Hi! I’m a rising senior trying to finalize my list of schools. I’m trying to aim for a list of 12 and I already have a compilation that I really like. The problem is, I’m not sure that all of these schools will be fit for my future, the perfect size, price or what I want to study. To give you some background, I’m very interested in doing pre-med and political science/law. I’m a very high performing student at my school so I have a lot of pretty selective colleges on my list. I’m worried I don’t have enough safety schools, some of the schools might be too large to stand out at when I try to apply to medical school later on, some might have really harsh grading scales that I don’t know about and if I want to switch off of the pre-med track, I might have a hard time finding something I like. I have a 3.99 unweighted GPA, take lots of APs, have a pretty consistent interest in STEM across my high school classes and have been committed to my 4 main extra curriculars since 7th grade. I also volunteer and work in my community a bunch on the side. I’m looking for schools that are in urban environments, have a lot of change oriented people, have strong liberal arts and science sides, places that have lots of study abroad/research/internship opportunities, and places that I can also have a lot of fun at/be around chill people. I love warm climates, but its not a requirement. Here are the schools that are on my list right now:
University of Washington
Stanford University
Harvard University
University of Southern California
Tulane University
UCLA
UC Berkeley
UC San Diego
Duke University
Yale University
Johns Hopkins University
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
New York University
Brown University
I really just want help refining my list, finding about colleges I may not have known about and maybe reassuring some of the schools on my list. Thank you!
You have no safeties on your list and only a couple of high matches: USC and NYU. What is your state of residence? UC’s do not provide financial aid to out of state students.
Have you had the money talk with your parents? Sit down with them and run the Net Price Calculators at the websites of the places on your list. Have some soft tissues and adult beverages available in case they feel a sudden need for that.
You need at least one truly safe option. That is a place where you are flat-out guaranteed admission for your stats (fortunately, you have good stats), that you absolutely can afford, that has your likely major, and that you can be happy at if everything else goes wrong in the admission cycle.
Neither USC nor NYU are matches for anybody. On the other hand, U Washington is very definitely a match or low match for somebody with those stats who is applying as a bio major.
If the OP’s UC Weighted GPA is over 4.2, UCSD would be a low match, while UCLA and Berkeley would be high matches/low reaches.
My belief is that you start with finding out what your budget is. Then you find safeties.
Once you have two safeties lined up, then you can think about other schools to apply to.
“I don’t have enough safety schools”
“None” is indeed a valid example of “not enough”. Depending upon what state you are from you might have one safety on your list.
What state are you in? For many high stats students our in-state public universities are a good place to look for safeties.
There are literally hundreds of universities that are very good for premed. You might be surprised how demanding the classes are and how strong the other students are in premed classes at a university that is ranked somewhere between 50 and 100 in the US.
Law gets discussed here less often than premed. However, my understanding is that you can major in almost anything and then go to law school.
There are very few (if any) scholarships for law or med school (I am a lawyer, and my wife is a pediatrician). So, you should think about undergraduate costs since you WILL have professional school debt if that is where you are headed. Just something to think about. I have been practicing for eighteen years, and am successful. But, I still have twelve years on my law school debt (none on undergraduate or other graduate since I did those on scholarships and a Fulbright). The advice above about safety schools is spot on, but think about the debt. You don’t want to drag a lot of undergraduate debt to graduate or professional school as it can seriously limit your career opportunities as the debt has to be paid.
If you are looking for urban environments, what about George Washington or Boston University? Both would fit your criteria and may be good match schools.
You definitely need more target and safeties. Perhaps Syracuse or UMiami?
What is your state flagship school?
My home state is Washington so University of Washington is definitely a top one on my list. They accept around 50% of in-state applicants. In state tuition is $10,000 not including other expenses. I’ve had the money talk with my parents and I don’t qualify for any financial aid at any school (besides work-study programs which I think are open to anybody but students with greater demonstrated need are the first on call). A lot of these schools I have on here because they offer merit scholarships (UCs, UW, USC) and although they are hard to get, there’s a chance. With safeties, I don’t know what to look for and I’m having trouble (which seems really weird but I genuinely don’t know).
Below $55,000 for tuition is preferable (still pretty high but it’s up to that range that my parents would be willing to pay for a school that’s out of state (unless I happened to get into an Ivy or big name school by some chance).
The University of Washington is a really good university. Your great stats plus being in-state should give you a very good chance there. Your guidance counselor would know whether it counts as a safety. I think that I would apply EA (assuming that they have it) just to get a very strong acceptance early in the process, which should reduce the stress quite a bit.
I would be surprised if NYU comes in at a reasonable price. The Universities of California are likely to be at full price. I do not think that I would pay full price for UC San Diego if I could attend U.Washington at in-state prices, particularly if I wanted to save money for medical school. With UC Berkeley I think that it is a great school, but between the likelihood of it being full price plus grade deflation again I do not think that I would choose it over U.Washington.
UC’s offer little in merit aid. UC’s give good need based aid to in-state students. The most common merit scholarship is Regents and these are the amounts:
UC Berkley $2,500
UC Davis $7,500
UC Irvine $5,000
UCLA $2,000
UC Merced $7,000
UC Riverside $10,000
UC San Diego $2,000
UC Santa Barbara $6,000
UC Santa Cruz $5,000
Any school where you are aiming for merit will make it more of a Reach than your in-state options. California is one of the worst and most competitive states as a “pre-med” so I would stick with affordable options. School name is not important to the majority of Medical schools when you apply, it is your GPA, MCAT and what medical EC’s you have that are going to make you competitive.
Assume full price for the UC’s. UW is an excellent option.
Now you are starting to think. You are unlikely to qualify for much need-based aid. Your cap for the total cost of attendance is $55K (that includes tuition, room and board, fees, books, living expenses, etc.). That is a good number. However, based upon it your list is not realistic. While some of the universities you have listed offer merit scholarships, it is HIGHLY competitive. So, what makes you think that you are better than 99.99% of the rest of the applicant pool? That is a harsh way of saying, don’t bank of a merit scholarship to those schools. Luckily, you live in Washington. The University of Washington is an excellent public university (I wish it were affordable for my kids). It should certainly be on your list. That being said, you should look at other safety and reach schools. If you really want to practice law or medicine, then think about the geographic areas in which you might want to live. I would not consider the U. of California system. As an out of state student, they will gladly charge you full rate. Many programs are also impacted. For realistic merit scholarships based upon grades and standardized tests, you might consider Arizona, Arizona State, and Utah in the West. I am less familiar with Oregon, but it could be a possibility. If you are a National Merit Scholar, the the programs at Florida and Alabama are tough to beat. Other public universities with strong merit scholarship programs are Ohio State and South Carolina, but a lot depends on where you want to be. Some final advice. I went to Georgetown Law (many years ago). Many of my classmates did not go to top undergraduate colleges. They did well and scored high on the LSAT. I did the same. People may be impressed by the name on your diploma, but it means nothing if you didn’t learn anything and incurred a lot of debt.
There are some really good resources here if you’re considering med school in the future. The common theme is med school is very expensive so limit your undergrad costs. Also, GPA and MCAT scores matter more than where you attended for undergrad. Having access to medical internships and research is also a good idea.
If you need merit to attend consider the school a reach, especially this year. No idea how generous or not schools will be with merit scholarships versus need based aid. I don’t think Ivies give merit scholarships, only need based aid.
Isn’t Washington state part of the WUE? Maybe look there.
Went through the process last year with son. We set budget at $35k which is what our in-state options cost. About 1/3 didn’t offer much and COA would’ve been above $60k/year. Another 1/3 offered nice scholarships and COA would’ve been between $40-50k. The other third were generous and COA would’ve met our criteria or better. It really is a crap-shoot. Schools we thought would be generous weren’t and vise versa. The only school on his list that we would’ve gone over budget was Georgia Tech which is where he’s going…hopefully.