<p>My daughter has applied to both programs, and we anticipate she will be accepted to both.(2 more weeks!) Here's the dilemma: She has the potential to get almost half of Muhlenberg's tuition costs in scholarship $. Penn will offer us nothing. This makes the cost of the Penn degree more than double the Muhlenberg degree! Is it worth it? What is the value of the Dana Scholarship after graduation? Is it well-respected, or unknown outside of the immediate area? At this point my daughter wants to go to medical school. (more $$) Is the Ivy League degree a big advantage when applying to med schools? My husband and I are both Penn grads, but honestly, with 3 kids, we need a good value. Just not sure what to do. Any comments are appreciated.</p>
<p>Key to your statement: your d wants to go to med school…Muhlenberg sciences are excellent; good, if not great, placement in to medical, dental school etc…</p>
<p>The mantra on CC is that for pre-med, highest GPA at lowest cost…</p>
<p>And I, too, am a Penn grad (albeit for grad school)…</p>
<p>I don’t think schools put a lot of weight on those honors programs - mainly it is the school you went to/GPA/board scores. Penn is the higher ranked school by a wide margin (coming from another alum) but I’m sure you can get a great education at either place. If money is a big issue and you are all happy with Muhlenberg, then that is a very good option.</p>
<p>Before you decide, I’d suggest that you go back to the accepted student days at the two schools if you can and see if you feel the difference is or isn’t worth the money. The schools also have two very different environments (larger city school versus small LAC) so one or the other may be a better fit for your D. Maybe arrange to have your D sit in on some science classes, particularly at Muhlenberg. Good luck.</p>
<p>Thanks to you both! We were just discussing the GPA possibilities at both schools. I am thinking she could have a higher GPA at Muhlenberg. (the lowest cost!) She has been at Penn since this past summer, part time through their Young Scholars Program, so she feels comfortable there and feels she “knows” the school. (I think her GPA for 4 classes so far is 3.5 with two classes pending this semester.) I definitely want to her to visit Muhlenberg again, maybe spend the night, so she has a better feel for campus life there. That’s a good reminder about “accepted student days!” Thanks!</p>
<p>P.S. we were both grad students at Penn as well - removed from the undergrad experience</p>
<p>What Rodney said. Do a search on the threads for pre-med. Washington U posted the origins of their admitted student’s undergraduate program. I did a little review of it at [College</a> Rankings for Everyone](<a href=“http://diycollegerankings.com/2012/02/22/college-rankings-for-everyone/]College”>http://diycollegerankings.com/2012/02/22/college-rankings-for-everyone/). Just in terms of money, I think she would be better off at Muhlenburg. Also, not all Ivy Leaguers get into the most prestigious schools. My sister went to Southwestern in Dallas who had quite a few students from the Ivy League in her class. A few even commented that they couldn’t believed that they ended up where they did. But it’s like they say, what do call the med student who graduates last in his class-Doctor.</p>
<p>Muhlenberg prides itself on doing very well at getting students into med school. Have your D investigate that angle.</p>
<p>They are very very different schools, of course.</p>
<p>Most schools won’t be familiar with the particularities of honors programs and scholarships at different schools, but that’s not really important - what’s more important is the preparation and rigor that the program will offer. I went to a small LAC for college - choosing it and the full merit scholarship I received over schools like Emory. My LAC has less name recognition than Muhlenberg. In my limited experience with my ONE program - the scholarship was MORE than worth it, the college itself was great (I have very little debt from undergrad, and I attend an Ivy League PhD program that’s top 10 in my field) and I was very prepared for graduate school.</p>
<p>However, the honors program itself wasn’t worth it, and I dropped out of it in my junior year. The classes could be taken by anyone - they weren’t special honors classes and you didn’t need to be in the honors program to get into them, and you could take as many or as few as you wanted, and the honors classes weren’t so ridiculously popular that it was difficult getting into them if you weren’t an honors student. It came with a bunch of extra requirements that I wasn’t interested in, so although I dropped out of the formal honors program I still fulfilled most of the requirements, just in my own way (I took the required number of honors courses, but they weren’t in the right fields - more in the ones I was interested in, for example, and I wrote a senior thesis of my own volition).</p>
<p>Medical school cares about two things - GPA and MCAT scores. I don’t think Ivy League degrees are a big advantage when applying to medical school (or any kind of graduate school, really) when compared to other colleges with great reputations, and as was already mentioned you want to minimize debt. I graduated from college 4 years ago. I do not regret my decision one bit, and I am very very happy with the debt that I have and the fact that I can choose any job I want after college - even a lower-paying one that may be more enjoyable or a springboard to a better one, or a postdoc that maybe only pays $40K but will lead to good opportunities, because of my low debt load. Especially when compared with many of my friends who have taken out HUGE debt for undergrad, then took out MORE debt on top of it to go to grad school and are now very scared about how they are going to pay their loans back.</p>
<p>UT Southwestern Dallas is in fact a good med school, so I’m not quite sure why the poster above said that… especially if they were in-state.</p>
<p>Don’t know your financials. You may find aid at Muhlenberg reduced by the scholarship, final cost difference may not be as great as you suspect. Remember also that your pre-med daughter statistically only has, at most, a 50/50 chance of staying in a pre-med track. At some schools, attrition is as high as 75%. Opportunities with a Penn sheepskin will probably work to her advantage if she eventually decides to become, say, a healthcare consultant rather than a practitioner. </p>
<p>If she stays a pre-med track, I’d agree with most comments above. She’ll fare just as well applying with a Muhlenberg degree and will ultimately face less debt.</p>
<p>Not to be a wet blanket, but has your daughter received a likely letter from Penn? If not, you may be getting a bit ahead of yourself in trying to make this decision. Last year, Penn’s regular decision acceptance rate was under 10%, and Penn is quite explicit about legacy NOT being much of a factor–if at all–during the regular decision round.</p>
<p>If she is lucky enough to be accepted to Penn (and given the competitiveness of the applicant pool these days, it really is a matter of luck), she should consider much more than just medical school and her potential GPA in making her decision. First, as others have pointed out, many (perhaps most?) college students entering as premeds end up NOT going on to medical school (for whatever reason, be it change of heart, rigor of premed courses, etc.). Secondly, there is so much more to the 4 years of the college experience–occurring as it does during the formative threshold of adult life–than just GPA and prepping for grad school. And that experience is influenced by many facets of college life, not the least of which is the academic and intellectual level of ones peers, and the impact that has both in and out of the classroom.</p>
<p>Your daughter would certainly be more academically challenged at Penn than at Muhlenberg, and with challenge often comes growth (both intellectually and emotionally). While it is not uncommon for kids to choose between Penn and a LAC that provides a similar academic challenge (e.g., the US News top-20 LACs), the choice you have posited introduces an additional dimension (in terms of academic rigor and prestige) that is not usually present in these kinds of choices.</p>
<p>If your daughter does get accepted to Penn (or has already received a likely letter), then I’d urge her (and you) to consider all that each of these schools has to offer her during her 4 years of college in terms of academic offerings and challenges, research opportunities, extracurricular and cultural opportunities, and the peers with whom she will be interacting on a daily basis.</p>
<p>In the end, she might very well decide that Muhlenberg is, indeed, the place where she best fits and feels most comfortable (and happy). But I urge you and her NOT to make this decision, if it presents itself, based solely on the GPA she expects to have on her transcript when she graduates, and her current intention to go to medical school.</p>
<p>^^^I agree. Penn would provide your D with a much more challenging academic environment which will likely lead to more opportunities in the end. Muhlenberg is a nice school, but it is not in the same league in terms of facilities, faculty, and students. If money is an issue or if your D prefers Muhlenberg, that is great, but don’t pick a school just because you think your D can earn a higher GPA - there is much more to the college experience that a GPA and as many others noted, a lot of kids change out of pre-med. Also I looked at the WashU list noted in a post above and to me it looked like they took a high % of students out of the “top tier” colleges and universities.</p>
<p>My D is also a Dana applicant. It was my understanding that Muhlenberg selects the scholars over the summer. If I’m right about this, it may make your dilemma moot. From the website: [Muhlenberg</a> College: Dana Scholars - Introduction](<a href=“http://www.muhlenberg.edu/main/academics/dana-scholars/introduction.html]Muhlenberg”>http://www.muhlenberg.edu/main/academics/dana-scholars/introduction.html)</p>
<p>We’ve been unable to find any reference to a Dana decision coming before the May 1 enrollment deadline. If you’ve seen one, please enlighten me. Thanks.</p>
<p>My son was accepted to several honors programs at good schools. But when he was admitted to Cornell -College of Engineering - there wasn’t much to talk about. He chose Cornell-full tuition. If you can afford to send her, U Penn will challenge her and offer her opportunities that she won’t see at lower tier schools - even if she is in their Honors program.
Good luck with your decision.</p>
<p>Vlklngboy11, probably because they all had been turned down by Baylor–my sister included.</p>