Daughter wants to do Biology major and is comparing Tufts with USC. She got into both plus many others but her heart is set on these two. USC is much larger compared to Tufts and we live in CT so obviously Tufts is closer (about an hour away). Both are mediocre schools and both seem to have a Medical School. Not sure if that even matters but she had that as a criteria. She also got into Case Western, Colby, Bates, UC-SD, UC-I and Purdue but for now those are not on her top list. For both USC and Tufts the annual Tuition plus boarding/meals is around $80K per year (guaranteed to go up every year for next four years). So wondering if its is worth spending that amount of money on a college. I am also concerened about the choice of the major (medical career in general) but as a parent want to support her in whatever she wants to do. Anyone who has done some comparison of these two institutions and how going there may assist in future career aspects would also help. We can afford the tuition but the concern is with a Biology major there might be no job after you graduate (and if you don’t get into a medical school) compared to other fields like engineering, computers or finance where you can start right after college. We have an example in our extended family of an amazing boy who went to another great school but after graduation has moved back to my sisters home looking for a job. He could not get into a medical school and now seems a little confused on what he should be doing. He is currently on a break year but is hopefully planning to apply for a grad school. So that incident has spooked us a little about premed because we are not sure what what they would do if they cannot get into a medical school. We are both from non Medical fields so we have no idea how that field works. As a parent it would really hurt if after spending $360,000 your ward has no job or a career to look forward to. Maybe we are being pessimistic and that is why we want to see how other parents are planning and supporting their children through colleges and how to choose a college with better career aspects in general. Another alternative is to go to UConn and finish the undergrad much cheaper, especially if you are not sure what you want to do next. She also got into it but UConn is obviously not on her list for now and is not interested in any conversation where I try to bring up UConn. Once again, we don’t have supporting her tuition but not sure if giving away $80K per year to Tufts or USC is worth it and does it help in anyway in terms of opportunities for future career path? Does it help to go to to a college which has or is affiliated with a Medical School/Hospital in terms of getting accepted to a medical school? We have no idea and that is why I am asking. It would be great if anyone else who has gone through this process could help guide as well.
You think Tufts and USC are mediocre schools? Let’s full stop right there. Both are terrific colleges, and are highly regarded.
Your student can major in biology at just about any four year college in this country. Arts conservatories excluded.
If considering pre-med, this student MUST have a plan B. The vast majority of freshmen starting out as premed never apply to medical school. Of those who do, about 40% get accepted, and most to only one option.
Getting accepted to medical school is not easy. You don’t mention anything that your kid has done to know she really wants to be a doctor. So…what makes her think this is the journey she wants to take.
A good thing is that with a school like Tufts, she can explore majors and decide what she wants to do, then use their Career Center&Alumni network to find an intenship and figure out her career. There’s no need to major in Biology to get into Med School - Chemistry, English, Statistics, Philosophy, Music, Neuroscience, Economics… are all majors that can lead to med school if the student takes the premed core as part of gen eds and gets mostly A’s.
@creekland @WayOutWestMom may have information wrt med school.
What’s her Plan B?
Your daughter may well want to be a physician because that’s one of a handful of jobs she knows. The better way to do things is to take classes, figure out what you’re good at from there, and use the Career Center to figure out what jobs can branch out from that strength.
Tufts is a good choice for premeds but because CA is the most competitive state for premeds (a field that’s very competitive to start with) I’d avoid that goal if attending USC.
I don’t know what advising and support are like at USC.
Med school admissions have no stated preferences for majors. What matters I that the pre-reqs have been fulfilled. It doesn’t matter whether they’re part of their major/minor or they are taken as GE or open electives.
The only issue may be that there are pretty good number of med school pre-reqs: bio, gen chem, ochem, biochem, physics, stats/biostats, ''college level" math, psych, sociology, 2 semester of writing skills, plus a few others depending on the school. (genetics, anatomy, medical ethics, Calc 1/2/3, UL social sciences) There may be too many to fit into a schedule as GE electives.
I’ve met individuals with all sorts of majors who went to med school; English, Spanish, Italian, sociology, music theory, sports communications, public health, business, theology/religious studies, engineering, math, physics, history, forestry, gender studies…
BTW, I always recommend this site Explore Health Careers to help find out what the health profession jobs are available.
EDIT:
CA is the most competitive state for premeds
Only true if the student is a legal resident of California. A full time college student is considered a resident of her parents’ home state/ state where the student graduated from high school.
Thank you all for responding. Its tough for us to say what she will end up doing but right now she wants to become a doctor. As for plan B, we really don’t know. I did ask her but she said grad school. Which doesn’t help much. As I have mentioned in my previous post, she has a distant cousin who now plans to go to Grad school because he really does not know what else to do with his pre med undergrad degree. That is the difference between medical career vs Computers/Finance. If you go to a decent college, you are almost guaranteed some job or internship right after finishing undergrad. And you are off to a career start. But in this case we are struggling to see what will become of it. I am sure some of you can sense this that we are really not happy with this career choice but are smart enough not to impose our beliefs on her. So I guess the only question is if there is any difference between going to UConn (she got amazing scholarship so the tuition is practically free) or Tufts where she got no aids or grants so entire tuition has to be paid. Looks like for a Med school it really doesn’t matter where you did the Undgergrad from. That’s what we are trying to figure out. We plan to visit Tufts this Friday for their Admitted students day. We plan to visit USC during April vacation. Thanks again.
Are you referring to USC: University of Southern California or USC: University of South Carolia?
USC - University of Southern California. Sorry I did not know there was another USC. Hope this helps.
UConn is a fine place to go for premed intentioned students. There are many majors from which to choose, and it sounds like the price is right.
Many prospective medical school applicants have majors that can also lead to jobs. Regardless of the undergrad major, any student should be able to get a job. Jobs are not necessarily tied to a student’s undergrad major.
RE: pre-med majors. Bio majors don’t need grad school to find a job. there are plenty of places that will hire with only a BA/BS degree.
It’s up to the student to pro-active about looking outside of medicine for jobs. The pharmaceutical, agriproducts, and biotech industry hire tons of bio majors. There are also jobs for bio majors in the federal government and in education. Pharmaceutical and medical device companies hire bachlor level bio degrees to work in sales and marketing. Companies like EPIC and other medical record companies also hire bio majors to help design software and interfaces.
But the student has to work a bit harder to make themselves attractive to these employers. Take a coding course (doesn’t even have to be a hard core programming language), take additional stat class or a probability class. Look for summer internship positions in industry.
A student who has plentiful hands on lab experience (like from working in a research lab for several semesters in undergradas an EC) can almost always find a biotech job using those skills. the student does have to let the college placement office know—and their research mentors. they are usually able to suggest some places that are hiring.
Mathy bio majors can always work with insurance companies doing risk assessment.
First hand, having lived near both, I can say the weather at USC is much nicer than the weather at Tufts
I want to mention three things.
-
As others have said, you can do any major and go into medical school. So some kids actually major in a field they can get a job, plus finish the pre-med coursework while in college. My friend’s kid did CS, worked at Amazon for a year, and went to medical school. Another friend’s kid worked at Meta for two years, and is now going to Emory. It doesn’t need to be CS. Could be anything that will more reliably get you a job than Biology.
-
From some subset of schools, kids with biology can find other jobs that are not about just being lab assistant. They often involve a) going on the business side of a biotech company – i.e., marketing their patent portfolio (e.g. for the Pharma industry, such as Bristol Myer Squib), or marketing medical devices or similar (e.g. etc, or b) doing some form of consulting that is specific to bio (e.g. Trinity Life Sciences).
-
If you are exceptionally good in bio, and have research experience in undergrad, and you are from a sufficiently high caliber of a school, you can go into health care banking and try that out from junior year onwards, and you would have that as a fallback if med school doesn’t pan out.
You may also want to look at this: https://careers.tufts.edu/destination-outcomes/
Incidentally UCSD is very good for biotech.
USC also may be good because it is in Southern California.
Tufts should be good (subject to the above link) because it is in Boston.
Would going to Tufts or USC involve your taking parental loans?
I think there’s something to be said for the strength of top private schools in terms of advising, career support, etc. This added-value proposition is the more evident the less “preprofessional” the major is.
In addition, both USC and Tufts are better located than Storrs, wih USC having a 
for weather&LA access and Tufts for Boston access.
Whether it’s worth the premium in relation to UConn is up to your family but if you have the money, it may be worth spending the money since your child is hard working and talented (as the acceptances indicate) yet undecided.
You could also tell your child that, should she choose UConn, you’ll put the saved funds in a special bank account for her to access for Spring Break, Study Abroad, paying rent at “cool but expensive city where I have an internship”, etc. If it doesn’t sway her, then perhaps other choices are better “fits” for her.
As others have said, any undergrad is fine for med school, as is practically any major.
When you visit the colleges, try to be sure to visit their pre-med or pre-health advising so she can get a feel for what is there.
If you can afford it without loans, I’d let her choose the school. Students do best for grades, etc, where they are happy and any of those schools should also be good if she ends up with Plan B.
Here’s what I have students who want to go to med school from my high school read so they have a good idea what the competition is like. It’s where my son went to med school. If you google other years you’ll see it’s a template - they look for the same things year after year - and I doubt they’re the only school looking for this caliber.
Wherever you go and whatever you major in, be someone your future med school can write about.
Best wishes to both of you as you contemplate options!
First of all, no. Tufts and the University of Southern California are both excellent universities.
However, this does not mean that they are worth being full pay. Any of Tufts, USC (either of them), or U.Conn will prepare a student to do well in medical school. So would any of at least 100 or more likely 200 other universities and colleges. This is assuming that the student does very well in tough classes, and gets the needed experience, and fulfills all of the other requirements for medical school (high MCAT, good references, …).
Someone who is seriously interested in medical school should be budgeting for a full 8 years in university, where the last 4 are likely to be very expensive. I would certainly try to avoid taking on debt for a bachelor’s degree. Even better would be to leave some money in the college fund if this is reasonably possible.
I have heard that biology majors can have some difficulty finding a good job with just a bachelor’s degree. This is allegedly based on there being a lot of premed students who are biology majors that do not get accepted to any medical school. However, one daughter was a biology major and had no trouble finding a good job after graduation with just a bachelor’s degree. It seems likely that @WayOutWestMom (who knows medical school way better than I) sort of hinted at the point in mentioning “mathy bio majors”. I would expect that the same may be true of bio majors with significant computer science experience. Our daughter had a lot of lab experience (including classes and internships and research that she did as an undergraduate student). This definitely came up in detail during job interviews. How hard it is to find a good job with just a BSc in biology might depend upon what else the student brings to the table.
Another issue is that premed classes are tough. While neither daughter was premed, both had majors that overlapped a great deal with premed classes. Both had multiple friends who were premed (one of whom got their MD this past May). Even at the “U.Conn” (or U.Mass or UVM or UNH) level, premed classes are going to be academically very challenging and will be full of very strong students. I have heard a few stories of exams with a class average in the 40’s or 50’s, even in a class full of very strong premed students. While the top schools (whether Harvard or Tufts) get a higher percentage of their undergraduate students into medical school, it is not clear how much of this is due to the caliber of students who start off at these strong universities in the first place. For any one academically very strong student, it is not clear that being in the middle 1/3 of the class at Tufts or USC will help their chances for an MD acceptance when compared to being in the top 1/3 of the class at U.Conn. I am not personally convinced that the student’s chances of getting into a strong MD program is going to vary in any significant way based on which university they attend for their bachelor’s (assuming a top 100 university or college). Their debt load however might vary quite a bit.
What we did was to set a budget for university, and insist that both daughters stick to the budget with no loans at all. This ruled out a few full pay private schools (Northeastern being one example, Bowdoin another). I personally would not pay well over $320,000 for four years of university unless we could do it with no debt and with no significant hardship for the family. That would describe only a relatively modest number of families (and not us).
In terms of the student that you know that did not get accepted to medical school, we do not have direct MD experience, but we do have direct experience with DVM admissions which is similar. Our daughter who was pre-vet had a GPA that was solid enough for admissions, but was not “blow you away” strong. We might never know exactly why someone get accepted. However, both she and I think that her success in getting accepted to multiple DVM programs was largely based on her experience and her references. Experience is something that you can get while an undergraduate student, and that you can also add to after getting a bachelor’s degree before applying to either an MD or DVM program (the details of the experience will of course vary depending on what program is of interest).
We’ve been through this entire process with our middle daughter.
It’s expensive, fast, competitive, and physically exhausting but it’s what she wanted.
Did your daughter do any activities in high school related to working or being constantly exposed to clinical experiences?
Our daughter took a yearlong biotech course, in high school, that required a local internship with experience working with specific lab devices. She volunteered her high school summers as a lab tech, at a large pet hospital, using some of those devices. She learned about medications, refilled prescriptions under supervision, and learned how to work with the public. She also worked weekends at the zoo.
In California, my experience has been, that the numbers are large regarding the students who hope to enter a med school. The pre health advisors, at the universities, work with large numbers of students and have referrals to clinical and lab jobs. In her year, in the college of bio sciences, they graduated 999 new Spring grads. That was just at one UC, for one term. They have winter grads too. Her UCSF med school class was less than 130 students.
Our daughter was fortunate that she had had the biotech class and developed a working knowledge of clinical procedures which really helped her to acquire clinical jobs in college. They looked for experienced students who could be easily trained in a clinical setting. When she interviewed at a local diabetes clinic near her college, she was interviewed by a panel of 10 (½ were students, the other half were medical personnel).
Because she reported that she was bilingual, she knew she would be working with agricultural patients. She was asked about her previous experiences and was asked to respond in Spanish. She secured the position. Many of her friends had applied for the same volunteer position but they were never given an interview.
What has your daughter done, in this field, so far? How does she know she can deal with blood, bile and urine? There are a lot of toxic smelling areas in a hospital, clinic and SNF. It’s a tough field to crack and is sooo brutal. There are limited volunteer positions in working with low income and medically indigent patients because the clinics want good people who will contribute to a good environment for their patients.
I can say that USC does take care of its alumni. My sister is alumni and all of her connections for work were from her alumni network.
If she reaaallllllyyyyyy wants to be a medical doctor, does she thinkt that you will pay for medical school, and if so, is she right? Something to think about.
Another option is to offer the $$ between UConn & USC/Tufts to go towards Med school.
I have nothing else to add but it comes down to a few things imho. :
If you’re committed to your daughter then she can go to SC or Tufts, well you made that call. SC COA now exceeds $90k and you have med school. All your schools seem pricey except maybe UCONN and Purdue. Not sure if CWRU has merit $$. There’s a chat now on Notre Dame - is it worth it ? Same type question.
Bio is a major like many others. What does one do with History or Classics or Geography? It’s not pre professional but that does not mean if med s bill doesn’t work out she won’t find a job. Now is that major worth paying $90k for at USC, I don’t know.
Btw these schools have so many unique majors she might find one that she likes. Like Health and Humanity for example. No clue what it is but they have many to explore that might be a nice fit outside of bio or as a double.
Finally - your daughter is 17/18. She really doesn’t know what she wants. And she shouldn’t. And most kids change.
I see a lot of angst from you on risk / reward ie I’m throwing away nearly $400k if she doesn’t make med school. And it’s unlikely she will.
But I also sense maybe a bit of pressure being put on her - ie plan B and she really doesn’t know, maybe grad school. And even if she did know, she really doesn’t - she’s 17.
There’s no guarantee. You can go to Junior College and be a huge success. And go to make your $80k+ school and it doesn’t work out.
You have to decide - how much is too much to you ? There’s no matrix that says the more you spend, the better it is.
So you can spend but it might not work out how you want it…but it might work out fine…,just not as you expect.
Or you can spend less - and the same thing. May or may not work out.
Did CWRU give merit ? Purdue is inexpensive relative to the others and outstanding. Is there a compromise to be had other than UCONN ?
Only you can decide if the price is worth it.
There’s no do overs. If you don’t like the outcomes or you do, the cost will be sunk.
Best of luck.
Ironically, the more likely she is, in your opinion, to be among the few who will make it to med school, the more UConn makes sense. And if she is among the 85-90% premed freshmen who don’t, then Tufts/USC/Colby/CWRU etc become better choices because of the resources they have per student, making it easier to “land” and launch a career.
To evaluate the odds, you can look at what experience your daughter has with what was called above “blood and bile”; what experience she has with people with different values, who speak a different language, or who may live in unconventional/resourceful ways at the margins of society; whether she’s good with stress, high-intensity work; whether she’s tried to get a certificate or plans to, such as CNA or EMT.
If most/all of the above is “yes, of course” or “excellent”, her odds are markedly different than if you’re going “uh…”
BTW most parents think of the relation between major and jobs in a linear way, nursing-> job in nursing, engineering-> job in engineering, finance-> job in finance, but in reality, especially at top schools, it’s not the way it works. Just ask Williams Art History majors 
The flexibility in curriculum and the uncertainty are factored in at the Career Center.
Also, the above advice to include a few classes in statistics, CS, data science, is worth it for all who can.
Thank you to all of you who have taken time to respond. Its really helpful to hear from others because its a very confusing time for our family. The responses are both eye opening and informative at the same time. We have to make the decision in a month and pretty much all choices have their pros and cons, hence these stressful posts. Parenting means we will always question, worry and second guess ourselves. Whatever we do, never seems enough. We can also take a deep breath and trust that things will work out in the end. We only have one daughter (which explains the anxiety as we try to do the best for her) so money wise we can definitely afford the tuition for the undergrad and also for the prospective Medical school or the grad school if she ends up there. We also don’t need to take out any loans for this. But I think that was not the original question (and I had already mentioned this in my first post). The question was more on whether Tufts or USC provides that much better education that we spend $360K vs UConn where she can do 4 years for like 1/4th the price (or less). Someone mentioned about weather being better in USC. I would have to agree with that (smiles) but since she is born and brought up in Connecticut, weather in Boston is not an issue. She loves skiing so snow does not bother her and she is usually the first one to go out and shovel 
I think cold weather is more of an issue for kids who are born and brought up in the south. Anyway, back to the topic.
tsbna44: Finally - your daughter is 17/18. She really doesn’t know what she wants. And she shouldn’t. And most kids change.
Most of you are right that at 17 she does not know and most of our anxiousness is driven by my cousin’s son. I do plan to talk to him this weekend and mention some of the references that have been mentioned on this board. Case Western did not give any Aid. Purdue is the cheapest even though we are OOS (if you ignore UConn). I forgot to mention UMass as she also got into UMass Amherst as well which is only 30 minute drive from our home. No aid was given at UMass but we are considered for New England Tuition Break (which is 50% more than in state but is less OOS which is much more). I hear you when you say if there are any compromises to be had. There are certain inherent advantages of going to a school near home. You can come anytime, we could be there to assist her if needed, etc. California is 6 hours of flight plus another 1-2 hours to reach the destination. So 8 hours gone just go meet her even if the cost of tickets is not an issue. I am not saying we are special and there are millions of parents who send their kids away for studies (heck I went away from home as well). But clearly distance matters and its not easy to schedule everything. But we are willing to look past all that if USC or UC-SD (OOS) are actually worth it. That part is hard to figure out. We intend to travel to those places in April break but I really don’t think anyone can answer that question. It might end up being a leap of faith. Only one thing I could point out to her is that they are very large compared to Tufts or Colby. Some kids love large colleges and some like smaller. She said she likes smaller one day and then the other day she said she loves USC campus on Youtube. So much for relying on her judgment.
collegemom3717: If she reaaallllllyyyyyy wants to be a medical doctor, does she think that you will pay for medical school, and if so, is she right? Something to think about.
I must admit that she is not very savvy financially and I don’t think she understands loans, finance or money. So I don’t know if she is thinking like that or if that is even on her horizon. Maybe its our fault that we have never introduced these concepts to her but she is not a spendthrift either. A lot of her friends (daughters of family friends) went to private schools. So folks have already been paying 50K+ for tuition for the last 4 years while she went to public school in CT. So I don’t think they understand paying for Tuition, etc. or maybe they do and I am being naive. We do plan to have discussions with her about this over the weekend after we come back from Tufts visit, preferably take her out for a nice dinner and talk there
aunt_bea: Did your daughter do any activities in high school related to working or being constantly exposed to clinical experiences?
Very good question and you have asked some really good questions in general. She did volunteer work at two hospitals in the area (COVID had impact on all internships so she had limited possibilities in 2020 and 2021) and then last year did paid internship at Boston Children’s’ Hospital. She was also a paid lifeguard at the town pool and a paid intern at a local dentist office for summer. In addition she volunteers at Suicide prevention phone lines and runs a Teenage mental heath club at her school. She also does mental heath presentations at various other School Districts in our area. She is pretty active in all that but there is only so much they can do due to the load of AP classes and honor classes in the past, etc. If you do too much grades tends to suffer. So in short, she could only do limited things and does not have any clinical experience yet. We also looked at some college programs which masquerades as research but parents pay upwards of $7000 for doing it (we looked at both Harvard or Yale). We decided against those type of research activities because due to Covid they were online and we felt it was just a waste of money. Anyway, how she will handle Urine, blood, bile and toxic smells? I don’t know but I guess she will have to do that if she wants to pursue this career. I am very happy for your daughter that she got the opportunity to do all this which later paid off. Which college was that?
MYOS1634: the more likely she is, in your opinion, to be among the few who will make it to med school, the more UConn makes sense. And if she is among the 85-90% premed freshmen who don’t, then Tufts/USC/Colby/CWRU etc become better choices because of the resources they have per student, making it easier to “land” and launch a career.
That’s a very good way to look at it. The only problem is we don’t know at this point. She is a daddy’s little girl so my husband doesn’t say much. But I will do my best and talk about all these things with her. As many of you have said in the posts above that whatever they say now may change once they actually go to college. Some kids shine and do more and more, while others fold and do less and less. From our prospective we will always try to encourage her to do what she wants to do and try to excel in it. But clearly the path she has chosen for her (knowingly or unknowingly) is full of hard work and excellence at every level. I also agree that its too much to ask her to have a plan B at this point but I guess with time she will have one. Currently she is just happy that she got into these colleges while almost all of her friends were rejected so she is a little bit on cloud 9 thinking she can now conquer the world. We don’t want to burst any bubbles right now but will gently introduce her to the reality. Both husband and I have professional degrees (and related careers) so we have gone through this to some extent. But thankfully we knew what we wanted to do, pursed that degree and got jobs in those fields (computers and finance). But this whole medical career thing is a curve ball to us and we don’t know how to help. This forum is godsend and my only regret is that I wish I had found it sooner.
Note: Is there a way to contact the Mod to change something in my first post? I am no longer able to edit it
If money is not a concern – family is full pay – then I’d choose a good private over an OOS public nearly every time. (This eliminates UCSD.). And while the weather in SoCal is wonderful, premed at USC is brutally competitive, and IMO eliminates that one next.
Then it comes down large instate/local public vs excellent privates. Mid-sized Uni vs LAC. That is more a matter of fit. (My 2 kids toured Tufts and liked it, but chose not to apply; LACs were smaller than their public HS, so those were out).