Future Pre-Med Student; Need Helping Deciding Where To Go; Too Many Options

Here are my options and the cost.

Accepted: (College and yearly cost)
Emory University $55,000 (Received no financial aid)
Oxford at Emory University $50,000
University of Georgia $10,000 (After Hope/Zell Miller + Applied for Honors)
Mercer University $17,000 (Merit Based Scholarship + Possible Guaranteed Admission to Medical School)

Ohio State University $20,000 (Merit Based Scholarship)

Deferred:
Georgia Tech $10,000 (After Hope/Zell Miller)
Michigan Ann Arbor $50,000

Waiting for:
Wake Forest: $60,000
UNC Chapel Hill: $50,000

To explain myself a bit, I am a Georgia Resident and I know I want to go to Medical School and Pursue a career in medicine. I have received quite a few options and honestly don’t know what would be the best for me. Emory was hands down my first choice but due to the extreme tuition, it is unlikely I will go there unless I see the value. I am currently debating between OSU and UGA. I want to know which will prepare me best for the MCAT and to get into Medical school.

Please give me all and any advice.

All of those places can prepare you well for the MCAT. Truly, you can pick the one that is going to be cheapest for you, and save your money for med school tuition.

Go to Georgia; it will do just as good a job getting you to medical school as OSU (or any of the other schools listed). You should spend as little as possible if you intend to go to medical school (unless your family is so wealthy they won’t notice a few hundred thousand more or less).

I would pick Georgia or Emory out of your list. However, I believe you will find success at any of these schools. They are all great schools.


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want to know which will prepare me best for the MCAT and to get into Medical school.

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Undergrads do not prepare you for the MCAT. The premed prereqs are basic run-of-the-mill bio chem physics math classes
nothing unique or special about them.

Go to UGa

Agreeing with the advice to pick UGA, unless one of the schools you are waiting on comes through with a phenomenal full scholarship. Ohio State is twice as much and the two universities are similar; you’ll get a great education at UGA and the pre-med prerequisites are the same. Besides, if you go to med school, where you went to undergrad won’t matter.

I definitely wouldn’t pay full freight at Emory if you had the option of UGA or Ohio State for much cheaper.

I got better MCAT scores after attending a state flagship school than many HSYPM students did. It’s all about your personal preparation. Get an MCAT book early so you can see what depth of study is required in the basic courses to do well on the test. It’s really nothing special.

Thank you so much, I really appreciate all the advice. This definitely helps rule out a majority of my options.

I’d give serious consideration to Mercer if it were to come with guaranteed med school admissions. Otherwise, unless money is no object, I’d agree with the others about Georgia. You don’t want big loans. If your folks save money, will they use it to help with med school costs?

And you can still wait to hear from GT, which is the same price as UGA, in which case you will have a true choice to make.

Med school is probably going to run $200K, so you want to spend as little as possible with UG tuition, unless you like massive debt or you are a Rockefeller.

For med school I would suggest UGA since it is the least costly. I’d also pick UGA over tech because you need a high GPA for med school.

A motivated student can be a competitive candidate for med school from just about anywhere. The key, though, is to understand the whole process from the start because there are things you need to be doing pretty much from frosh year on. Read thru the very informative FAQ at http://www.rhodes.edu/hpa/15890.asp They also have a nice writeup in the PreMed Essentials link on the left side of that page. There is also an excellent online handbook at Amherst I recommend to get an understanding of the process and what really matters

One thing to avoid is placing any importance into acceptance numbers. Some schools boast incredible rates, but it boils down to one of two things. Either they start with great students (think Stanford, etc) or the school weeds out students. Look out especially for the “committee letter” which small schools with average students coming in wield like an axe to prevent all but the strongest applicants from applying right out of college; to no surprise, they often boast 90% or better med school “acceptance” numbers for their undergrads. Soon a regular poster will chime in to recommend one such school, Holy Cross.

I always ask kids that say they want to be doctors, why an M.D? Not that I know it is wrong for you, it may be the right fit, but have you actually looked into the medical field and considered the alternatives? From the day you start college it will be 11-15 years before you are a practicing doctor, depending on what field you go into. In other words, think back to 1st grade; all those years since then matches the minimum it will take to become a practicing doc! Its almost a reflex action among HS kids, they think of a career in medicine and its “I’m pre-med!” Doctors are far from the only ones in the health field that help people. Physical therapists, radiology techs, nurses, speech pathologists, to name but just a few. Before you go heavily into debt and commit so many years I suggest you explore the alternatives.

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For med school I would suggest UGA since it is the least costly. I’d also pick UGA over tech because you need a high GPA for med school.


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very true

Mikemac is on the money here. Note the medical schools (unlike many other graduate schools) don’t care where you did your undergraduate education. It’s about GPAs and MCAT scores, followed by letters of rec (that ‘committee letter’) and demonstrated commitment to the field (through the usual mix of research, volunteering, shadowing, etc
)
So save your money and minimize your debt. And if any of these schools comes with a guaranteed admission to med school, you may want to jump on it because it will greatly reduce your stress level. Where you go to medical school isn’t hugely important either unless you are looking for a career in academic medicine or research. All US medical schools produce competent doctors.

One last word of advice: Your state of residence matters. Some states have a high number of state medical school seats relative to the number of pre-meds from their state and they protect those seats for those students. Georgia is one of those states, as I recall. Other states, like California, are net exporters of pre-meds because the number of seats available at state schools relative to the number of pre-med applicants is very very small. So if you are from one of those states that only admits state residents to their medical schools, make sure you don’t jeopardize your residence. Pay taxes in your state, register to vote in your state, register your car in your state: Do not be tempted to ‘change’ your state of residence as a student because usually you have to work in a different state for a minimum of two years before you will be considered a resident of that state and accrue the benefits of applying to their medical schools as an in-state resident.

Go to the place that you personally like and preferrably tuition free for you. Med. School is expensive, there is no reason to spend $$ for UG. med. School will not care which UG you went

Just to put the cost difference another way - the decision to go to UGA over emory and thus save 45k per year would probably cover literally the entire COA (i.e. including housing, food, etc) for 4 years at Medical College of Georgia (assuming you’re a georgia resident) or would cover the tuition costs for Mercer (but not living expenses).

If you like Mercer even without the guaranteed MD then i think that with the guarantee is the best but if you’re the kind of applicant who is getting into BA/MD programs, odds are you’ll be able to get into MD programs.

Look at the MCG Facebook page, you will see the schools that the students attended. UGA is definitely predominant there, and there is now a MCG school in Athens as well.

I am definitely starting to like the idea of going to uga and turning down my offer to emory. But I was just wondering when it comes to going to medical school, will going to a state school still make me competitive enough to go more well known schools like Emory, UNC, Duke medical, compared to schools like GRU medical.

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As long as your Gpa and Mcat are high, UGA is as good as Emory

Med schools won’t consider Emory to be “better” than UGa.

What will make you “competitive” is YOUR grades and MCAT, not any school’s name.