HS Senior, looking to do Pre-Med

State Forums
1

Hi guys! I’m a hs senior and I was looking at the future prospects for colleges - I will be applying in a few months.
I have an interest in pre-med, and as of now, that’s really all I want to do.

Baylor University, Tulane, and UT Austin are the colleges that I am mainly looking into,
I want to major in neuroscience, neurobioloy, psychology, or maybe even political science (I know that we just have to have the pre req’s done for pre-med)
-I heard that for Georgetown, there’s an option to apply to medical school in sophomore year and bypass taking the MCATS. Also pretty cool is Virginia Commonwealth.

What vaguely are my chances of getting in? Are there any that I am not considering?

-SAT Score: 2130 (690 read, 730 math, 710 writing)
*planning to retake the new SAT
-GPA 3.4/4; this is not very good, but I messed up in my math class freshman year, my rank was 127, and then I nearly halved that my junior year, where I stand at about rank 60 (top 10% of my class)
-planning on taking ACT and SAT subject tests in math 1 and literature
-Officer of NEHS
-Officer of Orchestra
-playing in orchestra for 8 years, made all area-region this year
-participant of science fair for 13 years, got my twelve year award this year
-went to city science fair 3 times
-received a special award from Houston Academy of Medicine for my sci project
-volunteered 100+ hours at Texas Children’s Hospital/Baylor College of Medicine
-attendee of Youth Medical Summit in Rice University (hosted by Houston Health museum)
-tutored children for 2 years
-took 6 AP classes so far, got a 4/5 on all, going to take 4 more this coming year

I am instate for Texas, and I realize that a cheaper option for Pre-med is my best bet. I think UT is a large school that loses focus on pre-med students, while Baylor seems a little too conservative yet is a great rep for good attention. (I used to want to go to NYU/UCLA before I realized that the out of state tuition would be out of the roof). The Baylor College of Medicine is one of my aims, but medical schools like in Georgetown or Johns Hopkins are appealing too (if I get into them)/

Rice is a great university, but I don’t think I can get in based on my GPA. It’s also quite expensive, and I don’t know if my parents are willing to pay for that for undergrad.

2

Getting admitted to UT Austin is a long shot because you are not in the top 7%. You would be in the holistic review group, which is extremely competitive.

You may want to do some more research on how to choose an undergrad school for pre-med. I don’t have experience in this area, but I have read on these boards many times that the strategy is to get the highest GPA at the lowest cost. You will need every bit of cash for medical school. Plus, GPA is the driver for medical school acceptance rather than the prestige of the undergrad school.

It sounds like you are in or near Houston, but you should consider the University of Houston. There is a long list of scholarships that the school offers, and you would qualify for one or more. http://www.uh.edu/financial/undergraduate/types-aid/scholarships/#academic-excellence-scholarship

3

Have you considered applying to TCU? Their premed program is well respected and they’re in the process of opening a medical school in Fort Worth with UNT Health Science Center. Having attended TCU should give you an advantage if you choose to apply to the new medical school.

4

The very first thing you need to-do is ask your parents how much they’re willing / able to pay for your college.
If they don’t know, run the NPC on a few Texas universities - Rice, UT, Tamu, Baylor, Trinity, Southwestern, St Edwards - and on other universities - Hendrix, Tulane, perhaps?
Then show them the results.