<p>After being caught up in the yearlong college admissions process, I have just received the last of my college decisions. I have been admitted to some instate schools (Univ. of Florida & Univ. of Miami) but am mainly considering my out of state options: UCLA, Duke and Washington and Lee. </p>
<p>I received the Johnson Scholarship at W&L which covers 100% of tuitions, room, board, books personal expenses, etc. for four years. I have also received generous financial aid from Duke, which make an undergraduate education completely affordable for my family. UCLA is a bit more pricy, but there is a possibility of receiving a scholarship later on...</p>
<p>Given this, I am trying to decide on the best school at which I can pursue a pre-med undergraduate major. While I ultimately want to get into medical school, I also want an enjoyable and balanced four years of undergrad education. What are your thoughts on this and what school would you recommend?</p>
<p>I don’t know enough about all your choices. However, since you mentioned that Duke made it affordable for you, I will through in a word for Duke. My friend’s D graduated from Duke with a 3.7 GPA and a 37 MACAT and is at UPenn med school. She used to talk about all the great opportunities for pre-meds at Duke (Duke Engage ?) and the excellent advice she got from her pre-health folks.</p>
<p>Thank you for telling me! It seems like Duke has many opportunities for undergrads and definitely a lot of success in sending students to med school. The one thing tilting the scales in favor of W&L is the fact that it gave me such a big scholarship, where as duke would cost around $12,000/yr.
There is hardly any difference in their academics, stats etc. but the biggest difference is that W&L is a small (but ‘prestigious’ enough) liberal arts college while Duke obviously has the reputation and is a larger science, engineering and research school… Whew, so torn and unable to decide!</p>