I am currently a junior in high school and have been looking into colleges. I was wondering if anyone has suggestions on colleges that will prepare me for med school or PA school. I am hoping to stay in the midwest (I live in Wisconsin) and am also looking into colleges that have good merit aid. I have a 3.9 UW GPA, 31 ACT, 3 years of varsity tennis, 7 AP courses, officer positions, and many volunteer hours. Thanks for your help!
Hi @megan42 . I am not sure about the premed program, but on other threads today I saw good remarks about the science program at Earlham. The thread was one where the OP was asking to compare Beloit and Earlham. The consensus seemed to be that both schools were really good, and the personalities of the students there was fun, but that the sciences at Earlham were better. These are just the opinions of strangers on the internet, but maybe it gives you a starting place. I’d also look at Grinnell, as it’s a well-rounded school and supposedly excellent in many regards. I’ve visited none of these schools but hope to soon. To my mind small, excellent liberal arts colleges offer a lot to premed students. Big universities, like UWMadison, can be amazing places to study, but the intro classes that are crucial for premed are often huge lecture classes. The smaller sessions are taught by TAs. It’s hard for me to imagine that a student would easily find support. At a small LAC like Beloit or Earlham or Grinnell you might just find the support, the opportunity for research (without competing for a position with grad students), and they might be willing to give you financial aid, with your stats. Oh and one other thing, I’m not sure if Colorado counts as close enough for you, but Colorado Mines opened a premed program recently–i think in part to attract more women to the school. Because you have great stats, they may offer you money as incentive to go there. (your name megan sounds female! sorry if I’m mistaken)
Butler University has a Pre-PA program that allows you to get through in 6 years.
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have a 3.9 UW GPA, 31 ACT, 3 years of varsity tennis, 7 AP courses, officer positions, and many volunteer hours. Thanks for your help!
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Are you going to retest? Are you also going to take the SAT?
How much merit do you need? What are your parents saying about how much they’ll pay each year.
All good schools are fine for premed students. Undergrads don’t “prepare students for med school.” They offer the basic classes that are premed prereqs. There’s nothing special about these classes. They just the regular bio, chem, physics and calc classes that other science and eng’g majors take.
Earlham has an undergrad cadaver lab. The premed graduating class is small, about 20 people, but they have almost all of them, if not all of them, head straight to med school.
Learn what it takes to get into med school by reading thru the very informative pages at https://www.rhodes.edu/content/health-professions-advising-hpa on the “PreMed Essentials” link. There is also a good handbook at https://www.amherst.edu/campuslife/careers/act/gradstudy/health/guide and no doubt many other websites, as well as books.
Like @mom2collegekids said, colleges don’t “prepare” kids for med school. Asking about good programs leads many into a trap, since they are told to consider acceptance numbers. For med school admissions the college acceptance numbers are meaningless. Impressive rates boil down to one of two things, great students or screening. It’s no surprise that kids that can get into elite colleges like Stanford or Middlebury do well in med school admissions 4 years later. Or the school aggresively uses their “committee letter” and only recommends the best kids. A regular poster used to chime in on posts like this to recommend one such school, Holy Cross. Any college in the country offers the lower-division science and math tested on the MCAT. Whether you work work for good grades, get to know some profs so you get strong recs, take part in appropriate ECs, and develop compelling essays is up to you.
The real question to address at this point is not what college, but why an M.D? Have you looked into the medical field and considered the alternatives? From the day you start college it will be 11-15 years before you are a practicing doctor. Its almost a reflex action among HS kids, they think of a career in medicine and its “I’m pre-med!” Doctors are far from the only ones in the health field that help people. Physical therapists, radiology techs, nurses, speech pathologists, physician assistants, to name but just a few. Spend a few hours browsing on http://explorehealthcareers.org Unless you’ve considered the alternatives and have spent time actually working in a health care setting (which is an unofficial requirement to get into med school, BTW) its better to think of yourself as interested in exploring a career as a doctor rather than someone who has already made the decision.
What matters is how much support you’ll get from fellow students and professors, if there’s a health committee and whether it weeds out candidates or supports them, what the resources and facilities are, whether they help you find health-related internships, whether professors will involve you in their research.
Earlham is terrific for all of this, but other colleges listed before (Beloit, Grinnell, Butler),also are, as are Illinois Wesleyan, Lawrence, Gustavus Adolphus, Macalester (reach), Lake Forest, Hiram, Kenyon (reach), Denison (match).
One excellent match for your stats would be St Olaf. Terrific science program, possible internships at Mayo. But harder to get into than all but Grinnell. You’d have to express interest by filling out the “request info” form ASAP.
If you can get your ACT to 32 it’d open up more possibilities and make colleges such as Denison, St Olaf, Grinnell, Kenyon, or Macalester a bit more reachable (latter 3)/likely (former2).