<p>I am helping a friend. Her daughter is 9th grade and has always wanted to me a doctor. She is a good soccer player and made varsity this year and plays on some kind of club team as well. She makes good grades. Now.. she has a sister and their dad isn't in the picture..hasn't been since I've known them when they were preschoolers. She remarried when they were in early elementary school, but they just got divorced so it is her and her two girls living in a tiny apartment on her Walgreens pay by the hour paycheck. She going to school for pharmacy tech, and should finish next month so hopefully her income will be higher. They are barely making ends meet right now. </p>
<p>Now we live in East Texas. Am I correct in assuming that medical schools do not look highly on going to community college and transfering to a bigger university ( that is the default here.. 80 percent of the kids go to the community college in our town if they go to college at all). How would they feel about University of Texas at Tyler? </p>
<p>What colleges would you suggest setting her sights on? I printed out the soccer advice from another thread. I will talk to her about strength of schedule and taking good classes as she gets older. But that said, our high school isn't strong. 34 kids took AP exams and only 7 got a 3 or higher. I will also help her with PSAT/SAT/ACT prep as that is nonexistent here. People around here shoot for 1800 and think that is a fabulous score. </p>
<p>I know she needs a decent college but it cannot be too high priced either. Do you have any suggestions as I help her?</p>
<p>Med school admission is very dependent on overall GPA, GPA in the pre-med coursework, and MCAT score. She doesn’t have to go to a “famous name” college/university to get into med school, and she can indeed start at a community college if that is all that her budget can afford. She shouldn’t worry as much about that as she does about finding a way to get her education in the first place.</p>
<p>The big trick with attending a CC is keeping your eyes on the prize. Students who are highly motivated and self-disciplined achieve their goals. Students who aren’t, don’t. Given that this young lady is a 9th grader, she has time to whip her grades into shape and do some prep work for the ACT and/or SAT, and to organize her schedule to take advantage of the AP courses that her school does offer. CC needn’t be her only option.</p>
<p>Lastly, she needs to take a long hard look at this list: [The</a> Women’s College Coalition](<a href=“http://womenscolleges.org/]The”>http://womenscolleges.org/) They are an option she wouldn’t have if she weren’t a girl.</p>
<p>Cheap pre-med will likely be one of the local UT campuses that she can commute to. As a low income student, she’d likely get fed and Texas aid.</p>
<p>If she were to do very well on her ACT or SAT (she needs to take BOTH), she’ll have many more options. There are OOS schools that give free tuition and more for high stats.</p>
<p>The UT system has a program where if you do well your first year at a regional UT, then you can go to UT-Austin after that. Don’t remember the name of the program.</p>
<p>What medical schools frown on is students taking their pre-reqs at community college as a way of getting around the tough grading curves at their 4 year schools. Low income students who attend community college because that’s what they can afford are not penalized for this - in fact the AMCAS application explicitly asks if anyone in your family has been on public assistance, etc…because some schools want to take socioeconomic diversity into account.</p>
<p>She can consider: (1) state schools (2) private schools where she may be above the academic average and may get merit aid (3) if she is good enough to be recruited for soccer and get a scholarship that is another angle (but she would have to weigh the time needed to play soccer against the time she would need to succeed as a pre-med major). </p>
<p>As a ninth grader, it is too early to focus on specific schools, just encourage her to keep her grades up.) I honestly don’t know what med schools think about community college work, but I’d be concerned that if her background in the sciences isn’t strong enough, she may have trouble when she transfers to a 4 year school because the coursework is so sequential (ex. the school expects you to know the material that they taught for Chem.1 before you take Organic Chem. etc.)-- if I went the community college route, I would really want to research the school, the science program and facilities in particular, and how its graduates did going forward.</p>
<p>The transfer from community college to a 4 year school may not be as big of a deal as it once was in Texas. They have streamlined the course “labeling” system so that they easily transfer from community college to a 4 year school. I know in San Antonio, students continue to take as many classes as possible at the community college because it’s cheaper than UTSA and they all count toward their UTSA degree. </p>
<p>Now I can’t say anything as to how well they actually prepare you the higher sequence sciences at four year institutions. However, I have heard of quite a few students appreciating the smaller class size at community colleges to get them through there basic science courses since they weren’t very well prepared in high school.</p>
<p>Also check out the dual credit online options stateU.com which is associated with UT Arlington and Lamar university. It could be a way to strengthen her high school education. </p>
<p>If she has a shot at soccer, make sure she takes the PSAT and SAT as early as possible. She should start contacting coaches after her sophomore year, earlier if she has received feedback that she’s a legitimate prospect. </p>
<p>Despite all the test optional schools, a high SAT score and GPA will qualify her for enough merit aid which could bring down the cost of some private schools to the same as she would pay at a state. McMurry has good reputation for preparing students for pre-med. Austin College is another possibility, they provide generous aid (both financial and merit) and they actually have transfer agreements with local community colleges. </p>
<p>Probably the most important thing is get her aware of the possibilities. There are so many people who didn’t do something because they didn’t know it existed.</p>
<p>I don’t know about Texas, but in California it is QUITE possible to start out in a community college, transfer and get into med school. My niece did just that - she’s now in her second year at Washington U of St. Louis - one of the top med schools in the country. Another young woman did all four years at a “lesser” Cal State and got into UCLA med school.</p>