Given that they’re the people you’ll be spending 4 years of your life with, I’d hardly call it completely irrelevant. For example a lot of my classmates at Brown were so excited to finally be in a classroom where everyone present cared as much about learning as they did. Obviously for some it’s more or less important to have peers of similar academic standing, but if OP were to choose Rosemont without consciously deciding he’s ok with being at a school with students of drastically lower academic caliber, then he’s doing himself a grave disservice.
" Obviously for some it’s more or less important to have peers of similar academic standing," - Everybody in bs/md programs is in similar very high academic standing. No, it is not a good idea to limit yourself to only people who are similar to you, and more so it is not a good idea when you are planning on medicine. One needs to be able to connect to different people. As physician, you will be dealing with homeless, prisoners and so forth. As physician, you have to treat them in the same fashion as you would a patient who happen to be a physician himself. You need to expand your social horizon and ability to connect to all sort of people. Growing personally is also a part of the college education. My D. had to take care of homeless and prisoners as patients while still in medical school, there is nothing unusual about it.
…and as I mentioned before, D. has never ever felt that she was above any other pre-meds in her bs/md or outside of it. All pre-meds who were not keeping up (and yes, many of them were HS valedictorians), were weeded out very quickly, primarily in the first semester of freshman year in the very first Bio class…at her in-state public college. And again, her friend who went to Case did NOT receive any superior education either. One big advantage that D. had over her friend was that ALL and every class at her in-state public was taught / lectured by prof. and her weed our Bio was taught by 3 of them simultaneously in a classroom at every lecture. It did not happened in D’s Medical school class either. Those who graduated from Ivy / Eilte colleges did not feel that they had ANY advantages at all in comparison to those who graduated from state publics. They did not have any advantages when applying to the very selective residencies either. So, what was a “grave disservice”? How it manifested itself? D. has no regrets at all, while many from Ivy’s in her medical school class did. They did not see any reason why they went to Harvard and such, at the end of medical school it became a blur…But anybody has a right to feel superior if that is what they want…
Miamidap, did you read that college’s profile as provided in several posts above ?
Your daughter 's situation isn’t the same at all.
Or, perhaps, imagine if she had a choice between Miami and a very very small private community college for rich kids who didnt bother studying in high school but feel they’re too good to attend a public community college. Wouldn’t it be foolish to turn down MiamiU just because relatives don’t know of it but live near the community college ? THAT is OP’s situation.
“Or, perhaps, imagine if she had a choice between Miami and a very very small private community college for rich kids who didnt bother studying in high school but feel they’re too good to attend a public community college. Wouldn’t it be foolish to turn down MiamiU”
- This is NOT the OP situation at all!! There is no chance whatsoever for somebody who “didn’t bother studying in high school” to be accepted to ANY bs/md programs, including the ones at the lowest of the lowest of the lowest ranked colleges. Whoever “didn’t bother studying in high school” has a zero chance to be accepted to bs/md programs. Not only they have to study hard and get close to HS GPA of 4.0uw, they have to take the most rigorous classes available to them including lots of APs, they also absolutely must to have a very high SAT / ACT scores and complete tons of medically related ECs (while in HS), including Research (most programs as far as I know are looking for Research experience while in HS). So, forget for a minute the general student body at college that has a bs/md program, it has no relevance to the caliber of applicants being accepted to bs/md program, and much more so if such a program has only 5 - 10 spots at certain location. It is a great honor and a huge privilege to be accepted to ANY bs/md program at absolutely ANY college.
I am not sure how and why one can compare acceptance to such a selective program to the acceptance to the community college.
Again, OP can choose whatever and everybody here can only share their experiences. As I mentioned, my D. turned down Case for MiamiU, mostly because of her acceptance to bs/md at Miami. But she felt that as a high caliber student, she would do just fine at absolutely ANY place, she just wanted a guaranteed spot at medical school to make her UG life more relaxed and that was achieved.
^you misunderstood me: outside of the 10 BS/MD kids, EVERYONE ELSE is the “rich kid who didn’t study in HS but feel they deserve better than CC” at that little college. (Not the BS/MD kids who are just brought in to lend some academic cred to the school.That’s the situation at other schools but it’s particularly egregious here.) In rich areas (Look up “the main line, PA” to see what I mean) there are private alternatives to community college for students who can pay but partied too much in high school to get admitted to a normal 4-year college. Rosemont is one of them. While I’m sure your daughter appreciates meeting a diversity of people, I’m not sure the #1 group would that particular one. Also, the program is not a guaranteed spot, it includes many other requirements, and the college’s resources, facilities, and opportunities for research are not anything like Miami’s, or YSU, or Capital-OH.
I know I won’t change your mind about this so I’ll move on.
@scienceolympian: have you made a decision?
We’re not talking about JUST the bs/md students. The point that you are missing is that outside of the bs/md program, rosemont’s student body is head and shoulders below (can I say that or do I have to use above?) OP and the other schools OP is considering. Add to that the size of rosemont and as stated before virtually no one outside of the bs/md at rosemont will be OP’s academic equal. The classes and opportunities that OP will be exposed to will be affected by that fact. OP already said they didn’t want to go to Rosemont, and was asking if it was foolish to give up the bs/md spot to be at a school more to their liking and of significantly better quality. If you want to argue that OP should be more risk averse and stick with rosemont, go for it, but the academic caliber of rosemont vs the other choices is undebatable.
Also to argue that if everyone in your classroom is in the same academic tier as you, you will have trouble establishing a good physician-patient relationship to homeless people or prisoners is absurd. The two relationships are entirely different. You can also be exposed to a lot of different view points by academic peers too. Seems odd to imply otherwise.
Hopefully OP will make the right choice and have a great success story at the end.
Being head and shoulders better than everybody else is not such a bad thing at all. My D. did not feel that she was above everybody else, however, she was awarded the top pre-med award at the graduation, there was only one award for the entire class. Apparently, she in fact was head and shoulders above the rest, while she did not feel that way. She had no “grave consequences” of being better than the rest. She would have attended the same UG knowing what she knows now.
On the other side of the story, developing social skills takes efforts and time. It does not start at the time when you are forced to connect to a sick criminal or a very sick homeless. If one tends to look down to others and feel that she is much better than most people around, that will be an obstacle. However, people who tend to look down to others and did not try hard to develop social skills kind of tend to become surgeons, so these social skills may not be important after all. We are talking about different experiences here. What was important to one, may not be so important to the other who actually has a similar goal.
My point is that I have very hard time imagining that people who went thru ANY bs/md program at absolutely ANY lowest of the lowest ranked college, had any “grave consequences” later. We have such a college locally and it has 2 bs/md programs. Not only people in these programs become fine physicians, but very many outside of these programs who graduated from our local low ranked college. And not only pre-meds are successful, but many in other fields. In fact, most companies, like mine and and like my H’s engineering firm are hiring primarily locally, they hire graduates of our local low ranked college. If all these large and small companies, many of which are prominent on the international market, had bad experiences hiring from our local low ranked college, they would have stopped doing so, nobody is in business to fail! I bet that the average student stats at our college are lower than at Drexel, but I know many top kids who graduated from there and are very successful and have no student loans because they attended on full tuition Merit awards. Many that I know are physicians now.
No matter what OP decided, one thing to keep in mind that it is up to STUDENT and NOT the college to achieve the ultimate goal.
“However, people who tend to look down to others and did not try hard to develop social skills kind of then to become surgeons.”
It’s clear that your posts are stream of consciousness, but that statement is incredibly insulting and irresponsible.
…I meant that surgeons do not speak to patients who are put under or they do?
Your original quote:
“However, people who tend to look down to others and did not try hard to develop social skills kind of tend to become surgeons…”
This is a gross and irresponsible generalization, denigrating an entire group of professionals-and what do you base it on?
And your response above makes no sense at all, as it is not even remotely related to your original quote.
jalfred,
It is great to read that somebody else believes that social skills are incredibly important for all specialties of physicians. I believe in that also. I also believe that one cannot obtain this skill by reading the books but rather by seeking to be with people who are different from self, by going out of your comfort zone and not thinking that you are beneath getting to know all sort of people who may not be thinking in exactly the same way as yourself.
@scienceolympian Did you end up accepting the BSMD program?
This statement perfectly describes a surgeon I know.
@iwannabe_Brown said:
Wouldn’t the Rice/Baylor program also make the cut of the top 25 (for both undergrad and medical school)?
@hebegebe - yes, it absolutely does. I was unaware they had a program. Did it exist prior to the failed merger in 2010?
No idea. We just discovered it a few weeks ago when D suddenly brought up the topic of medical school.
Thank you everyone for your amazing opinions! I’m sorry I have been MIA, I didn’t realize that people would be so interested in this. I ended up choosing the University of Pittsburgh for bioengineering. I visited Rosemont and felt it wasn’t right for me. I felt extremely claustrophobic at the school and it was about half the size of my high School. Out of Case, Rochester, and Pitt, Pitt was the cheapest and it gives pre-med students access to a plethora of hospitals. My parents are still upset that I haven’t chosen Rosemont, but hopefully they will come to terms. Thanks everyone once again! Wish me luck!
Sounds like you made a good choice. Good luck and enjoy!
Congratulations on your choice - it really is better for your goals. Pitt is terrific. Have a great 4years!