I really don't know where I should go: Brown, NYU, Johns Hopkins, University of Notre Dame, Rutgers

College Search & Selection
1

I’m thinking about majoring/concentrating in Psychology on a premed track (I want to become an emergency room doctor/emergency medicine physician). If you have comments/thoughts on choosing psychology as a major when I want to get into medical school I’d really like to hear them!

I got into Brown, NYU, Johns Hopkins, University of Notre Dame, Rutgers New Brunswick and The College of New Jersey.

I’m kinda closing in between Brown and NYU, but I’m really open to the other colleges too.

Here are the details:

Brown - will have to pay $30,940 / yr (with the university’s scholarship of $48,878)

NYU - Dean’s Scholarship award pays full tuition but I’ll have to pay $22,258 / yr for room and board and indirect costs; I got into the College of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Scholars Program and the Presidential Honors Scholars Program

Rutgers New Brunswick - I got into the Honors College for the three schools I applied to:
- School of Environmental and Biological Sciences - $18,783 (scholarships: $19,000)
- School of Arts and Sciences - $17,129 (scholarships: $19,000)
- School of Engineering - $24,783 (scholarships: $13,000)

Notre Dame - $28,528 / yr (scholarship of $48,400) - not sure if I should apply to the Glynn Family Honors program if I’m leaning more towards Brown and NYU

Johns Hopkins - $23,020 / yr (with scholarship of $50,900)

TCNJ (The College of New Jersey) - $23,030 (with $13,000 scholarship) - Got into Honors Program but haven’t accepted seat because I don’t think TCNJ is one of my top choices, although it has a high medical school acceptance rate

I’m leaning towards Brown because from what I understand it has a high med school acceptance rate, grade inflation (supposedly), it’s an Ivy League so I think it’ll offer great networking from alumni and opportunities for internships/research/resources/contacts

I love New Jersey and I don’t want to stay too far from home (which is why I value NYU and Rutgers a lot) but I also think it’s important for me to get out of my comfort zone and live away from my family, also it’d be nice to be able to give them a tour of Rhode Island whenever they come visit or something like that.

NYU’s financial package and honors programs sound great to me and it’s no-campus kind of living style is another way I think I can mature independently/learn what it’s like to live in the “real world” - I’m worried that with the way COVID-19 has been impacting the world places like New York may not be so great to live in when global disasters like that happen - I think of Brown as a more sheltered/safe place, more like the bubble I’m used to living in so in that respect NYU would also force me to step out of my comfort zone (big city v the suburbia I’m used to)

I’m welcoming any and all advice!!

2

Wow, congrats on your acceptances. ALL good choices from my perspective, however IMHO Brown is a special place in more ways than one. Go for Brown!

3

A very important question (as you will learn in college) NORTH Jersey or SOUTH Jersey?? I’m counting the Trenton area as South even though it is Mid.

4

What can you actually afford?

5

Can your family afford Brown with no loans/no hardship?

6

Sit down with your parents or whoever it is who is going to help you pay for your education, and run the numbers through this handy calculator: https://www.finaid.org/calculators/awardletteradvanced.phtml

Med school is expensive. Do your best to avoid all debt for your undergrad years so that the med school debt will be less painful.

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@sengels I’m from North Jersey.

@happy1 @blossom My parents are also paying for my sister who’s almost done with her second year in college (more or less $10,000 a year with tuition and allowances and whatnot) and will pay for my brother when he goes to college. My mom says they want to pay less than $2000 a month for my college expenses - so $24000 / yr at most. I want to get a part-time job assuming that an annual salary of a minimum wage job is $15,000 so I can pay at least half of the costs. I’m not sure if Brown will let me pay more than my designated “student contribution” (which they put as $140 with around $2900 I’m expected to earn through on-campus work) but I understand it wouldn’t be such a good idea to take out loans

@happymomof1 Thank you for the link I will try this now

@AlwaysLearn What do you like about Brown the most?

8

To the extent that the money from the colleges is need-based (as all of the money from Brown is), you may want to check (using the colleges’ net price calculators) how much you can expect the FA and net price to change as your siblings leave/graduate and enter college.

In terms of expected student contribution that colleges list in their FA packages, if it is work-study, then you can earn no more than that in work-study jobs. But you can earn as much as you want in other jobs (part time during the school year, or summer jobs). You can also take federal direct loans without a cosigner (up to $5.5k first year, increasing to $6.5k, $7.5k, $7.5k in following years); some colleges assume that you will take them, but others do not (check the FA packages carefully).

9

“I want to get a part-time job”

Premed classes are tough. You will be competing with strong students who do not need to have a part time job. You are going to need to put a lot of time and effort into your studies if you want to get a “medical school worthy” GPA.

You are going to need to very strictly limit how much you work or your grades will suffer.

IMHO you are choosing from a list of very good universities.

10

@ucbalumnus thanks for the reply, there is so much more I need to learn about college, financing, etc. (I had to look up what federal direct loans were a few days ago haha)

@DadTwoGirls you are absolutely right. If I decide to work I’ll need to find jobs with extremely flexible schedules or something I can do at home (learn how to invest in the stock market or something). Otherwise, I will just have to keep applying for scholarships and hope for the best

11

Update:

I’m still weighing the factors - I like how NYU can take a lot of my AP credits, I’m still trying to understand how it all works and what it means to have an “equivalent course” but I think having a lot of classes put to the side means I can spend time focusing on research/volunteering/whatever I need to prepare for med school - also, considering I would be in the honors program focused on developing skills like thesis writing/research conducting that may help set me on the right track as well

From what I gather, Brown accepts some APs but none would be used as credit, more for placement in advanced classes - if I ever wanted to graduate early I’d only be allowed to graduate one semester early and even then would have to pay for the whole 8 semesters - applying to med school with only 3 years of college would be kind of difficult anyway, though.

Some things I like about Brown is its Open Curriculum and program houses (dorming with people with specific interests, like learning French or environmental activism). The Open Curriculum would be helpful if something ever made me change my mind about pursuing medicine

12

Ok , med school is pricey very pricey, if I read it right RU will be by far the cheapest at around 10k for room and board, so you could go to RU for 3 year what it would cost for Brown, RU has a medical school and a hospital so both would be pluses, SEBS seems like the better call vs, SAS. You parents have to pay for you , and 2 others, I assume your the middle one, are you sure all of the schools offering money are giving you scholarships or grants ( the difference may be based on having 2 kids in collage for now) You got into some great schools congrats but save your parents money for med school.

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Let us know what you decide

14

“I want to get a part-time job assuming that an annual salary of a minimum wage job is $15,000 so I can pay at least half of the costs.”

Agreeing with the other poster, you don’t want to assume you can make that much in a minimum wage job during the school year. Even if you could get a $10/hr job, that would mean basically a 40 hour job in addition to classes. Typically you can use the summer to help with costs.

15

So in response to your question about Brown, I like the open curriculum and shopping period. I like the people and community: generally speaking they are smart, friendly, unique, and not pretentious. I like the campus becuase it has an actual campus feel but is still in a city. Thayer Street is cool and nearby. Great academics and reputation. There are no worries about grade deflation. And for you, it would only be a few hour car ride home to NJ if you wanted to get away from campus and go home for a weekend (as opposed to Notre Dame, for example). I just think it’s one of those schools that has the best of everything, and that’s why so many people like it.