<p>UC Berkeley with Regents</p>
<p>USC with Trustee
Con: Trustee doesn't cover housing...and the surrounding environment is dismal.
Pro: So spirited and beautiful interior</p>
<p>Middlebury College
Pro: Foreign languages!!! ^.^ And I got a note saying they loved my essay</p>
<p>UCSD with Medical Scholars Program (potentially)
*Guarantees Medical School</p>
<p>UCLA</p>
<p>Waitlisted at Duke, and Johns Hopkins.</p>
<p>I'm considering writing up letters/essays to both (as I was invited to do so).</p>
<p>I'm probably headed to medical school but I'm extremely humanities-oriented.
Money is not an issue for me but USC full tuition initially sounded nice...now I realize it's not truly "full".</p>
<p>I guess I want some insight from you guys on which college you would choose and why (please exclude financial concerns). If you go to Duke, for example, could you say so and put your year, and also explain why you chose it over certain schools?
I'm really confused about this whole process to be honest with you...and my health isn't doing so good...and I'm so lethargic now...ugh sorry...but please...any insight would be appreciated.
I am planning to visit all of these colleges this month (although I've already been to USC and UCSD)</p>
<p>If you actually get into UCSD’s Medical Scholars program and you truly think that you want to go to medical school, I think that the guaranteed admission is very attractive. UCB with Regents is great for the prestige of the name but premeds can be very competitive there and if you’re not at the top of the GPA scale, then that can wreak havoc with trying to get into med school. Since the $ doesn’t matter to you, I’d think that you’d only pick USC if you like it better than the UCs or if you really like the non-financial perks of the trustee scholarship a lot. Hope that helps!</p>
<p><a href=“https://meded.ucsd.edu/groups/med-scholars/prereqs.html”>https://meded.ucsd.edu/groups/med-scholars/prereqs.html</a> describes the requirements you need to fulfill at UCSD to ensure entry into the medical school. MCAT is not needed, but you need to complete the pre-med courses alongside any major of your choosing, and get 3.5 GPA, with 3.5 GPA in upper division sciences and 3.5 GPA in upper division humanities and social studies. A 3.5 GPA in college is not necessarily easy to maintain.</p>
<p>Berkeley and UCLA appear to have all of the languages that Middlebury offers (and more), and UCSD appears to have almost all of them.</p>
<p>I guess I want some insight from you guys on which college you would choose and why (please exclude financial concerns).</p>
<p>I wouldn’t exclude financial concerns, and I don’t know why so many students on CC ask us to do so. They’re extremely important. I wouldn’t want to get you all hyped up about a place that you couldn’t afford, and I wouldn’t want to down you about the only affordable place on your list. There’s also no real point, right now, in seriously considering Duke and JHU (or the medical scholars program at UCSD) because you haven’t been accepted yet.</p>
<p>I graduated from college in 2008. Assuming that all four of these were affordable, I would choose Middlebury. My personal experiences and biases lead me to believe that studying at a small, selective LAC is ideal - especially for students really engaged in the humanities. You get close personal relationships with professors, small, discussion-based seminars and tight relationships with your classmates. THis may be especially appealing if I were pre-med, since I’d have to take freshman biology and chem. If I go to UCLA or Berkeley or USC, I might take the class in a seminar room with 200-500+ students (my friend, a current med student who went to UCLA for undergrad, told me that her freshman biology seminar had 650 students and two overflow rooms, and that sounds horrifying to my delicate SLAC-educated ears) and my lab section will be taught by a graduate student. If I go to Midd, my freshman biology class will probably be around 30-50 students, and the lab will be taught by a professor. As someone who isn’t particularly strong in the sciences and attributes success in those classes primarily to hard work rather than aptitude, I’d really appreciate a close relationship with an actual professor who’s there for my personal success.</p>
<p>Like you, I love languages and would be thrilled to study a language intensively at Midd’s renowed programs. I also learned that attending college in a small rural area is great for school spirit and cohesiveness, because the students don’t venture off campus as much and are forced to make their own fun on campus. I’m not a big fan of integrated 6-8-year medical school programs because I’d like the freedom to change my mind without pressure (and also because I know first-hand how difficult it is to maintain a 3.5 GPA even when you’re NOT taking science classes. One bad semester and you’re finished). They’ve got a beautiful campus in a breathtaking rural setting. And if I really wanted the big-school experience for a little while, I could probably be a visiting student at a California school for a semester.</p>
<p>But that’s ME. My med student friend loved UCLA, and hey, she’s in med school! I know folks who have really thrived in large lecture halls and made themselves stand out even on 40,000 person campuses. Some people love to one one in the crowd, to cheer for the team, and to be able to choose from hundreds of student groups and thousands and thousands of students to be your new potential BFF.</p>
<p>Thanks so much guys 
I’m not sure about the UCSD medical program because I want to go to medical school at Brown University…</p>
<p>UCSD for sure. You can still apply to Brown during your senior year at UCSD. Just make sure you write the MCAT. If that doesn’t work out, you will still have UCSD Med school with 3.5 GPA. </p>
<p>@princeton2031 if i choose to go to ucsd as a medical scholar, when applying to alpert at brown will i have an edge by virtue of having “ucsd medical scholar” on my resume?
Thanks!</p>
<p>@juillet my parents can afford all of the universities I listed above, that’s why i said that. also—for duke, jh, and medical scholars, u have about 1 week to respond so i want to get as much info and consider all my possible choices now.</p>