I waited a bit to post since you are trying to study. 
I’m a big proponent of the “love the school that loves you back” philosophy. And wow, UMass is showing you a lot of love. Plus the BioTAP cohort will offer so many opportunities.
I’m also a big proponent of stepping a bit out of your comfort zone and it sounds like UMass may give you that too.
I’m keeping it short for now so you can study and keep up the grades for the rest of senior year. /encouraging and cheerleading
So proud of you- your attitude, getting into such a competitive program, all of it.
But I will give you unsolicited advice… You don’t have to be doing graduate level work as a freshman. You don’t have to excel at every single thing you try, and you don’t have to burn yourself out proving that they didn’t make a mistake by accepting you.
If you are struggling in both pre-calc and your research class, that’s a good signal to you that you tend to overreach- and it’s ok to cut back. If you have always found math challenging, you will need to pace yourself and make sure that you are being placed appropriately (learning and stretching but not too anxiety provoking) and if the current research project is hugely time consuming, it’s ok to wait until you are an upper classman to tackle similar projects again.
Hugs to you. Trust me- medical research will still be there when you are in grad school, you don’t have to take it all on right now. The world isn’t running out of complex problems to solve…
Thank you so, so much! I woke up and checked the forum and to see these comments makes my day. My positive attitude is definitely something that has helped through the process, and I thank you guys for all of the advice given. My capstone isn’t able to be stopped now, and I might have found a cure for my condition? Might’ve. I’m waiting to talk to my Broad mentors about it, but it looks really promising. I’ll keep y’all updated!!
Love y’all and stay blessed <3 /happily, warmly, grateful as heck for all of you
this is random but I want to ask something non-college related to spark up some laughs (sue me i’m stressed and want positivity and what better way than to ask the tiny village supporting me?) /no exact tone indicator except stressed lmao
Have you read Little Women (by Louisa May Alcott) and if you have, who’s your favorite character? /curiously
(Mods don’t @ me okay I just want a little bit of joy and then we can go back to college talk) /wheezing
I’ll go first. Mine’s Jo. She’s spunky, wild, fierce, and just like me. Sue me. /chuckling
Jo! Always Jo! /fond memories
JO IS THE MAIN CHARACTER. (prove me wrong lmao /lighthearted) literally though she is the best out of all four (sorry, meg, beth, and amy) but she had a flair in a way where it wasn’t extravagant or overt, but it was something you could relate to! /happily
I was a bit of a tomboy, loved to read… so Jo was my fave. For what it’s worth, I still love to read but grew out of the tomboy stage in my teens. lol
Jo all the way!
By the way, if you’re a Little Women fan, there is a podcast called Jo’s Boys you may be interested in checking out. It goes through Little Women chapter by chapter from a queer/trans lens.
Little Women is my FAVORITE book! Followed by Black Beauty. I will absolutely check it out! /happily
As a premed who has trouble with math, but has a very strong career goal, you REALLY should take the UMass offer, even if NEU allows you to start in Boston. The reason is that I think that you will get better grades at UMass, because of a bit less competition, and GPA is the first and most important component of a med school application. The research that you will hopefully be able to do through the BioTap program will give you a hand up on applications, too. I’m afraid that at NEU, with all the competition, you will be a B/C student in math, maybe even in Physics, while at UMass you may have slightly less competition, may have a better chance at the A’s you’ll need for med school.
I agree! Hopefully we (my parents and I) can decide soon, because I am sick of all of this waiting! /agreeing, honest, thoughtful
Jo is wonderful, but I can’t let her get all the love here. Beth is my favorite. She’s not showy, but she’s an essential part of the family. She’s a great listener and very caring and thoughtful. Go, Beth!
Beth is such a sweetheart! For any of you who may have middle-school aged kids or relatives, there’s a graphic novel version of a modern retelling of Little Women which is wonderful and canonically puts Jo as lesbian! /happily
My middle schooler loved that book!
it’s my new favorite version of Little Women, hands down! /happily
pretty happy, tonight I’m heading to a family friend’s house (she’s a freshman business major in Isenberg, at UMass Amherst), and two of her friends (roommate + guy friend) are both premeds at UMass Amherst and will be there tonight, so it’ll be nice hearing about UMass culture and life as a premed from them!
I’ll keep y’all posted as I hear from NEU and all the other happenings. /happily
POV you’re falling in love with UMass /half-joke but also ugh it’s a slowburn and i’m really falling for this school
Good luck. I’ll throw in a plus for UMASS when it comes to food. S22 is a freshman and has been very happy with all the choices and the high quality. It makes college life a little nicer.
Falling for UMass could be the best possible thing to happen!
I really like Northeastern - my daughter almost ended up there - but in your situation I don’t see how the pros outweigh the cons, even if they give you the transfer to Boston.
You’ve mentioned concern about finances - why push the limits of what you can afford? Suppose you have health challenges during college and need to reduce your courseload? At UMass, you could prioritize self-care and take an extra semester or year to graduate without blowing your budget; at Northeastern, you could feel pressured to push through even if it weren’t the healthiest choice for you.
And there’s the issue of the practicality of the equestrian team. At Northeastern, the location of practices is 40 minutes away, best-case; worse if it’s at a high-traffic time (which is a lot of the time!!). So that’s an extra hour and half out of your day on top of the time spent at practice, every time you have to go there. For a busy premed student who may have to allocate their “spoons” carefully, this could really make things harder than they need to be. At UMass, the practice venue is only 3.5 miles from campus. Big difference!
Quality of food was mentioned; I’d also consider the accessibility of said food. At Northeastern, I’ve seen whole online threads devoted to when one can grab a meal without getting stuck in a long line. These recommended windows are narrow and at weird times. IMHO this could get wearisome quickly, and/or lead to unplanned spending on outside food.
Commonwealth Honors is a wonderful opportunity - arguably just as prestigious as NU. If you can see a path to falling in love with UMass, I would wholly encourage you to fan that flame and go with it!
I recommend looking into tuition insurance. Many years ago just before I started business school at Ross I got diagnosed with a life threatening disease but I chose to go ahead and live my life. What allowed me to look forward was a tuition reimbursement insurance policy I got that would have paid me back all my college expenses if I had to withdraw due to health reasons.
If health is a concern, I recommend looking into it although I don’t know if those kind of insurance products are still being offered these days.
I love your response! Being a spoonie (aka disabled) I do have to keep account of my “spoons” wisely, so thank you for pointing all of those things out! After speaking to my family friend and her roomie, my heart is definitely set on UMass. /happily
(p.s. another tiny reminder i use he/they pronouns <3 /warmly)