I got into the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Connecticut and it’s honors program, both pre-med, now trying to decide between the two.
From what I’ve seen, Illinois is regarded as a more prestigious school, while UConn is known more for its renewed focus on its biology department.
So assuming I would stay in UConn’s honor program, would it look more attractive to future graduate schools and eventually employers if I went to a more prestigious school, or a less-so one but with honors?
Let me know if you’d like more information, and thanks in advance for any help you can offer, this decision is tough!
Most employers don’t really care much about either, frankly. But for the relatively few employers that do, it really depends on what kind of job you want to get. The answer will be different if you want to be a McKinsey consultant vs. simply wanting to work in a local boutique firm or a middle manager.
Given that you are pre-med, it doesn’t matter where you go to undergrad. Medical schools don’t care - what’s important is your GPA and your MCAT scores as well as the extracurriculars that go along with med school (research, shadowing, etc.)
Even if you change from pre-med, both UConn and UIUC are well-respected universities and I don’t think you’d have a problem getting a job from either of them.
It depends on the specific graduate program or employer. Medical schools generally care much more about your GPA. Be sure to consider cost (medical school is expensive, so saving money and avoiding debt in undergraduate can help reduce total debt by the time you finish medical school) and accessibility of pre-med extracurriculars.
No specific major is required to take the pre-med courses.