Hi!
I’ve recently been admitted to UCLA as a pre-psychobiology major, UC Berkeley as a psychology major, UNC as an in-state honors student with the Accelerated Research Program, and Georgetown as a student in the College.
If I’m planning to study Psychology on a pre-med track, which of the above schools would be the best option (disregarding cost as a factor)?
Some of the factors that are most important to me include access to internship and volunteering opportunities, social life/campus culture, class sizes/building professional relationships with professors, a wide variety of clubs (entrepreneurship, music, dance), and a South Asian community.
(Note: I am currently looking into the Early Assurance Medical School program at Georgetown as well!)
Additionally, if you attend a certain school for undergrad, do you have a higher chance of getting into that school’s med school compared to other schools of the same tier?
Any insight would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you!
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Are you a in state for UCLA and Berkeley?
Nope! I live in NC, so I’m in-state for UNC!
They are all great options but I doubt you can beat the cost of instate for UNC CH. can you pay for these other colleges without taking out loans?
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I’m applying for grants at the moment!
If cost isn’t an important factor, however, which college would you recommend?
Since cost should be a factor for a pre-med student, in that money saved during undergraduate can be applied to medical school to reduce the debt at the end of medical school ($400,000+ cost for four years of medical school), it makes sense to choose your in-state UNC for undergraduate. It will also give you easier travel to interviews at the lower cost NC medical schools if you make it to the point of applying.
Since most frosh pre-meds never do apply to medical school, and most who do apply get shut out, it makes sense to evaluate undergraduate colleges for desirability for you in the case you do not go to medical school (i.e. which would you prefer to attend and graduate from without medical school in the picture?). But then you can add the additional pre-med criteria of lower cost and access to pre-med extracurriculars and medical school interviews to your college choice formula.
Now, if $700,000+ for your undergraduate + medical school is pocket change for your parents, you may be able to disregard cost as a factor. But that is not the case for most aspiring pre-meds.
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If you are applying for grants you do not have the luxury of “disregarding cost as a factor”. As @ucbalumnus pointed out, unless you have $$$ for both UG + med school, you have to consider cost.
All the debt you rack up in UG will rack up interest while you are in med school- on top of the debt & interest you rack up in med school. I know a doctor who finally cleared her debt around the time her own daughter started med school. In the meantime, every part of her life choices was colored by the need to keep up those payments: where they lived, what car she drove, where her kids could go to college.
You have an amazing opportunity at UNC: it’s a top-tier school, and the ARP is great. For everybody, their in-state med school is their best bet, as most preference in-state students over OOS students.
TBH, even if cost wasn’t a factor, I would put UNC over the others for a pre-med, but the bottom line is that for a student looking at debt it really is a no-brainer.
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It’s APRIL 17…getting very late to look for grants now for the 2021-2022 academic year.
UNC CH is a fabulous flagship research university. Your instate costs should be favorable. Go there is my vote.
Save your money especially since it sounds like you didn’t get sufficient aid from Georgetown…and the UCs don’t give much aid to out of state students so you should expect to be $65,000 a year full pay there.
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If Georgetown isn’t affordable without loans, then UNC. 
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