Emory Premed vs. Rutgers Honors Premed

College Search & Selection
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I don’t know either, but it’s entirely possible that students who went OOS but are still Mich residents make up the vast majority of the in state students who got accepted. Most med schools prefer to get a variety of undergrad locations in their class even if they have an in state bias. One would have to know how many students they accepted vs applied from their own school to see more of what the odds are.

If the student does well at JHU, I can see going there giving them a geographical boost on their app. This is dependent upon doing well, of course, but some students do. If the student had Top 25% stats going in and a good work ethic, they certainly have the foundation to be among those who do well. Not everyone who goes to top schools gets weeded out. Plenty who go to U Mich will get weeded out too. It’s not exactly a slouch of a school.

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@sbpowerz Many years ago, I faced a similar choice - full ride at Rutgers and Honors vs. top-ranked LAC. I chose Rutgers and it ended up being a great choice. I leveraged that undergraduate experience into acceptances to fully funded, prestigious graduate programs.

Also don’t underestimate the intellectual rewards of the Honors Program. Academically it was stimulating and innovative and I can only imagine it has become better with time as admission has grown more competitive. My classmates were interesting people and went on to varied, fulfilling careers - academia, medicine, law, architecture, art and art education, government, IT, etc.

New Brunswick is much nicer than it used to be and the Robert Wood Johnson medical complex offers ample opportunities. I’d follow both the money and the excellent opportunities that Honors affords.

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@mom2collegekids

This is our first child, and I have to admit, it’s a journey, and we are learning as we go. Of course he may change his mind, of course many things can happen, no scenario is with certainty.
However, the math is there: if everything goes as planned, we should save a lot of money on the long run. Even if he changes his mind, as an engineering grad. Maybe Rutgers is different, I don’t know.

“And it seems that you’re excluding the Mich med schools. Why?”

?!?! We are not excluding Mich med schools, on the contrary, the goal is to come back to a public in-state med school. UMich and Wayne are public, and within 25 miles from us (U mich is very close, same low price and much better ranked, hence the focus). For any other school we have to add rent and so on. The tuition at private schools in-state is as high as any private or out-of-state, there is no financial advantage! No school is excluded at this point, but only with a public in-state we could save money.

“Of the 7500+ applications, only 17% were instate (about 1275), but they received 46% of the seats. Contrast that to 6150 applications were from OOS, but they only received 54% of the 168 seats”.

My son is in-state, so this may come to his advantage. What about only “35.1% med students are (identifying as) males” in 2018 admittance stats? It may sound funny, but they really prefer girls…come on!
You can also look at it this way: out of the ~485 pre-meds at UMich, about 53% receive an acceptance letter from at least one medical school. From almost 600 in-house yearly applicants (the ~/+450 that apply to UMich senior year and more than 100 previous graduates) about 10% get a seat.
JHU has a smaller undergrad, with about the same number of pre-meds. 3 times more seats in the medical school (485), much better stats for admittance in general (over 80% with a pre-med track letter), a better percentage for retaining their own graduates, too. I couldn’t find out how many apply to UMich, or how many are Mich residents. I know though (from parents of med students at UMich and other local universities) that when UMich says they have X number of med students from Illinois and Maryland, they most likely graduated from UChicago, JHU or Northwestern :-? .

“Also, since it seems that med school is the goal, why would your son want to go to a Premed grind like JHU where he could more easily get weeded out”
I admit, this is a gamble, but a personal choice. This detail though has nothing to do with OP’s dilemma. If HS were to teach us something about our son, is that he thrives in a competitive environment and does not do so well in level grade classes. He is yet to get less than 100% at any STEM test. He A+ed only in classes famous to be the hardest. The “harder” the class, the more excited, happy and involved he is?!?!
It may also be a pride thing. From his group of wannabe pre-meds, one goes to Stanford SCEA, 4 were accepted at UPenn, one at Vanderbilt. The two odd ones without a T20 ED choice are now interviewing for direct med schools. Are we all wrong? There is a joke that goes around HS pre-meds: “If you work hard and get into U of M, the BEST thing that can happen to you is to end up at U of M. If you work harder and go to a T10, the WORST thing that can happen to you is to end up at U of M”.

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Not really grounded in reality, since many high school senior or college frosh pre-meds do not apply to medical school (perhaps because GPA or MCAT is too low), and fewer than half who do get any admission at all. So the worst case is also the most common case, of not getting into any medical school.

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@ljberkow - Wow, $275,000? This must be Emory vs Rutgers tag price, not OP’s case. Emory is famous for their acceptance rate in med schools, but $275,000 that you don’t have doesn’t leave much room for second thoughts.

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@Busybee01
I think you’re being hard on Umich. If you have a GPA of 3.5 and an MCAT of 30( I don’t know what that is on the new scale) the acceptance rate for any top school will be high. For Emory, it’s around 85%.

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Emory if you applied ED as it is unethical to break a binding contract. Rutgers for free if not.

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@astarcollege OP was released from the binding ed contract by Emory. It’s in a few precvious posts. It’s unaffordable and Rutgers is a 100 percent free option. Like being a big time athletic recruit, free.

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I had a typo…I meant to write that it seemed that you were excluding the OTHER Mich med schools. Those other than UMichMed…because your focus was on

Anyway…glad to see that you’re also considering Wayne. Aren’t there any other public meds in Mich??? What about Central Mich and MSU med schools??

Yes, it’s better ranked, but that doesn’t matter much for med schools. What is MSU ranked?

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@mom2collegekids I think @Creekland has a good point. The state med schools vary a lot (UNC which I’m familiar has a hard cap on non-state kids that is very low 18%) so they have to work hard at rounding out a class that is not 50% UNC undergrads. It sounds like UM is not nearly as capped as UNC but I bet 2 kids with same MCAT score and grades might have TINY advantage is from Hopkins vs UM. As you probably know Med schools like to emphasize MCAT scores, GPAs and where their kids come from. In NC I never even thought about this until I saw an out of state kid from an elite north east boarding school win the top UNC undergrad scholarship from our “county” since he was still an NC resident. So for a med school like UNC where only 18% can be non-residents it’s an easy way to diversify the class.

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Does that 18% rule apply to UNC’s med school? Because UNC’s med school is 20% OOS

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My understanding is the 82/18 rule only applies to undergraduate incoming freshman classes (policy 700.1.3 https://www.northcarolina.edu/apps/policy/index.php?tab=policy_manual), so would not apply to UNC’s med school (and I don’t see any separate policy for the med school regarding in vs out of state)

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@mom2collegekids @Mwfan1921 someone on the admissions committee told me there is an out of state cap. I assumed it was the same as undergrad cap. but I guess it could be different . per google
“UNC is required to limit the number of out-of-state students in each entering class of med students: only 20 students out of the class of 180 may be from states other than N.C.; the other 160 students are from N.C. However, applications from out-of-state students make up the vast majority of applications that the med school receives each year.” https://www.greensboro.com/blogs/the_syllabus/the-syllabus-getting-into-med-school-cont/article_50aedf88-f777-5d51-b3f4-adc30a4860f4.html

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oh yeah. ECU’s med school is 100% NC residents. @mom2collegekids is that 20% med students from undergrad institutions outside of NC, meaning some may be NC residents who attended an out of state college ??

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Yes, attending an out of state college doesn’t mean you’re no longer a resident.