College Selection Pre-Med

Hello all,

I have just formulated a college list that I think best fits me based on my accomplishments and grades in high school. I totally understand that it does not matter where you go for pre-med and that any state or private school would work whether it be small or large, but I prefer going to a school where there are several pre med and hospital opportunities, which is reflected by my list. I also like more lively and student life schools compared to smaller schools such as the SUNY ones.

I aimed to avoid cut-throat and weed out schools (excluding my hard reaches). Please refelct on my list and state any schools on the East that I should look into for the pre-med track. I avoided Duke and Johns Hopkins as I do not believe I would get “weeded-out” there, but I rather go to a school where I can stand out rather than be surrounded by thousands of other pre-med students.

By the way, I am majoring in neuroscience, and for schools without neuroscience programs on my list such as Wake Forest and Lehigh, I will major in psychology with a minor in neuroscience. I am currently living in New Jersey but plan to move to North Carolina next summer. My list below:

Hard Reach:
Harvard
UPENN
Emory
UNC

Reach/Target:
Boston U
Boston College
Case Western Reserve
Lehigh

Safety/Scholarships:
UPitt
Rutgers
Penn State
Ohio State
G. Wash

What are your stats? What is your budget?

Okay so stats I am unfortunately going to have to go test-optional as almost all of my SAT’s have been cancelled due to COVID. My GPA is a 3.95 UW and a 4.4 Weighted. The main thing supporting my applications is my desire for medicine and my outstanding leadership and volunteering activities as I am president of the national honor society and am the Founder and President of the HOSA - Future Health Professionals club at my school. Additionally, during COVID, I have co-founded a non profit organization focused on delivering groceries to those who are in quarantine. For healthcare, I am a Junior Cadet at the First Aid & Rescue Squad and have four years of volunteering at my local hospital with a lot of work in the emergency room and front desk. I have several other leadership positions that I plan to include in my activities section along with years of commitment for them.

Pre-med will have heightened competition due to students trying for scarce A grades on the curve in pre-med courses.

Check the residency-for-tuition-purposes rules in both NJ and NC for both undergraduate and medical school at the state universities, so that you know the full implications of the move the NC on your options for undergraduate and medical school. (If you can get NC residency for medical school, note that some of its public medical schools are relatively inexpensive for medical school.)

Any college list opinions and schools that I should look into that have strong pre med programs?

Can you attend any university on your list without taking on any debt whatsoever for your bachelor’s degree?

Do you know whether you will be considered in-state at Rutgers for a full four years, and again if you are applying to public medical schools in NJ?

Someone I know did move after graduating from university, worked for a couple of years, and is now officially considered in-state in the state that they moved to. It does seem likely that for medical school you might be in-state for where you move to (perhaps NC) rather than where you are coming from (NJ). This might impact admissions at some public medical schools.

Premed classes will be tough at any university that has a good premed program, which includes probably 200 colleges and universities in the US and every school on your list (or at least the 8 or 9 I am familiar with).

To me your list looks long, but good as long as the finances work out.

Yea finances are a problem so basically if I do no get a scholarship to a school, I will most likely not end up going there unless I get into one of my top 4 where I believe it is worth it. My parents can manage tuition, but do not want to pay more than 50k per year which is half the colleges so even small scholarships would help to these colleges? Sorry I am typing this from another account as my old one would not let me log in.