get into UF or NCF easily.</p>
<p>My daughter just decided to attend NCF, she will be starting this fall, studying humanities, not science or premed. There were kids planning to go into medicine at the NCF admitted students event.</p>
<p>Somewhere on the NCF site (maybe in the ‘after grad’ section) is data from graduates from something like 1998-2008 for their activities after graduation. It’s presented separately for each area of concentration (major) and the graduate schools listed are very impressive. This, along with speaking to admissions and students, the WSJ ranking as number 2 public feeder to elite medical, law and business schools (albeit a ranking almost a decade old now), the Fulbright statistics and information gleaned from the web (including this site) convinced us that the no grade policy wouldn’t hinder grad school admission. In fact, the more I learned about New College the more I became convinced that grad school placement is its second strongest quality (the first being quality of undergraduate education).
I have found the school to very open and helpful and I am sure that they would be happy to answer any questions you have about the place. Good luck.</p>
<p>The lack of letter grades hasn’t been a problem for graduate schools or fellowship programs: among public institutions, New College is second only to The University of Michigan in the percentage of students admitted to top graduate programs in medicine, business and law. New College is also among the nation’s top ten liberal arts colleges in terms of per-capita Fulbright production.</p>
<p>(Though only anecdotal evidence, my kid is a New College alum with a fancy fellowship in the top PhD program in my kid’s scientific field.)</p>
<p>Here are the alumni outcome survey data I was mentioning, these are for bio and chem. </p>
<p><a href=“NCF - Portal Access”>NCF - Portal Access;
<p><a href=“NCF - Portal Access”>NCF - Portal Access;
<p>Congrats to your daughter, I hope she makes all of her college dreams become wonderful memories! Such a small school, and given its reputation, being accepted is an honor! She must be very proud to have been accepted. My son understand that even kids with high grades like him do not always get accepted.</p>
<p>I now understand that the no grade policy does not seem to harm the graduates when time comes to go to grad school. My world of gpa and LSAT was in the last millennium, as my son often points out to me. NCF really does sound wonderful, and he is 100% sold on the direct interaction with faculty there. Even though he is a science maniac, he wants to take history and philosophy, which seems possible with NCF’s major flexibility. From people like you who have already made the choice, I know that he has made a great choice in wanting to go to NCF. I hope that NCF has room for one extra pre-med major when he graduates in 2015!</p>
<p>Thank you again</p>
<p>Yeah like everyone else said NCF basically prepares students for grad school. Many go onto very impressive grad schools.
People are always hestitant about the “no grades” thing but it isn’t a problem and will not be an issue when applying for any grad program. As someone did note that many graduates reported back and showed which graduate school they attended after NCF.
NCF will really prepare him in many aspects and the course load will be intense but that’s a good thing if he’s set on med school.</p>
@ESOP123 : Did your son end up going to NCF??
I am a current high school senior and I have recently been accepted to NCF. I am also a science maniac, and plan on majoring in science on a pre-med track and then I want to attend medical school. While I will be receiving my admissions decision from Harvard today, other than that, I am choosing between attending FSU (possibly in their honors program if I am accepted into the specific program) and NCF. However, although I have heard wonderful things about NCF, I am skeptical of the no-grade policy and if that will hinder me from getting accepted into a top graduate program or top medical school. Seeing as your son graduated last year, if you don’t mind, could you please offer me some insight into where he is now? Was he accepted to a graduate program or medical school? Did he enjoy his timea at NCF? What are some advantages and disadvantages of NCF that you have noticed? I am just curious, as I will be making my decision as to where I will be attending college for my undergrad degree soon.
Thank you for your time. 
@strongswimmer15 she hasn’t been on since April 2013 when they made this post.