<p>Has anyone been afraid of attending large, well known state schools such at UMich, UT-Austin, etc. due to the huge classes, harsh curves, etc.? </p>
<p>If so, did you end up choosing the large state school or did you go to another school (either top tier private or lower tier state such as going to Texas A&M instead of Austin, etc.)?</p>
<p>Did you regret the choice? Were your fears irrational? What worked out in the end? Were the weed out classes not that bad after all?</p>
<p>I was a little nervous, turned out to be no big deal. Found a group of friends in the dorm I was living in, found that most people don’t go to office hours so I never had a problem meeting professors, found that the harsh curves weren’t really harsh at all.</p>
<p>Viggy, although A+M has a more campus feel to me compared to UT, it is HUGE. Heck, Texas Tech is HUGE. Compared to what many would consider a large state school, all 3 of these Texas schools are certainly in the upper-echelon of UG enrollment. </p>
<p>As to your broader question, you need to “know yourself” and where you think you’d do your absolute best. It may be better to be at UT-Dallas (or a similar school) if state schools in Texas are the best for you and big schools just aren’t your cup of tea. If finances are the reason for looking at IS schools, and you’d prefer a smaller school but still a flagship-type uni …lots of Texas kids head to Oklahoma, Arkansas and Ole Miss (all 3 substantially smaller). If you want an even smaller environment (like my D did), lots of Southern LAC’s in the TOP 100 are usually affordable with merit aid for Top Texas students. I can get you a list. ;)</p>
<p>OK, U of M is by far my top choice. I’ll just wondering if the curves, large classes, etc. are to be feared. Other than those things, U of M offers everything I could possibly want and more. I would love to attend but the curves, etc. scare me. So, I’m wondering, is it wise to just go to U of M and work really hard or ‘go down the ladder’ to a school like Michigan State or Wayne State? </p>
<p>(This is from the perspective of a really good student, not a slacker, etc.)</p>
<p>So, if any of you have been to schools like U of M, UT-Austin, and such state schools (solid academically, but very big) could you relate your experiences? Did you manage to do well in the premed track? Were the curves not big deals? Did the large class sizes affect your grades?</p>
<p>@mmmcdowe, could you post or PM me what state school you went to and when you went? I appreciate your post too. Thanks.</p>
<p>ASU class of 09</p>
<p>i dont think i would choose a school because of its curves and stuff. sure take it into account, but dont overthink it. based on what my friends from ut austin tell me, it really is not bad at all. </p>
<p>curm, do you live in dallas? it’s nice to see someone mention ut dallas and not say anything negative about the school</p>
<p>No but I live about 2 hours away. I was making what appears now to be an incorrect assumption about the OP’s state of residence. He faked me out. ;)</p>
<p>It appears OP will likely ‘go blue’ (U of Michigan?) rather than ‘go orange’.</p>
<p>There is a frequent CC contributor whose child went to U of M and then transferred to a private college, taking premed classes at both places. If I remember what she once posted correctly, she thinks it is not harder to be a premed in U of M than in the private college. The fact is that premed is not easy at any school.</p>
<p>If your child was from a large competitive public high school and did reasonably well there, I think he or she could survive well at either place. I think the top 10-15 kids (out of 600) from my child’s high schools (which is a top public school, with like 30-40 National Scholar Semifinalists each class) generally have no problem in getting into an in-state public medical school eventually. (I knew very little about the kids from top prep schools.) Well…It may be too arrogant for me to say the above, as my kid has not gotten into any medical school yet, even though he is a top-10 kid from his public high school and a top 10% kid from his private college.</p>
<p>At UT the grade distribution all depends on the professor. If you use myedu you can see that for every subject there is a good professor or two who gives a ton of As so just get in their class and you will be fine</p>
<p>
This actually points to a potential advantage of going a large school where many professors may teach the same subject, and not all professors may grade in the same way. A good (or bad) aaspect of this is that those poor premeds are busy scheming on from which professor he should take the class.</p>
<p>When you go to a very small school, the class may be taught by the same professor. Some class may be even offered every other year. There are not many electives – You can not play the game of taking the “easiest” electives for your upper-division classes any more.</p>
<p>Welcome to the somewhat disgusting world of “grade efficiency” game in the premed life at many schools. The definition of “grade efficiency”: maximize the grade while minimizing the efforts. Once you are sure you could make an A on a subject, stop doing additional work on this subject and work on either other subject or your ECs. Some poster here (e.g., Sakky?) posted in the past that going to a school where too many professors are overly demanding (a XXX engineering major at a major tech school) MAY not be always good, because you do not have time for ECs – then you may run the risk of being labeled as “only good at academics” or “not rounded.”</p>
<p>^That’s an interesting point. Would you know if U of M falls into that category of being a demanding school in which professors demand a lot out of students? Would U of M be a good school to sort of play the ‘grade efficiency’ game at?</p>
<p>So, I talked to a friend and said friend said that you can’t choose profs and such. You can only choose the course. Is that true? Is there actually a way to find out which profs are easiest? Is it unwise in any way to sort of ‘take the easy way out’?</p>
<p>Pros of large state schools: 1. tons of below average students-> meaning you’re on top of the bell curve!! 
(on top as in to the right …by SD of +2 or +3…) 2. Great place to involve yourself in campus organizations (extracurriculars)</p>
<p>Cons: you have to deal with lots and lots of idiots.</p>
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<p>This doesn’t always hold true, it depends on the relative strength of the cohort in the large public vs. the small private. And particularly for a top public like UM, a student might have a harder time getting top grades at HYP, but an easier time at a 4th tier private.</p>
<p>One benefit of a large public that hasn’t been mentioned is the range and frequency that classes and sections that are offered. Many smaller schools offer fewer classes and less often. So where a large public might offer a common class ever semester and a more specific one yearly, a smaller college might give the common class once a year and the less common one every other year. And my D1 found that although courses were offered, there was only 1 section at her 5k private, while there would have been several sections offered at the 25k public she attended. So, since she had to take relatively specific science courses each semester, it tended to limit the other courses that she was able to take due to scheduling conflicts. This might have been made more of a problem for her since she was a non-science major. </p>
<p>I don’t think there’s any hard and fast rule about big vs. small school being better for premed, just depends on the student and the situation, there are always pros and cons.</p>
<p>viggyram, consider honors colleges at large state universities including UT. (UT has several honors programs depending on what you are interested in.) At every univiersity with honors college students, they get first dibs on class registration, preferred housing, smaller classes especially in liberal arts and sciences rather than the 200+ student intro classes, etc. Along with UT, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, OU, Mississippi, Arkansas (funded by Walmart money) all have well-established honors colleges so you have a smaller group of excellent students and faculty as an anchor in a large, diverse state university.</p>
<p>lonestar dad is correct. </p>
<p>Many top med schools highly respect Honors Programs from well-known state schools. These Honors Programs usually have well established pre-med advisors who guide students into Harvard, Hopkins, Duke, UPenn, Vanderbilt, etc… I would rather attend a large state school for their excellent Honors Program and extracurricular opportunities than spend 4x the amount going to a small private school.</p>
<p>Ann Arbor is such a nice place to be. If you can afford paying (maybe in-state), go for it.</p>
<p>cys19,
It appears to me that most Med. Schools are concerned with your GPA + MCAT, name of your UG seems to be highly irrelevant according to my D’s experience (she has been accepted to few highly ranked Med. Schools).</p>