Hi I’m a senior in high school and I really need help deciding where to go. Heres my dilemma:
I could go to Stony Brook and enjoy a campus life and do pre med. If I do poorly in pre med at Stony, ill probably become a PA. If I don’t, I’d make my way to med school. The tuition would be around 20k including room and board
I could go to St. John’s in a 4-5 year PA program and become a PA at age 22. My only problem is that I don’t want to think that i could have tried to become a doctor earlier.(Also if i become a PA, I don’t intend on becoming a doctor afterwards). The tuition would be around 12k and I would commute.
City college is another much cheaper option, where i would be paying virtually nothing and I would go on a pre med track. If I mess up, then i would probably apply to PA school.
~I don’t want to say I didn’t try to become a doctor which is why I want to go to Stony and I’m not sure if I could handle the pre med track and maintain a good GPA because if i don’t I would drop to PA, which I could have already done at St. Johns.
Please give me advice on what to do 
Much appreciated!
I don’t know about other schools, but I’m currently a freshman with double majors in applied math and economics at Stony Brook, so I think it would be appropriate for me to give you an overview of Stony Brook.
Academics:
4.5 out of 5 stars
There is no doubt that Stony Brook has some of the best academic programs in the nation. There are plenty of faculty members here who graduated from some of the most prestigious universities in the nation. Since Stony Brook is a research university, a lot of faculty members are here to do research along with teaching. This means that they’re extremely knowledgeable about their field and the courses that they’re teaching. However, since they’re here to be researchers, some of them aren’t the greatest teachers. But if you want to learn in-depth about the subject you’re studying or if you’re simply looking to join their research, Stony Brook is definitely a good choice for you. However, I only give it 4 stars because some of the expectation are just too unrealistic. For example, in some biology courses, the professor only gives out 10% of A’s to the class. So, in a 500 people lecture class, which is the typical size for an introductory level biology course, only 50 students can get an A. This does not only kill a large portion of the premed pool, but also makes people who are just taking it to fill the general ed requirement miserable. If you’re looking to study anything related to pre-health, be prepare to work your ass off. Additionally, as I mentioned above, most introductory level courses have 500 students, which leaves a lot of learning on your own; Stony Brook is a poor state school, so I guess there isn’t much use to complain about the large classes.
Faculty:
4.5 stars
Surprisingly, most of the faculty members here are very approachable. Although they’re here mainly for the research, they do genuinely care about students. Most of them don’t have the snobby tenured attitude that you’ll expect. However, that being said, a lot of them are not very good at delivering their knowledges. If you have a question and ask them about something, they’ll definitely know what they’re talking about. But if you want to learn the materials in the course, expect a lot of self-learning.
Majors:
4.5 stars
The top three popular majors here at biology, psychology, and business/applied math (tie). Since there is an university hospital right across the campus, a lot of students come to Stony Brook to study health-related subjects(premed, pre-dental, PA, nursing, etc.). Consequently, since a lot of biology course requirement overlaps with premed courses, biology has become the number one popular major on campus. That being said, Stony Brook also offers a lot of great non-biology majors, namely mathematics (pure math), computer science, physics, chemistry (also a great major for premed), economics, and more. Stony Brook currently ranks as the 88th best national university, but the programs I mentioned above have ranking higher than the overall university ranking. In fact, the specialization in nuclear physics ranks as the 5th best in the nation, which is right behind MIT. However, the only reasoning why I gave it a 4 stars is that there is a large imbalance and polarization among majors. About 90% of students study biology, psychology, business, and engineering (all types), leaving barely anyone studying social sciences or liberal arts. Also, despite the fact that Stony Brook has some of the best programs in the nation, there are also programs that are barely passing the community college standard, which drags down the overall university ranking.
Tuition and Cost of Attendance:
3.5 stars
It’s a SUNY school, so it’s extremely cheap for in-state students to attend comparing to some notoriously expensive school like NYU. You’re basically paying virtually nothing to get a great education. But the school is broke as fuck, so there isn’t much scholarship you can get unless you’re exceptional. That being said, you’ll still pay less by going here without scholarship than going to a private or out-of-state school with scholarship. However, despite the cheap tuition, room and board, student fees, and meal plan cost a lot! In fact, room and board costs more than tuition itself, which is ridiculous (although the room and board cost is about the same comparing to other colleges). The student fees is a pure scam in my opinion; it costs almost as much as the tuition itself. They charge you with fees that most students don’t even need. Even worst, you don’t know where some of these fees are even used for. The mostly noticeable ones are athletic fee and academic excellence fee. Let’s be honest, Stony Brook is an academic-orientated school; sports are just not something Stony Brook excels at, yet students are required to pay $300 per semester ($600 a year) for nothing. And the academic excellence fee… I honest don’t know what it’s even used for.
Social Life:
3 stars
Although Stony Brook has a fairly large student population, a good chunk of students commute from home since they live in Long Island. Another good chunk of students live in NYC, so they go home during weekends. Additionally, due to the housing problem (which I’ll explain later), a lot of students also live off-campus. With a combination of these factors, Stony Brook looks like an empty ghost town during the weekend. In fact, some of my friends work as a campus tour guide. They told me that even the school wants to avoid talking about campus social life. However, despite all the negatives, Stony Brook does put in some efforts to encourage students to stay on campus during weekends. So if you’re looking for fun during the weekend, you can always find something to do despite the rather dead campus on weekend.
Living On Campus and Room and Board:
3 stars
As I mentioned before, room and board costs more than tuition, but the cost itself is reasonable. That being said, living on campus is not a very pleasant experience. First of all, you need to have a meal plan if you live in a non-cooking building, which automatically increases your bill by $1300 for nothing. Secondly, due to the high enrollment rate in recent years, a lot of freshmen are placed in a triple room. Although students receive a 15% off on their housing bill for staying in a triple, but if you do the math, the university still makes more money by putting students in a triple room than a standard double room, which is somewhat unethical in my opinion. The housing crisis affects the transfer students even more severely. Unlike freshmen, transfer students are not guaranteed to have an on-campus housing. As a result, the school place a lot of these kids in their Brookhaven apartments, which is very inconvenient to travel to and from campus. Some even have to find their own housing, which makes transferring a dismal journey at Stony Brook. Even if you live on campus, the social life isn’t that great as well. The school tried to implement a lot of events in the living building throughout the year, but most of them are just plain lame. A lot of these events are organized by forcing the RA’s to program them. I have some RA friends and they told me that this is absolutely the worst part of their job. RA is a person who helps the RHD administer and handle issues in the building, not a social butterfly responsible for organizing the quote-on-quote “fun” events. If the university really wants residents to interact with others, then pay the hall council and the student government for organizing these events; don’t exploit RA’s and force them to organize lame programs/events just because they get free housing. This is not doing any good to both residents and RA’s.
Foods and Meal Plans:
2.5 stars
A lot of people complain about the campus food, but I personally view that as an exaggeration. There is a variety of foods you can pick from on campus; if you’re tired of one type of food, you can always pick a different kind the next day. Although the quality of foods are not great, it’s decent enough to get by. Despite all the variety, however, the foods are very expensive here! A small salad can easily cost over $10. In fact, it’s cheaper to eat in a decent off-campus restaurant than the ok-quality food on campus. Seriously, the whole purpose of campus food is for students to save money. Instead, the school sees that as an opportunity to rip students off. Lastly, if you live on campus, you’re required to have the meal plan (unless you live in a cooking building). This is a major major rip off. Basically, you’re required to buy one of the four meal plans, which ranges from $1900 to $2800. This kinda works like a prepaid debit card where you put in the money first, then you use it. However, they don’t give you the exact price for what you’re buying. For example, if you’re gonna buy the bronze plan, which costs $1900 per semester, you only get $1300 because they charge you $600 for the so-called “administration fee”. Basically, if you want to live on campus, expect to pay $1200 extra per year for nothing.
Staff:
0 star!
This is the worst part of this university! While the faculty members (professors, researchers, department head, deans, etc.) here are very nice and approachable, most of the staff members are beyond unacceptable, especially those who work on the non-academic side. If you ever need any help, these low-life will try to avoid you as much as they can. They just don’t have any sympathy and human mercy at all. Heck, they don’t even want to be there. Even if you’re just grabbing some foods in the cafeteria, those low-lifes can ruin your day if you’re unlucky. I don’t know if this is a result of the university paying crappy wages to those workers or the lack of professionalism to train these workers, but this is clearly not acceptable! I’m not saying all staff members are like this, but most of them are.
Overall, if you’re hard-working and want to have a great quality of education with a cheap tuition, come to Stony Brook. If you’re looking into sports and party, Stony Brook is definitely not a good choice for you.
CCNY has a good PA Program, which is pretty much a 2+2 program. You complete 60 credits and then apply to their PA Program, which is incredibly “inexpensive” program, when you compare their cost to other PA Programs around the country. They have 100% pass rate in the last couple of years.
The CCNY science program is very good and a lot of their students go on to Medical School. Personally, I would use the PA Program as my pre-med program, as it would be your fall back option in case you do not get into medical school. Also, there are PAs that eventually go on to Medical School, so I do not see why becoming a PA would negate you going to Med School. The prerequisite courses for PA School is very much pre-med courses, so you are essentially killing two birds with one stone. I would go the least cost route, especially, if you intend to go on to Medical School. BTW, doing poorly in premed might make it difficult to get into a PA Program. Most PA Programs are VERY Competitive, so you need a “decent” (above a 3.4?) GPA. I doubt you can get into most PA Programs with less than a 3.0 GPA, so don’t think PA Programs are for poor performing students. Note: CCNY PA Program (Probably St. Johns also) will be transitioning to a Masters Level program in the very near future.
If money is no object, I would say go to St. Johns (looks like you are getting about $20K of scholarship from them) or you if want to graduate debt free go to CCNY. Can you and/or your parents afford Stony Brook or St. Johns with loans? Were you accepted into any of the CCNY Honors program?
Thanks for the info on Stony!
@Psata82 but i want to at least try to be a doctor first before trying for PA. i was accepted into the ccny honors college and money is tight but my parents will pay for anywhere they said. i just dont want to do PA right away and then in the future say that i never tried to do pre med
@toojatt4u : I think you are missing the point. A “premed” program (technically there is no such thing) is typically a program where the Student majors in a discipline (for example, microbiology), where they follow a prescribed path that covers all the typical prerequisite premed courses. At the end of the 4-years, the student will graduate from the University with a BSc in Microbiology and apply to Medical Schools, after taking the MCAT in their Junior/Senior Year of College.
Since the Physician Assistant Program at CCNY (and maybe the same at St. Johns also) is really a 4-year (48.5 months) Program, what I’m suggesting is that, instead of majoring in microbiology (or whatever) for those 4±years in undergrad, you major would be in “Physician Assistant”. The first Pre-PA courses are really premed courses (or can be tailored that way). Either way, you would either finish your four year undergraduate degree with a Microbiology Degree or a Physician Assistant degree (Bachelor of Science degree in P.A. Studies (BS/PA), and then apply to Medical School. What I’m suggesting is the latter approach provides you with the ability to have your fall back position under your belt, in case you do not get into medical school after 4-years. IT DOES NOT prevent you from apply to Med School after 4-years.
I know people that got into Medical School after obtaining their Undergraduate Degree in Electrical Engineering at CCNY. As a “Premed”, you can major in anything at the undergraduate degree. It does not have to be one of the biological sciences.
@Psata82 i understand that. youre saying i can finish PA and then still apply to med school. are you saying that after doing PA, i should take the MCAT? that wouldnt be such a great idea especially since i need to study for the PA exam as well as shadow PAs. It’s very different from becoming a doctor where you shadow doctors in your leisure time. there would be no point of applying if i didn’t have those “extracurriculars” to back me up.
@Psata82 this electrical engineering person, what were their grades like and that must have been a lot of pressure taking pre reqs for pre med as well as his normal classes. what were his extracurriculars? and what medical school?
@Psata82 i spoke to a St. Johns rep. and they said its usually not possible to take the pre med requirements and if you wanted to, it would probably have to be during the summer so i dont know where that puts us in our discussion. also dont leave stony brook out of the picture