That’s good intel @mom2collegekids
Check into AP credit policy for both schools. At Pitt you would get quite a few credits.
With your current AP scores you have possibly 30+ credits, and could get 40+ after this year.
https://oafa.pitt.edu/apply/ap-ib-credit/
There are some research focused bio lab options available to first semester freshman students at Pitt.
http://www.biology.pitt.edu/undergraduate/intro-research-courses
Congratulations on the Helen Faison Scholarship!
Since your scholarship at Pitt covers room and board, find out if your housing deposit of $325 is waived, and if you have guaranteed housing on campus for 4 years.
Yes to both.
Vandy’s premed acceptance rate is 66 percent. That is not encouraging for such a highly ranked private school. FWIW, ND and WashU, schools at Vandy’s level, claim an 80+ percent acceptance rate. .
https://as.vanderbilt.edu/hpao/documents/2014_Annual_Report.pdf
The counter argument is that the OP will probably not get to med school at either Pitt or Vandy, so Vandy might offer better non-med school opportunities than Pitt.
OP you have already shown you can beat the odds, earning two great scholarships to two solid schools.
I am not sure what profession your parents are in or perhaps those helping advise you personally. They should be your primary resources in this decision process,
Throughout life, your goal will not be to always minimize cost. Sometimes things that cost more will provide a greater return. That can include the college you attend. All schools are not equal and some will fit you better and help provide a better outcome.
Perhaps also if cost is a concern you can agree with your parents to have skin in the game and take student loans for $26,000 over the four years, effectively covering half of the cost difference between schools.
Congrats! You have some amazing opportunities. Word on the street is that Pitt goes out of their way to help you create some opportunities you may not get at other schools with research and such.
Will your parents be finding medical school also? If you took the full ride, how much do they say they would help for medical school?
Appreciate all the suggestions and kind words. My father is a physician and he said he is willing to help fund my education.
@mommdc I was thinking that I don’t cash in many of my AP credits so I can retake the equivalent courses in college so I will have a rock solid understanding of the subject, be ahead in the class, and hopefully do well in these classes to help boost my GPA.
@carachel2 I haven’t asked my parents specifically how much they will fund for medical school, but my brother is currently in medical school and my parents are only partially funding him, so he currently has some debt
Hmmm. That would definitely be something I would bring up! If taking the full ride means they will fund more $$ of medical school and you would have less debt then that’s something to consider.
Yes, it’s fine if you want to take Gen Chem 1 and 2 and Gen Bio 1 and 2. And med schools might expect you to take certain prerequisites in college, not from AP credit.
But you might still be able to use some of the other credits for English, Calc, History and Econ, and create some flexibility in your schedule, to study abroad, maybe pursue some additional interests.
Your advisor can help with that.
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Vandy’s premed acceptance rate is 66 percent. That is not encouraging for such a highly ranked private school. FWIW, ND and WashU, schools at Vandy’s level, claim an 80+ percent acceptance rate. .
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The devil is often in the details. We don’t know if Vandy lets anyone apply and/or if WashU and ND strongly discourage some from applying.
And, really, the acceptance rate isn’t really that relevant. Likely all of these schools have 3-4 times the number of frosh premeds than what actually end up applying to med schools.
the student needs to visit both and decide.
I’d definitely tour both because you have two very good schools at very affordable prices with your scholarships. I’d also add as a Pitt parent that there are many research opportunities available at Pitt if that is important to you. As well as support and advising from the Honor’s College, including assistance if you decide to pursue competitive international internships.
That is an interesting question. You can pull the total number of applicants from the following table. Note that this includes re-applicants, which in Vanderbilt’s case increased the total of applicants from the 180 first-time applicants.
https://www.aamc.org/download/321458/data/factstablea2-7.pdf
Vanderbilt - 280 applicants from an undergrad of 6,880 or 4.1%.
WashU - 393 applicants from an undergrad of 7,500 or 5.2%.
Notre Dame - 277 applicants from an undergrad of 8,450 or 3.3%.
Judging from the above and assuming that each schools starts out with the same percentage of premeds, ND seems to be restricting applicants the most, and WashU the least.
BTW, Pitt had 283 applicants, but I did not find anything about their success rate.
Agree with @mom2collegekids From what I have gathered some colleges will recommend all interested students for med school (group 1) and other colleges will go through a pre-approval process and only recommend students who they feel have a solid chance at being accepted (group 2). So while a school in group 1 may have a lower acceptance rate to med school, the college could actually have better overall results. Without knowing exactly what is in the numerator and denominator of any ratio the statistics and comparisons between schools are not all that valuable.
@Zinhead I don’t think I would judge it form the total undergrad population. For example ND has quite a large business school (over 2000 undergrads I believe) compared to 0 undergraduate business students at Vandy which may well mean that ND has a smaller percentage of undergraduates interested in med school. IMO you would need to find out how many students start off pre-med and how may eventually go to med school (which I’m guessing would be an impossible task).
@Zinhead Thanks for the data…
I still don’t think that indicates anything “bad” about Vandy.
What are the links for the ND and Washu rates?
These published rates can be so confusing. Some schools include DO schools in their reporting %'s.
@mom2collegekids - I don’t have links, but do remember that both schools claimed an 80+ percent acceptance rate when we visited.
I don’t know how this is even up for debate. Unless you hate the culture at Vandy - which is possible - go there. Med schools are much more likely to take kids from big name private schools. That’s just a fact. Premed admission rates are useless. You don’t know who is in the denominator. But I can tell you who is in the numerator.
When presented with a kid with a 3.9 from Pitt or a 3.6 from Vandy, who do you think med school admission comittees are inclined to take? The Vandy kid. I went to one of those big name private schools and I had a huge advantage in med school admissions. I had a ridiculous number of choices. It probably isn’t fair, but that is the way it is. I know a kid who recently got into a solid med school with a 3.15 from Stanford. Great published research, high MCAT, bad grades.
Most of the top end med schools are not impressed with Bio majors. They’re a dime a dozen. I double majored in Bio and Philosophy. The only thing my interviewers wanted to talk about was the Philosophy major. They know you have taken the premed courses. They know your grades in those courses. They are more interested in whether you can think outside the box. I shouldn’t have bothered finishing the Bio major. I should have studied abroad for a quarter instead.
Never mind
Personally, I believe Vandy is worth $15k over Pitt.