I would sit down with your parents and create a spreadsheet of the different options. Apply to those schools, but look at the costs realistically before you become attached. It will make things less emotional in the spring and give you the opportunity to make decisions more clearly. The list of schools you have posted, assuming only merit aid and no FA, is all over the place in terms of strictly tuition costs.
Just covering a few schools…Harvard’s tuition is $45,000/yr, Loyola’s with the trustee scholarship will still be approx $20,000/yr, and AL is $0. Have you spoken to your parents about those sorts of numbers specifically ($180,000, $80,000, $0)? If so and those costs are OK on top of living expenses, it sounds like the decision then rolls over to you and medical school bills or your parents paying for medical school. Have you researched medical school admissions and how the process works?
Keep in mind that ALL of the US MD schools are excellent. We don’t have any “so so” MD med schools in the US. They are extremely well funded and they spend about $150,000 per year educating each med student.
I can only talk about MD med schools because I don’t know much about the DO med schools.
UH and HPU seem like outliers in your dream schools. UH is a fairly typical state flagship (not a “public Ivy” one) with an added emphasis on subjects of the Pacific islands region. A significant portion of students are commuters. Do not know too much about HPU, although it appears to be less selective and more commuter than UH.
No OOS premed should go to a Hawaiian undergrad, particularly one who doesn’t have parents living on the Mainland. Nearly all of your med school interviews would require you to travel to the Mainland …costly, time-consuming, etc.
Other than proximity to a beach, the inclusion of the Hawaii schools is odd. They’re nowhere close, academically, to the others on your “dream” list. I would advise saving your money for med school and choosing an undergraduate school that will give you big merit.
FWIW, my daughter, who had the same ACT score as you did and a higher GPA (albeit on an American scale) chose Alabama and its full tuition scholarship. She’s a senior now and has loved her time there. She would not have gotten into Harvard, Stanford, Yale and Princeton, and didn’t bother applying. Kids at her HS with perfect GPAs and 35 and 36 ACT scores didn’t get in. It’s really a crapshoot, even with top notch stats. Good luck to you!
Going to a HI undergrad as a premed is a huge disadvantage. There’s only one med school in HI, so all other med school apps would be in the 48. Arranging and paying for last minute plane fares for med school interviews would be a nightmare.
@Rdtsmith, nope, HPU is a non-profit private college. They have a downtown campus and a windward campus and just revitalized an area around the Aloha Tower with great new housing. Not particularly selective but gives a little variety to the very limited college choices here in Hawaiʻi nei.
My brother had looked at it to get his Masters while in Hawaii and was talked out of it by friends who compare it to a for profit school and job placement was pretty awful. I don’t know if it’s changed any. Sure reviews on the site above should be taken with a grain of salt but still…
Either way…an OOS premed whose parents live abroad would be seriously handicapping himself going to a HI undergrad.
[QUOTE=""]
n. But I would rather go to a non-known undergradute college and then to an Ivy Med school than the other way around. Nonetheless admission to an Ivy School is not guaranteed (The accepance rate for harvard Med school is even smaller than that of Harvard college).
[/QUOTE]
no one should be focused on attending any particular med school.
What would be your reasons to want an ivy med school? Some aren’t even ranked that high (not that med school rankings matter much at all.)
Is your goal to be a practicing physician or to go into (research) Academic Medicine. If your goal is the latter, then you’ll be applying to med schools that have MTSP MD/PhD programs. If your goal is to be a practicing physician, then you’ll be thrilled to get into ANY US MD med school.
The admissions to all US MD schools is very competitive. These med schools receive thousands of apps, only interview about 10-15% of applicants, and then only accept 30-50% of those interviewed.
You probably don’t realize this, but ALL US MD med schools are excellent. We don’t have any “so so” med schools.
There is no reason to go to an ivy med school…it won’t mean anything in the long run of a medical career. If you apply and get in, then super. But, it shouldn’t be the focus of any long term goal.
You’re right in about everything you said I took all Hawai’i schools out of my list.
My goal is to go into research.
As I am not 100% sure that I will attend med school, I think the best course of action here would be to go to an Ivy. So when I do change my career path, I will at least have an Ivy undergraduate.
Concerning the money issues, I think I will invest the money in an Ivy undergraduate. Med school will then be paid by loans, etc.
If I don’t get into HYPS I will just have to study medecine here in Germany, which isn’t as bad as I previously thought. After all German universities are free, high ranked (usually in the 25th and 75th range) and I don’t need to apply for a second institution (med school).
So I won’t to apply to any merit scholarships or automatic full tuition colleges. Nevertheless, thanks to everyone who helped!
So, OP, have you decided only to apply to ivies/elites for undergrad? Just to be perfectly clear, and not to be a wet blanket, you do realize that the chances of gaining admission to such colleges is very, very slim for even the best applicants?
Just want to make sure that you understand that limiting your apps to such colleges means it is highly unlikely you will be going to college in the US. If that’s your plan now, fine.
@goldenmaster I think that it’s short-sighted, at this point, to not apply to some schools that will give you large merit for stats…just in case, next spring, you decide that you do want to study in the US.
It’s unlikely you’ll get into a tippy top school, as you know.
But if the OP’s parents prefer him attending a German U and they are only willing to pay for a more select US college… He already has in-country safeties.
I took all Hawai’i schools out of my list.