Hi, I was accepted into Case, Emory, Rutgers HC, NYU, and U Rochester and will be majoring in bio and following the pre med track. I am planning on attending medical school afterwards. I am looking for advice on what school would be the best investment keeping medical school costs in mind.
I have pretty much ruled out NYU and Rochester for financial reasons. I got a scholarship for Rutgers HC making it around 7k a year. Case is around 45k and Emory 65k per year.
I know Rutgers is the best financial decision, but I am hoping for some insight into whether Rutgers HC students get into similar caliber med schools to Case/Emory students, and what some of these med schools are. I am also wondering if Rutgers can compete with Case in research and shadowing opportunities, as Case has many hospitals, including the Cleveland Clinic, nearby.
Any of your choices will offer you the opportunities you need to build a strong med school application.
My recommendation is to take pre-med out of your considerations.
(Only about 16% of freshmen pre-meds actually finish all the med school pre-reqs and apply to med school. Most fall off the pre-med path not because they can’t compete academically, but because they find other interests and passions along the way or decide that they don’t want to postpone starting their adult life for 11-20 years when they finally finish their training. Of those 16% that persist and apply to med school, fewer than 40% actually get an acceptance. )
So choose the school that offers the best combination of fit, opportunity and cost.
Fit because happier students do better academically. Also college is 4 years of your life that you will never get back; you might as well enjoy it.
Opportunity to explore new ideas and new interests–even if they lead you away from medicine. Opportunity to get involved in campus activities. (Med schools are looking for interesting, engaged individuals, not academic automatons.) Opportunity to interact with and form mentoring relationships with professors who will provide career guidance and write those important LORs for med or grad school.
Cost because med school is hideously expensive and you’ll want minimize undergrad debt. Tuition alone is over $100K/year currently at some schools. The average cost of a year of med school is $60K with the costs going up annually. The average med students graduates with $350,000 in loans.
If it makes you feel any better one my daughters attended a state university that is much lower ranked than Rutgers ; my other daughter attended one of the schools on your list that is not Rutgers. Both had multiple med school acceptances and are now physicians in their first choice of specialty. I didn’t see any major appreciable difference in the quality or type of their undergrad experiences.
Med school adcomms really, really do not care where an applicant attends undergrad. They are much more interested in what you have achieved and what you have accomplished during your college career.
I have a Rutgers graduation (cpa, at the firm she interned with junior year), and an honors graduate from UDel (at BU for DPT, got into every program she applied to). I was very impressed at the graduation ceremony with all of the great medical schools graduates from UDel were heading to. UDel certainly wasn’t the most selective school she was admitted to (she needed merit $, especially with a dpt program in her future).
Next time I know where my dr went to med school might be the first.
We have learned on the threads that few who aspire to med school make it.
But if you are absolutely one that will, then unless you can afford four years at $45k or $65k plus inflation plus med school, you answered your own question.
Whether my Dr went to Harvard or Hofstra, I sure hope both prescribe me the same medicine.
Ps if you can’t find it on their websites, you can reach out to each school’s pre med advisor and ask for a list of schools students attend.
But be aware that the list will change from year to year depending on who and how many applied. The choice of med school to attend is very individual and personal decision–and again, for many, it all comes down to cost.
Medical education is the US is “flat”. Flat means that every US med school (MD and DO) are required to teach the exact same material ( there’s a national standardized curriculum) and every US med student has to pass the same standardized exams in order to graduate.
The decision is easy. Go with Rutgers. You can’t lose either way. If you decide to stay in medicine, you’ll be entering with low debt. Medical school is incredibly expensive, and going in with a ton of debt hanging over your head is a very bad idea. If you decide against medicine, you’re still in a low debt situation.
The worst thing you can do is choose a college based on “Premed prestige.” Chances are, you’re going to choose a different major after having a chance to explore your passions. The last thing you want is a financial death trap sucking money away from your starting salary.
As someone who has been on two different med school admissions committees, I agree that they don’t care where you went to undergrad. It is what you do with your college experience that counts.
Thanks for the reference @WayOutWestMom . I look forward to reading it!