Are UCs and CSUs under consideration?
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I’m going to tag @WayOutWestMom who can better describe the rigors of medical school.
If I were you, I would take this out of the college search equation since really the required courses for medical school can be met just about everywhere. Find a school where your kid can be a successful student…and thrive, and be happy (because happy kids do better than unhappy ones).
If your daughter has any accommodations at her high school, please research schools carefully.
Accommodations are not easy to come by in medical school…and especially in rotations and residency…just a thought.
There are tons of other ways to contribute as your daughter wishes to do…that are not doctor.
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I know Jewish people that go - so not sure if it’s religious. Of course, on here, people say about Jesuit schools that they are more about service and community than religion. But I"m similar - it wouldn’t be good.
So you’re issue is the student wants to leave but you don’t want them too.
Given the budget, the meets need schools will mostly be out - so you need big merit. For that, it’s head to the South or midwest maybe - but out West - you have WUE which could save $$. On the other hand, getting back East may be easier.
For big merit schools - and i don’t know if you’d qualify - but Kalamazoo comes up a lot. Hendrix in Arkansas and Ogelthorpe in Atlanta could match CA tuition but you’d need a test, etc. SUNY schools could make budget, etc. Maybe a Franklin & Marhsall - they meet need but there’ll be loans and I don’t think you’d get in - but maybe a small chance.
The WUE has many Small/mid colleges for Bio that could work - well there’s many - if the link works. How about Western Washgington? Not east but there’s distance.
And with budget comes tradeoffs - and without top stats, the meet needs schools will be near impossible. A tradeoff is - location. You might look at schools near an airport, etc. because if you need that confidence of getting there quickly…well you understand.
Best of luck.
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I can speak with first hand experience about a kid who is NOT Catholic (I’m Jewish) attending a Jesuit college. There is no pressure at all to adhere to Catholic faith. None. There is a theology course requirement, but the Jesuit schools have tons of very interesting courses to fulfill this. My kid took Women in Religion, and an ethics course for example. She really liked them.
The giving back to community is very important. And emphasized across courses.
Yes, there are crosses on campus, and Jesuits as well. The Jesuits are very intelligent and intuitive folks…my kid really enjoyed them.
It’s not for everyone for sure. But these schools hit a lot of boxes for a lot of kids. And I have to say…the Jesuits have higher education down!
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Medicine isn’t biology. It’s a patient facing service job.
If she wants to do research and find cures–then biomedical science with/without clinical research is where she wants to be not medicine. Medicine as a day-to-day is grind of 15 minute patient visits, topped off by hours of paperwork and begging insurers to approve necessary tests/prescriptions/procedures for patients. Yes, there are moments of cool, but there’s the trade-off of the long training period (7-15 years post college), the enormous debt, and emotional toll of constantly seeing the worst sides of human beings.
The #1 reason why med students drop out of med school is mental health issues. Suicide is the #1 cause of death in med students and medical residents. Doctors have a higher suicide rate than military combat veterans.
Before your daughter commits to pre-med, she needs to shadow some doctors to see what their day-to-day life is like. Have her read this article as a start The Moral Crisis of American Doctors
FWIW, I agree with @thumper1 , find a college where your daughter will thrive and be happy. She can focus on pre-med once she has a bit more experience with the realities of what a medical career entails.
In CA, 16 year olds can take CNA classes and get certified to work with patients. If your daughter is serious about pursuing medicine, this might be a way of getting some hands on exposure to the career.
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reading about the blood and guts - might forensics be a good choice for this student as well?
Autopsies can be only done by board licensed pathologists (MD/DO specialist)
Forensics is more chemistry/biochemistry than blood and guts.
If you really want to see blood & guts–try undertaker/mortician/embalmer. They remove all the blood and guts from a body as part of the preparation for burial.
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You know a lot about really gross things 
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LOL!
SIL’s best man was just here for a visit. He’s a funeral director (which is the more polite term used nowadays). His stories are absolutely a match for the grossest stories my daughters have told.
We checked out many of the UCs last summer and realistically, I know admission will be challenging for her at many (most?).
She hated Cal Poly SLO. When the tour guide talked about the cool class where you help birth cows or horses, she looked at me like a prisoner of war. Because the school is surrounded/abuts hills, it looks and feels more isolated than it really is which also gave her the impression the school is rural. She just couldn’t get over her first impressions (although maybe with a year passing she’s forgotten how desperate she was to get off campus? 
). Total bummer because we have family in the area.
I would love CSU recommendations especially for any campuses that feel more residential. I started my college experience at a large state public with a commuter reputation and it had a major negative impact on the campus culture. Ideally, I want my kids to experience a more traditional residential campus. I worry CSUs may be a little big for my perfect vision of college for her but I know we won’t hit the entire wishlist. If it’s by a beach, that would be something I could hype.
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Washington college in Maryland. The only thing it doesn’t fit is that it is rural. But has the cutest downtown with a cute farmers market you can walk to from campus. Biology dept is great. Professors are what makes this school shine. No one falls through the cracks here. Last year they had 100% acceptance into dental/medical/laws school and they typically hover around 90+%. The professors really want the kids to get into their grad schools and have pre-professional meetings, etc. LGBTQ friendly and Maryland is a progressive state. Collaborative, research opportunities, and ability to discover new majors and double major. Don’t look at sticker price, they do give great merit and I know they are looking to attract kids from California.
As for mental health, one idea is to try to find a therapist close to the school before they start school and have them go weekly starting the first week. even before any issues arise. Hard to find one mid-mental health challenge.
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These are some of the WUE schools classified as residential campuses that I’d take a look at (and obviously, the first three are in-state for you). Some may be too rural…I didn’t really eliminate for that here:
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Cal Poly: Humboldt: About 5400 undergrads
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Cal State Chico: About 13k undergrads
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Cal State: Monterey Bay: About 6700 undergrads
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Central Washington: About 9600 undergrads
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Fort Lewis (CO): About 3400 undergrads
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U. of Montana: About 7600 undergrads
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Western Colorado: About 3200 undergrads
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Western Oregon: About 3600 undergrads
I will think more on private colleges in the west and other schools which might be a fit in other areas of the country.
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She does have accommodations on file, however, she only uses the ability to type assignments/assessments vs handwriting. Regardless, Med school would be 5-6 years away. A lot of growth and change can and, likely will, happen between new and then.
I mentioned med school to explain her future “plan”. I don’t consider it a major factor in her undergrad decision process.
I’m most definitely not one of those parents who says, “my kid is going to be a doctor!” When people ask her plans and I’m in the conversation (or someone asks me her plans), she/I say bio undergrad then med school and I immediately say “but college is a time to explore and people discover other paths”. I honestly don’t think it’s the best fit for her and straddle the line between telling her she has the capacity to succeed if she works hard and explaining to her the boring/frustrating parts of medicine.
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Thanks for the recommendations. We’re looking at each option although schools in southern states are basically off the table.
I’m confused why you think the meets need schools are out. Both for my '23 HS grad and after my initial investigation for my daughter, the meets need schools have almost always been cheaper than the UCs and on-par with the CSUs (Carnegie Mellon would have been $8-10k cheaper than a UC if my kid got off the waitlist). I know the new FAFSA formula is a wildcard but I have a hard time accepting the numbers will change dramatically.
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Thanks for the firsthand account! That is great info.
Among CSUs, SLO, San Diego, Sonoma, Monterey Bay, Humboldt, and Chico may be more residential (but most of those are more rural). Some others like San Jose and Pomona have a mix of residential and commuter students.
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In heading further east, these are some schools that you may want to consider that seem to offer a wider range of majors (including in the health fields), should your daughter not opt for bio (or pre-med):
- Bradley (IL): About 4300 undergrads
- Merrimack (MA): About 4100 undergrads
- Nazareth (NY): About 2100 undergrads
- North Central (IL): About 2400 undergrads
- Siena (NY): About 3500 undergrads
- St. Michael’s (VT): About 1400 undergrads
- U. of Hartford (CT): About 4k undergrads
Some other schools (some already mentioned by others) that might not have as much pre-health majors, but that would still merit some consideration include:
- Connecticut College: about 1800 undergrads
- Drew (NJ): About 1600 undergrads
- McDaniel (MD): About 1800 undergrads
- Skidmore (NY): About 2700 undergrads
- SUNY Geneseo: About 4500 undergrads
- SUNY Potsdam: About 2400 undergrads
- Wheaton (MA): About 1700 undergrads
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The gpa. Most those schools you need to be tippy top. Maybe an ED to Bates or F&M.
But since you want her out west - no ED.
Mainly I don’t think she’s likely to top schools and those are typically the meets needs.
Don’t forget - a WL doesn’t mean they were close to getting in. Schools Wl far more than they admit and enroll. Cmu WL nearly 9k kids. Only 3873 originally accepted for admission so they put nearly triple the admitted student count on WL . They make kids think they had a shot. It’s false and unfair. Now 43 were offered spots off the wl but for most the WL is not a sign of possible acceptance. It’s a hedge for the school to ensure enough revenue. And many are need aware which means likely full pay will be the ones getting off if any do.
In this case I don’t think your student gets into these type schools but bates is huge on ED. And of course I’m not an AO. just my guess.
I was concerned about my oldest kid heading off too (she had a time with ADHD/depression in HS with some rough grades). In her search, she focused on liberal arts colleges because they prioritize teaching, typically have a low student/teacher ratio, and are well suited for kids who have a wide range of interests. And after being at a crazy competitive HS, she focused on colleges that had a student body that emphasized collaboration along with the intelligence. I made her connect with disability services after acceptances at each college that was considering and she also connected with students that had ADHD to discuss their experience.
Wheaton College MA was on the final list. In addition to Smith, check out Bryn Mawr and Mt. Holyoke. Campus Pride is a good resource for ideas as is the Colleges That Change Lives list. I wish there were more LAC’s out this way - there are big state schools and religiously affiliated ones and a handful of very popular LAC’s. There ended up being a lot of non-CA schools.
In any case, Year 1 for college went really well. In hindsight, high school was not the best fit, add in Covid, and it made everything so much worse. Anyway, if you live near a major airport, some colleges are closer time-wise than some CA colleges. Most schools on the semester system have decent breaks built into the schedule so she was away no longer than 7 weeks at a stretch.
Coming from CA, your kid may find more interest/money in colleges that are located in the states that have veered to a hard right - just as an FYI. Between IUD’s, birth control pills, condoms, plan B, and the scheduled returns to CA, the risk seemed manageable, although these states would be a no-go if my kid were trans. Your risk calculation may vary though.
Good luck!
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Avoiding pregnancy doesn’t eliminate all concerns, though. There’s the issue of all the lifesaving or pain-relieving interventions that can be delayed or withheld over the concern that a young woman could be pregnant. And it’s not just the individual student; it’s everything that could happen within their friend group. I sent a daughter to Texas for college, 10 years ago, but I don’t feel the same about it anymore.
But anyway. St. Olaf, in Casserole Country ( 
) could be well worth a look. It’s less urban than Macalester and a slightly easier admit, but still meets need, and is excellent for sciences & pre-health. It’s a little bigger than most private LAC’s, with 3000 undergrads. (And nearby Carleton has 2000 more, with cross-registration.) Technically it’s considered rural, but with two colleges in the same town, and Minneapolis less than an hour away, it isn’t that isolated, and there are lots of 3.5hr direct flights between MSP and SoCal. Performing arts are top-notch there, and it would be a solid match to low-match for her stats.
Another change-of-scene possibility would be Gonzaga in Spokane. 5000 undergrads, and much sunnier weather than on the Seattle/Portland side of the Cascades, and 4 seasons, with 44 inches of snow a year on average. It’s technically sorted as “urban,” but I don’t think it’s what an SoCal kid thinks of when they picture urban! (Much less urban than other west coast Catholic U’s like USF, Seattle U, LMU.) They don’t guarantee that they’ll meet need, but I think she’s likely to get enough merit to fill any gap. As a Jesuit school, it’s pretty good in terms of LGBT-friendiness, with a 4/5 Campus Pride Index rating. And there are 2.5hr nonstops between SoCal and Spokane.
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