<p>Hi, I wanted to know the forums opinions on the best universities to attend for a career in medicine. First, let me give some background information. My daughter is going to college next year (fall 2015) and so we have been researching and visiting universities a lot lately. We live in Texas and so naturally she wanted to go to UT Austin, but her SAT might not be competitive enough and she doesn't fall within the top 8%. She's goes to a private preparatory school and so a private, more conservative college might be best for her. She has been interested in a career in medicine her whole life and has recently narrowed it down to either a surgeon or a physicians assistant, so good programs in the sciences would be nice.</p>
<p>These are her stats:
SAT: 1900
ACT: 28
GPA: 3.45
She also has good extracurricular activities including internships and ballet at the Houston Ballet.</p>
<p>The colleges she is seriously looking into are A&M and Tulane. I'm interested in hearing others opinions on what else she could consider. Thank-you for any feedback, it is much appreciated!</p>
<p>Medical school is expensive, so pay careful attention to costs (save money and avoid running up big undergraduate debt). The Texas public MD medical schools (TTU and TAMU) are relatively low cost for Texas residents (as is private Baylor), but getting into any US MD medical school is very difficult, so a pre-med may not really have a choice to choose a lower cost medical school if s/he gets into only one.
<a href=“https://services.aamc.org/tsfreports/select.cfm?year_of_study=2014”>https://services.aamc.org/tsfreports/select.cfm?year_of_study=2014</a></p>
<p>Honestly, any college could be good for pre-health. As long as it has the pre-medical prerequisites she needs it should be good to go. In addition to TAMU and Tulane, what about Texas Tech? Or some other UT branches? There’s also the University of Houston. For privates in the state, consider Southern Methodist.</p>
<p>For PA school, she may want to consider a university with a volunteer EMS corps (Columbia, for example, has a student-run ambulance service) or a university in a town with a volunteer EMS service. Most PA programs require applicants to have a minimum of a certain number of direct clinical hours - ranging from 1,000-2,000, with competitive students having more. If she is considering going straight into PA work from undergrad she’ll need this.</p>
<p>Another thought is that there are still a few bachelor’s level PA programs in the country. CUNY City College has a bachelor’s level PA program, although I think you have to complete two years and then transfer in even if you are a CCNY student. The program is 28.5 months after your first 60 credits, so a bit longer than two years. Rochester Institute of Technology has an undergraduate PA program as well. [url=<a href=“Home | PAEA”>Home | PAEA]Here[/url</a>] is a list of the schools that offer undergraduate PA programs. Some schools have 5 year BA/MA programs that lead straight into the PA. Drexel has a 5-year BS/MHS program, which allows students to graduate with the MHS and ability to practice as a PA after 5.25 years instead of 6.5. Hofstra, on Long Island, offers a similar program, as does Seton Hall University.</p>
<p>PA and surgeon are very divergent career paths within medicine. Surgery is an intense specialty field with a long, long residency. PAs are primary care providers who mostly work directly with awake, alert patients. I’m curious about your daughter’s thought process on landing on those two. If she’s interested in being a PA, I wonder if she also might be interested in nursing and specifically being a nurse practitioner. The careers are similar.</p>
<p>ucbalumnus: Fortunately, we don’t have to worry about the cost of undergrad or graduate/professional school, so any college that fits her best and that she gets into will work. We are looking for schools with good programs and a good learning environment for what she is interested in regardless of price. I should have mentioned that!</p>
<p>juillet: She is surprisingly wanting to get far away from her home in Houston, so out-of-state is not a problem! I believe she has looked into Tech and is considering it as a safety school. Thank-you for the information on PA school, I will forward that over to her! The combined programs sound very interesting. Her reasoning for picking between a surgeon and a PA is that she wants to have a family someday and she worries about the time commitment of becoming and then being an MD. With PA’s she says she can specialize in surgery and still get the joy of medicine without as much commitment as an MD. She has looked into being an NP and has eliminated it because she has more interest in surgery than she does in nursing.</p>
<p>Thanks for the comments so far!</p>