I’m trying to decide btwn these two schools. Pros/ cons?
I would go to Yale because you may choose to pursue other interests sometime during your undergrad career, so the early assurance program at CW might not be that useful.
Also, med schools will take into account that you’re graduating from one of the most elite schools in the US, so you don’t have to worry about not getting into X professional school as long as you maintain a decent GPA and good test scores.
Assuming you are set on medicine
PPSP
pros - guaranteed seat in a quality medical school (not too much of a risk of selling yourself short in terms of med school rep), less stress, still fairly good undergrad, more freedom/time to pursue other interests
cons - less prestigious undergrad/peers not quite same caliber as yale students
Yale
pros - world class education/peers, fair grading curve and reasonable success for pre-meds
cons - will still be stressful, will have to dedicate time to medical ECs, possibly end up at a lower tier med school than CWRU.
Case is already a fairly good medical school so I wouldn’t go through the traditional route just to increase chances of getting into a better medical school. I think the decision comes down to how much you value a prestigious undergrad education. Do you value it enough to take a risk?
I’d take a different tack: the great majority of high school seniors who are thinking of med school change their minds in college. Those who don’t either have physician parents or already have medical-related ECs (such as working as an EMT, etc) and thus have a good idea of what it means. Often, they are interested in the medical professions, so would consider Physician’s Assistant or other professions if med school didn’t work out.
If you’re thinking " I like science and I want a professional job that isn’t going to be outsourced", you may well change your mind.
In my opinion, unless you’re absolutely certain you’ll become a doctor, take Yale. You’ll end up with a career regardless but your path will be richer for attending Yale. You may end in med school, law school, on Wall Street, in TFA… who knows? It’s still open-ended, entirely up to you.
If your choice of a medical career is reasoned and absolute to the point you can imagine giving up Yale with no regrets because you’ll be on the path you’ve mapped out for yourself since you were 12 and haven’t wavered, doing everything possible to ensure this was the right choice for you, then PPSP.
MYOS 1634, do you have data on your contention that the great majority of seniors thinking of med school change their minds? I hear that a lot. That and the idea that the majority of students starting college with a major in mind change it. It is a comment usually intended to make a student who has no academic interests feel ok about that. But while I hear these comments my experience with students suggests otherwise. They usually major in a field that they set out to major in or in a closely allied field.
In terms of Yale vs Case, I’d recommend Yale for most cases except engineering.
At Princeton [70% of students](http://dailyprincetonian.com/news/2014/09/70-percent-of-students-change-major-after-enrollment-study-finds/) change their majors.
61% of University of Florida students [change by their second year](Choosing One College Major Out of Hundreds - The New York Times).
Colorado State however reports that only about [37% of students change at the school](http://www.ir.colostate.edu/pdf/briefs/Major-Changes-and-Persistence-Patterns.pdf).
Nationally, [48% of declared STEM majors](http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2014/2014001rev.pdf) leave STEM for another major or drop out. While this is not applicable to the OP since his stats are far higher than the average student, it lends credibility to MYO’s claims.
At Harvard around 25% of students start as premed while [17% actually end up applying](The Harvard Crimson).
http://dus.psu.edu/mentor/2013/06/disconnect-choosing-major/
An NCES study showed that about 70 to 80% students change between what they’d declared when they enrolled and what they ended up declaring for real as rising juniors, with on average 2 further changes of intentions along the way (ie., rising senior wants to be premed, changes to biochemistry, to computer science. Or rising senior wants linguistics, changes to philosophy, to Spanish language and literature.)
At UCLA, at least half the entering freshmen change their mind by the end of freshman year.
As to why, the article by Penn State explains it well, but it’s confirmed by the ACT’s internal research:
http://www.act.org/newsroom/many-students-select-a-college-major-that-doesn%E2%80%99t-fit-their-interests-well/
Assuming I’m set on going to med school, which is the better option? Yale costs ~$35k more than Case PPSP. I may want to major in bioengineering or related field.
If you’re set on med school and don’t want to have more choices (as Yale would provide), then Case, definitely.
Engineering is a risky choice for med school, since GPAs are deflated (3.0 is a good engineering GPA but for med school you need a higher GPA than that - check your PPSP requirements).