Help Me Choose A College!

These are the things that I want in a college:

  • good academic program for a student wanting to go into the healthcare field (medical, dental, pharmacy, etc. I’m not completely sure which I want to go for yet)
  • in a city or near a city preferably. I just don’t want to be in a very rural area
  • a lot of things to do on or near campus (for having fun like parties, clubs, concerts, festivals and for internship opportunities, research, jobs, etc)
  • big on sports and has tons of school spirit (need to be D1 school)
  • great social scene
  • workload not too hard. able to balance academics and social life. work hard play hard attitude
  • preferably decent dining hall since I am a huge foodie. if not, at least a lot of good restaurants around campus
  • transportation is somewhat decent. able to go around town. (preferably the school has a transportation system that is possibly free with a student ID or something)
    It would be great if you guys could help me build a college list. I have a few in mind already but wanted an input on what others think. I am a first generation student and struggling with the college process so anything would help! Please give me a list of reach, match, and safety schools. I have in mind some reach and match schools but I would like to know if there are any safety schools that I could possibly get a full ride merit scholarship since I am leaning towards going to the school that will be giving me the most scholarship money.
    My stats are 3.9 UW GPA (my school does not do weighted) and SAT 1510. I have taken 3 AP’s so far and thinking about taking 3 more.
    Anything will help! Thanks.

this is an easy one.

reaches: Michigan
matches: Wisconsin, Pitt

College budget?
State residency?

One issue that I see in your post:

“good academic program for a student wanting to go into the healthcare field”

There are a large number of universities that have very good premed programs. The premed classes will overlap with classes taken by biology majors, animal science majors, pre-vet students, and some other majors or intentions as well. Note that premed and pre-vet are not majors. You can major in any of a long list of subjects and take the premed or pre-vet requirements.

At least to me it seems that if you want to go into health care, you are going to be in some classes full of premed students. This means that you will be in some very hard classes competing with very strong students. These very strong students will be committed to getting very high grades in very tough classes. This much is good. Even if you go into marine biology, or dentistry, or nursing, you will still be in some of the same classes. For example, one nurse that I know tells me that premed organic chemistry is the only C that she ever had in her entire life.

“workload not too hard.”

This is where I see a problem. Premed classes are going to be tough at any of the top 200 universities and colleges in the US.

Your unweighted GPA and excellent SAT score suggests that you absolutely can do this. Do not expect it to be easy.

What state are you from? What is your budget?

For most of us, our in-state universities are going to be strong for a broad range of subjects leading to healthcare. Also, for many healthcare careers you would be best off if you can to limit the amount of debt that you need to take on to attend university. Also, you need to budget for more than 4 years for many (not all) careers in health care.