@citymama9 I have been trying to volunteer as much as possible. I’ve been volunteering a lot at my local children’s science museum and FFLC, an organization that repackages food to be redistributed to those in need, and plan to keep volunteering with organizations like this. I was told that volunteering in random places doesn’t really help so I’ve been trying to volunteer only with groups that will give me experience in working with children or those that help my community out.
Most important questions: do you know your EFC? Does your mother make less than 75k a year for instance? Less than 45k?
If the answer is ‘yes’, then you should aim for colleges that meet full need and in particular look at Questbridge (if admitted, guaranteed, 4-year full ride to a top school).
If the answer is no, can you list your EFC in this thread and ask your mother if she can afford it?
Do you have a college fund, a 529?
Most financial aid comes from the college itself. On each college’s website there’s a net price calculator. You need to run it for each college to see how much you’d have to pay. It’s very important you do such a thing for each college because each calculates differently. Then you being the results to your mother and ask what is affordable from her income and savings.
Compare UO, Pomona, St Olaf, Colby, Vassar, Dickinson, Brown. (Those are good for Premeds and they ‘meet need’.)
There are two types of aid: need-based (depends on your parents ’ income and assets) and merit-based (depends on your test scores, mainly).
If your mother can’t afford her EFC, don’t apply to ‘need only’ schools. You’ll need merit aid - which fortunately you’re well-positioned to get.
How do your scores compare to your school’s average?
When you’re not in school, do you take care of your siblings? Have a job to help your mother? Those 'count’as solid activities.
Regarding volunteering, what matters isn’t number of hours but impact. Can you prove with concrete facts/numbers that you made a difference (alone or with a team)?
Apply to UO’s honors college.
Med schools :
3/4 premeds never make it through the premed gauntlet that requires you to be top 10-20% at everything. Of those remaining, only 40% make it into even one med school. So, getting into med school, regardless of which one, is a win. In addition, the education is ‘flat’, all us doctors learn the same thing - the big difference is for residencies and fellowships. There are small differences between med schools but all of them are good. In addition, there are DO schools for physicians who want to specialize in primary care such as family medicine, holistic medicine, or rural medicine.
A good premed school is one that ‘weeds’ as little as possible, is mainly collaborative and supportive, has a lot of tutoring offered.
(In addition, a social life not based on Greek life and afferent drinking is helpful since it means there’s a social life Premeds can be part of - generally, Greek life takes a lot of time Premeds don’t have and if all your friends pledge it can be lonely whereas having a good support network is paramount.)
Med schools don’t know at first what you majored in or where you went to college (as long as it’s accredited). All they know is your GPA, your science GPA, your MCAT. A computer sorts through the thousands of applicants and cuts anyone below certain thresholds decided by the med school. Those lucky few are interviewed and there volunteering, experience, major… come into play.
You can major in anything as long as you are the best at it and take all the premed pre-reqs being too 10-20% in all.
The pre-reqs are : one semester each of calculus, biostatistics or statistics, sociology, psychology, biochemistry, a diversity-focused class; two semesters each of biology, inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, physics, and English (composition /writing, communication.)
I’ve seen Ethics /Philosophy, Anthropology, Intercultural communication, and Neuroscience recommended, and fluency in a language spoken by immigrants helps (especially if coupled with volunteer experience).
Be aware that five of the premed requirements are chemistry - related, and only two biology. Taking AP chemistry and AP biology helps, but if you can only take one I’d say AP chemistry.
Thanks, that really helps. But is UO really better than OSU for premeds? I’ve always heard that OSU had a superior veterinary and medical program. And also, what’s a good example of proving “with concrete facts/numbers that you made a difference?” I’ve volunteered at food banks/soup kitchens, a children’s science museum, and several events that I participate in with Key club and NHS. Would it be good to continue volunteering in these categories of work or should I expand and look for different types of volunteer work? Do colleges like you having a broad horizon of different type of work or being focused in certain things.
Have you run the Net Price calculator at the schools you’re considering? That would give you a reasonable estimate of what your cost of attendance would be, which would tell you whether the school (without merit scholarships) would be affordable.
There are some good reach suggestions upthread like Stanford, Duke, Brown, Emory, Carnegie Mellon. You might as well add Princeton and Yale, since they are in not-too-huge cities too and are outstanding. If you don’t mind a rural/small town environment, Dartmouth and Cornell might be worth considering too. Tufts is suburban and worth considering also. Notre Dame is in a small city. And the U of Virginia is one public school known for granting decent need-based financial aid to OOS students.
I think moving into the match-range options you might consider the aforementioned Wake Forest and U of Rochester, as well as schools like Brandeis and Boston College (suburban Boston) – high matches all – and more natural matches like the U of Miami (suburban Miami), Pepperdine, and Syracuse.
Your safeties are covered if you like and can afford your two state flagships, the homes of the Ducks and the Beavers.
I have read many times on this site that the things most important in med school admissions are GPA, research experience, and MCAT. But you also need to be able to afford it, so keep that in mind. Undergrad cost should be a very strong consideration.
for the top schools like Duke, any hook like URM, first gen in college, legacy, etc. could really help. Another thing to consider is these 7 or 8 year programs that will give you a bachelors and MD, with the advantage that you already have admission to the med school, don’t have to apply or take the mcat. It may be worth it if it reduces a year or semester of tuition. I know Pittsburgh and Case Western have it.
Yeah I’ve been looking into that accelerated medical program but I’ve heard it is CRAZY rigorous. I’ve read that people miss their summers just to study and graduate a few years earlier. I figured that would be too much for me and I would rather just relax a little more and just try to exceed and get accepted into medical school. Plus I 8 years away from my mother is a long time and I don’t think I could do that to her.
OU has a better honors college and better support, so it’s better for Premeds.
What’s your EFC?
Have you run the npc on all the colleges listed on this thread, and what were the significant results?
Can you answer the other questions in the post - those are important.
For example, if you’re not first generation /low income and/or do not have a job, your Ec’s make many colleges such as Duke etc not just reaches, but big reaches.
Measurable impact means tat you spearheaded something and made a difference in numbers of people served, quality of care, increasing the number of volunteers, etc.
@XAJL123, the information on this thread will be of interest. At least one contributor is a physician.
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1975536-feeder-colleges-for-best-graduate-schools-p1.html
Colleges that are biology Ph.D feeder schools obviously have outstanding biology depts.
https://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/infographics/top-feeders-phd-programs
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With that said, what colleges would be reasonable for me to reach for? I plan to become a pediatrician and definitely need as much financial aid as possible. I’ve been thinking of going to an undergrad out of Oregon then coming back to Oregon for med school at OHSU but I’m not set on that decision. I’ve been liking Duke as a top target as well, what would my chances be in getting in Duke undergrad and med? I prefer a college of 5,000-20,000 in a safe, mild city that isn’t too crowded.
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You need some good guidance. My son just graduated from med school a week ago, and I’ve followed the premed to med school path for many years now (with my son and many others here on CC and in my FB premed group)
It’s fine to go OOS, but going to a top school like Duke as a premed can tank your GPA. We see this all the time. Well-intentioned premeds think, “oh, I want to go to med school, so I should go to an impressive school.” And, then they enroll and discover that all of their premed classmates are superstars, and the school must weed-out its premeds (by limiting the number of As in the premed classes)…and suddenly the student has a GPA that is NOT med school worthy…and the student must change career goals.
If you REALLY know FOR SURE that you want to become a doctor, then you need a strategy that will get you there…not a path that will be more likely to fail.
I can’t stress enough that the premed-to-med-school path is complicated and OFTEN counter-intuitive. Med schools do NOT care where you go to undergrad as long as it’s a “good school” …and that’s just about any school. They don’t penalize students for going to their state flagship, or a small private or even their local school. They know that not everyone has the funds or whatever to go to tippy top schools…and they want the diversity that comes from enrolling students that aren’t “cookie cutter”.
Go to a good undergrad that won’t result in debt and possibly will save your parents some money so that they can help you with med school costs (which are crazy expensive…and I’m NOT just talking about tuition and living expenses… There are super expensive exams, travel for at least one exam, travel to apply for residencies, it just goes on and on and on.
How much will your parents pay each year? Ask them, please don’t guess. We see later posts from a lot of disappointed students who thought their parents would pay more.
If your parents say that they will pay X amount for undergrad, then ask them if you’re able to go to a school that costs less than X, will they help with med school costs.
Edit…as mentioned, as a freshman, you can only borrow 5500 …and really as a premed, you should try to avoid that. Pediatricians often earn the lowest of most doctors, and you’ll have med school debt. Please don’t think, “I’m going to become a doctor, so more debt will be fine.”
At this point, no one knows if you’ll get into a somewhat cheaper instate med school or a very pricey private or OOS public. Even the instate one is expensive, but the privates will easily be $100k per year when you would enroll…that would be $400k of debt right there.
One thing that’s important is that if you have a low EFC, “meet need” private colleges could very well be cheaper than state universities. That’s why you need to run the NPC and bring the results to your mother.
Run the Net Price Calculators so you can get an idea of what the schools expect you to pay. That can help you narrow down the list. For us, it was a much-needed reality check!
One of our kids was very focused on chasing prestige. In the end, she reluctantly took a full ride scholarship at an OOS flagship.
In the big picture, this path is going to serve her well. She’s getting great grades and some opportunities have already opened up for her. She definitely has to study, but says her first year was not as difficult as her college prep high school. She actually has time to join some clubs, do activities, and have a social life — things she found hard to do in high school with the heavy homework load.
She is going to graduate UG debt free, and she will be on good footing to borrow for grad school.
Good luck to you!
To maximize your chances of getting into medical school, you might consider an offbeat major like English or history (assuming you enjoy those subjects), and take all the science courses you need to do well on the MCAT. As long as you have the prerequisites, you don’t have to major in biology or chemistry. And definitely don’t take on debt in undergrad. It’s better to go to your state flagship, then aim for a school like Duke or Emory for med school.
@XAJL123, here’s another list of excellent per-med colleges. Some offer merit aid.
Thanks for all the replies! Looks like running the calculator is really important and I’ll do that as soon as possible. For now, I am retaking the SAT this Saturday so I will most likely figure out the calculations after that. I appreciate everyone taking time out of the day to reply to me! This’ll help me a lot, and of course any more suggestions/tips would be greatly appreciated! 
Smart to focus on trying to increase SAT or ACT …so many scholarships (especially the automatic ones) can increase dramatically based on small increases in test scores.
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I was looking at some guaranteed scholarships and some were tens of thousands of dollars just for a 3.9 GPA and a score of like 1300+. I
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Are you talking about awards given by schools?
I haven’t seen awards like from private entities, guaranteed, …and certainly not for all four years of college.
OSU would be fine for a premed. I’m not sure why anyone would suggest that it isn’t. Certainly OU would be fine as well.
First find out how much your parents will pay…and have them run the NPCs.
Please understand that you can’t look at the “family portion” and then think you can cover that with merit awards.
For merit to reduce the family contribution then the total of merit would have to be so large that it would cover all of the “need” and THEN reduce EFC.
Reported acceptance rates to med schools can be manipulated. They really don’t mean anything to any particular student.
If a school reports that 80% of its med school applicants get accepted to med school, that doesn’t mean that you have that same chance. Schools heavily weed, so 80% just means that after they weeded out more than half of their premeds, that of the remaining group, 80% got an acceptance.
Some schools “force” some of their students to not apply by denying them a Committee Letter.
And some schools will only include their MD acceptances in their reporting numbers…and some schools will include MD, DO, and abroad med schools in their reporting numbers. So, the numbers aren’t as useful as you may think.
OSU has a great med school (whoever questioned that doesn’t know much about med school) but being a premed there doesn’t advantage you and UO has a better honors college with better funding so I’d advise UO undergrad (or a meet 100%need private university) and OSU med school