Hi, I am interested in doing pre-med at Emory.However, Emory is really expensive, accumulating to over 50K a year. Med school is also really expensive. In terms of cost analysis and affordability, would it be wise to go to a private school like Emory for undergrad and then med school OR go to a public school for almost free through scholarships and then med school?
Easy. Go public.
Yes, public makes the most sense. You don’t take the expensive private school unless you fall in a solid financial aid bracket, get offered merit aid (via the school or external) or are just very well-off (even then, it is questionable).
Sorry @bernie12 if I am kind of spamming posts you are on, but what exactly the point of doing pre-med at a top private like Emory vs a public? Wouldn’t it be much more difficult to obtain an acceptable GPA at Emory vs the public?
@cappex :
Long post because this is kind of complicated and definitely requires nuance and fairness
Usually many in the top 75% or those who come in with extraordinary backgrounds (plenty at elites), with extraordinary being IB (beyond the basic level of a subject) or several STEM AP’s (especially when they achieve 4/5) at a decent school can perform well if they work hard and don’t stretch themselves too thin (or are just extremely highly talented in STEM beyond what their HS transcript and SAT/standardized testing says…as in competition winners. Though these tend not to be pre-meds and these folks usually fly under the radar) courseload and EC wise. But I think many students are attracted to the amount of access to relevant EC’s and research and the “ease” of access…as in, for students at elite privates, it may be encouraged for even freshmen to get involved in research. In theory, courses “may” be better than some normal caliber publics so this can help on the MCAT. In STEM courses that are not so difficult, there is usually a nice grade inflation or distribution of points across the syllabus (largely owing to the fact that such courses may be smaller so may have more than just quizzes and exams factored into the grade). However, usually the MCAT benefit comes from the more challenging courses or instructors at said institutions and you will indeed have to compete much harder than you would elsewhere, especially if you are talking pre-med core or recommended courses. If you can achieve a decent GPA, 3.5+ at an elite, it can help with admissions outside of the top medical schools, but for top ones, it doesn’t matter much because they get an abundance of high GPA, high MCAT people from even the elites (including their own schools).
If one is to go a less rigorous school, it is best to take an honors college offer because this way, you have similar rigor as some top privates (if not much better. UMD College Park is such an example) but perhaps easier grading because of the classes are even smaller than most elite private R-1s so again, chances are even higher (than both core class in private and large public) that point distribution is not limited to high stakes exams. Perhaps the best option is a solid LAC which basically gives amazing science education, consistently smaller classes at more levels (including introductory), and awesome resources. Sometimes many R-1 top privates are basically like publics with many more “juiced up” courses and instructors rigor wise and the class size, especially at introductory levels are not so much better to make for much of a difference in access to faculty and/or performance of students. For example, general chemistry courses at even places like Stanford with great students and overall sky-high grade inflation end up being weedouts. Emory and some schools (like Rice, Duke, Harvard, and MIT, and even Stanford) attempt to mitigate some of this by teaching introductory courses in different formats if possible, but most schools are not much different from the standard public school experience at intro and intermediate levels, just with significantly more competitive student bodies.
What is more interesting is that people actually complain (or brag about) about the intensity of intro. and many intermediate courses at say, Berkeley or UCLA, but the reality is, a significant amount of the top 25 privates are a bit more intense for at those levels with respect to STEM (Berkeley does an excellent job with advanced courses in the life sciences…as does UCLA. Likely better than many top privates) and most have similar or better student bodies. So the rigor/intensity trade-off is real at the beginning of the track where confidence in one’s own ability usually will determine if they will continue in STEM or pre-med for that matter. Sadly many students at such schools will resort to just taking easy professors for all STEM and non-STEM courses which kind of defeats the purpose of attending, but it becomes an almost necessary evil balancing act.
Among students at elites who do not take this route and are not perfect but also not ultra gung-ho on only placing into top medical schools, the strategy appears to be: Get good and rigorous instruction for pre-med core courses and med. school recommended courses (for both learning’s sake and to make MCAT study easier) and then find some easy sciences (this is the biggest and most well-played trick in the book and is very easy to do if you are say…a biology major. There are always easier than normal instructors or simply courses whose content is not that challenging to grasp that can be taken as electives and sometimes they end up fun as well so that doesn’t hurt) and non-sciences (or simply ones they will enjoy topic wise) to balance out the schedule. This way if a class (say, ochem or physics) doesn’t go as well as intended, you have a buffer for both the overall and science GPA. You basically get to have the best of both worlds (good teaching, learning MCAT or basic science relevant courses at a high level but also keeping a good GPA). Another strategy is to enroll in a certain amount of research hours as apparently the clearinghouse (AAMC I think) will count it in the science GPA. I am not sure what those who read the secondary applications do with that, but it at least helps one get the secondary by providing an artificial boost to the science GPA (often, research for credit guarantees students an A barring something going horribly sour between the PI and student or whoever is supervising students enrolled in the course).
@bernie12 Now that is what I call an in-depth answer right there. Makes a LOT more sense now… The part that stood out to me was the option that some students take to merely take easy professors. While it can be strategic, it seems like a waste of money and, like you said, isn’t exactly helping the MCAT. Plus, why even go if you are not going to learn? They must merely want a fancy college name with a only a GPA to show for their education, not actual knowledge…
@cappex : The last sentence is a huge fallacy of an elite “education”…the education part is optional. It’s a problem at most elites. The best they can do is keep a stronghold of academic tracks and serious instructors who want to cater to students who willing to, I guess, take the risk of learning at the level the school advertises to educate at. I feel Emory does a decent job there and the level of buy-in among students is okay. There are several courses for which the more intense sections are most popular and usually those teachers are generally well-respected in the Emory community (among UG’s and faculty members) at large. What superelites like Harvard, MIT, etc have done in STEM education especially, is perfect “consistency” in the sense that it is very difficult to avoid rigorous instruction for a course (the only weakness is the large section sizes that result. Instead offering like 5-6 sections of say, general biology at those places, which is what Emory does, they will just offer 1 section that is taught by a challenging instructor or a team of instructors. Emory has: relatively small section sizes compared to other elites, but rigor differences between instructors are much like night and day. 1 section is super-elite level and another may as well be a mediocre community college level instructor. That gap rarely happens are super-elites…there are gaps from offering to offering, just nowhere near as large)
Hi everyone, just going to throw in my two cents on this one. Yes, I have a son at Emory and he is NOT premed. I also have a child at a state school in CA where we live. The education at each of these schools is very different. The level of teaching, students, resources, classes and everything else is far, far superior at Emory. The state school is a revolving door of kids and adults entering, dropping, coming and going. Professors come and go. Some good, some terrible. My child at Emory has just finished his first semester and while the cost is daunting, based on how he has done academically, how his writing has improved, the extracurricular things he’s involved with and the caliber of the other kids - dedicated, focused, enthusiastic and intelligent - it’s worth every dollar to go to Emory if you can.
@EmoryMom2019 I Wish you were friends with my parents
Fully agreed. I have a junior at Emory and my younger one just got into Oxford. I think the biggest advantage of schools like Emory are the other kids, who drive each other and expect to achieve. Especially for talented kids, who lack some focus, an elite private is a great choice. For a dedicated, focused student, a good public might be quite sufficient. They’ll find their way anywhere.