Thank you, and I’m not sure if you saw my other posts on this thread, but while I do greatly appreciate the cost-conserving advice, I wasn’t exactly looking to eliminate colleges based on cost, and my biggest concern is going to a college that I will enjoy, that will set me up for success, and that is very academically strong.
This post was mainly looking for an estimation of my chances at these schools 
I totally goofed on those, I understand that and was typing fast/didn’t mean to write that lol
I think Simmons is extremely likely, Bryn Mawr is probably a toss-up to likely, and ditto with McGill. With respect to the rest of your schools, you stand a legitimate shot at acceptance. That legitimate shot, however, is probably not tremendously different than the overall admissions rate to those schools (15% or less) due to the large number of highly qualified students who are applying. There are simply way more qualified candidates than there are spots.
Should you decide you want to expand the list of schools that you’re considering for EA or RD, below is a list of schools that are in metro areas with lots of shadowing possibilities. Most of these would be likely or extremely likely admittances for you, and most of these have a good to excellent chance of being within the budget that you mentioned your family wanted to stay under.
Best of luck to you.
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Bellarmine (Louisville, KY): 2400 undergrads
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Brandeis (Waltham, MA): 3600 undergrads
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Butler (Indianapolis, IN): 4500 undergrads
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Case Western (Cleveland, OH): 5800 undergrads
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Clark (Worcester, MA): 2300 undergrads
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College of the Holy Cross (Worcester, MA): 3k undergrads
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Duquesne (Pittsburgh, PA): 5100 undergrads
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Goucher (Baltimore, MD): 1100 undergrads, and you can cross register for classes at other Baltimore schools, like JHU
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Howard (D.C.): HBCU with 9k undergrads
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Loyola Maryland (Baltimore, MD): 3800 undergrads, and you can cross register for classes at other Baltimore schools, like JHU
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Meredith (Raleigh, NC): women’s college with 1400 undergrads
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Nazareth (Rochester, NY): 2100 undergrads
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Saint John Fisher (Rochester, NY): 2600 undergrads
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Saint Joseph’s (Philadelphia, PA): 4200 undergrads
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Suffolk (Boston, MA): 4200 undergrads
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Thomas Jefferson (Philadelphia, PA): 3800 undergrads…a fit school…but it has a big healthcare focus
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U. of Rochester (Rochester, NY): 6600 undergrads
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U. of the Sciences (Philadelphia, PA): 1400 undergrads…another fit school
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Xavier (Cincinnati, OH): 5100 undergrads
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Where are you applying EA from the list you posted here
Georgetown and UMichigan
Simmons too - I believe - has EA (two in fact).
What stood out in your list, those are some of the most competitive programs out there, and when they are only accepting 5 or 10 students, you will be competing with the same applicants. I would diversify your list with less competitive colleges and programs. A Med degree is a med degree, and medical school will cost upwards of 100K a year. I think Hofstra has a program. (Mentioned Arizona above, their medical school is on campus, and they have an excellent honors program, my DD is in it) VCU has a guaranteed admission program through its Honors College. MCV has a good reputation. Guaranteed Admission - Honors College - Virginia Commonwealth University
Exactly. There are a lot of universities that are quite good for premed.
Both daughters were able to stay well under this number (and both went out of state). The oldest stayed under this number mostly with merit aid with stats that were close but not quite as good as yours (which are excellent). Given your great stats merit aid is a real possibility at the universities that offer merit aid.
However, the really top schools (Harvard, Stanford level) generally do not have merit aid. You have some top schools on your list (Yale, Brown, U.Penn, …) and you should run their NPCs and also check whether or not they offer any merit based aid. BU also would have been way over this number for us. Many of these schools will probably be over budget.
I am wondering whether you should tell us what state it is, or perhaps approximately what its US News Ranking is (I suppose you could give us a range that includes at least one other state flagship to maintain confidentiality). It is possible to attend an undergraduate program that is not in the top 100 and still attend a highly ranked MD program (or DVM, one daughter did exactly that).
But I do think that you can stay well under $60k per year at a university that is very good for premed even if you go out of state.
Another thing to think about is how difficult it will be to maintain a “medical school worthy” GPA at different schools. McGill for example is known as being academically very demanding and having tough grading. It is a great school (I applied out of high school and was accepted, a sibling went there) but I do not normally recommend it for premed just because of the tough grading. The quality of the other premed students at Yale, Brown, BU, Columbia, U.Penn, Duke, or even your in-state public university might surprise you. Just as one example, one daughter at a university that is in the “not quite top 100” range had a boyfriend who was premed who had never had a B in his life (and this was after they both took organic chemistry). I do not think that he was the only one.
Given your current list, I would keep Simmons on the list. To me it is both a very good university for premed, and one that may be more likely that the rest of your list (other than McGill) to result in an affordable acceptance.
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Here’s my advice, keep an open mind. The vast majority of high school graduates wanting to be doctors, decide to major in something else, because they find passions elsewhere. I was one of them also Also, it’s just not worth paying triple the cost to go out of state when you have a perfectly good in-state university. If you want medical school, you need to keep debt at a minimum. Medical school is ridiculously expensive. Stay in-state. If you don’t decide medical school, you’re not going to drown in debt. If you do decide medical school, you’re not going to drown in debt. So…stay away from debt.
Also, I do NOT recommend a BSMD program. It’s way too premature for a high-schooler to be making a decision like that without first giving them a chance to explore their passions in college. I recommend the traditional route.
Thank you for the advice! I do appreciate all the advice, however, leaving the state is one of my biggest (maybe even only) requirements for forming my list lol. My state is very poor for the most part in terms of college, our state college is in the bottom 50th percentile on US news.
In terms of the BSMD programs, I think you’re right, I’ve started becoming more and more interested in regular undergrad and then med school
Thank you! This is awesome advice. My states college is in about the bottom 50th percentile on US news.
I definitely will keep Simmons on my list, and will definitely do some research on other likely schools.
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There’s a couple of issues, though Without the mention of a budget or income, you can’t expect to get sound advice. All the measurable objective criteria is missing. It’s like going to a car dealer and telling them to pick out a car with a nice color. Before getting too far, run the NPC for all those schools and ask your parents how much they’re willing to pay for without excessive loans. You shouldn’t have any more than $27,000 in debt coming out of undergraduate. If you’re going to be co-signing large amounts of loans, you’re going to be setting yourself up for failure, especially if you decide not to do medical school.
Actually…having large loans for undergrad and then do medical school is also not wise.
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Thank you! I definitely understand that. My post was mainly to get an estimate of my chances of getting into the schools already on my list, while also getting recommendations (I understand why finances are important for this part, but as I said, my main motivation behind posting this was just a chance estimation)
And while I appreciate your concern if I decide to not do the medical school route, I am VERY confident in my desire to enter the medical field, and my ability to do so academically.
U choose not to share at its ok. But if it’s WV or WY u can still do fine. Idaho. Wherever - they’ll have future doctors.
Short of Michigan you have no publics on the list but you can set a price point if you wanted and find solid schools at $25k, $35k, $45k with auto or likely merit including top Honors Colleges if you decided to go that route.
Even a school like FAU Wilkes Honors College could get you that small school (very small) experience vs a large public with Honors. They have Medical Humanities as an example.
That you have Michigan tells me you’re open to other large publics.
If, after others have suggested you decide to keep costs down, to set a hard budget vs 60-70k if you decide to go that route to open up grad school funding, we can certainly help.
You should really discuss with your folks the many different scenarios of four and eight years.
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Interesting…I just looked at one list of flagship universities and their rankings…and University of Vermont was 45.
I would take those rankings with a grain of salt. These are all flagship universities. Many have honors colleges as well, which you should consider applying to. In addition, if you do pursue a pre-med intention, you will be studying alongside some other very smart students.
WRT shadowing and the like…many students do that during summers and school vacations. Also, the average age for a first year medical student is something like 24 because many take one or two years between undergrad and medical school to beef up their resumes by doing things like shadowing, work that involves patient contact, volunteering with less fortunate folks….and prepping for the MCAT, taking it and applying to MD and DO schools.
@WayOutWestMom what have I missed?
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