Northeastern Pharm.D vs Johns Hopkins Pre-Med

College Search & Selection
1

Any opinions on this ? The assurance program at NEU for Pharmacy with a scholarship of 18K per year seems the reasonable way to go. JHU gave only a 7K grant (after an appeal). I have heard horror stories that JHU have taken away the scholarship after 2 years for no obvious reasons from past students. She is not 100% certain of med-school, which is why I am not 100% sure if $ 250 K is worth the price of a JHU name. So, the cost of 6 years at NEU will be about $ 285 K (excluding income from co-ops), possibly lower if she stays at home during the co-ops. Also, the Pharm.D program gives her a great shot at a 6-figure income at 24 years old, compared to fighting your way through the MCAT’s and then med-school after 4 years at JHU.

Our thinking is if she is totally sold & passionate on medical school, we will do JHU, but if not, it isn’t worth the money. So 6 years at NEU is roughly equal to the cost of 4 years at JHU. Any of your wise opinions will be appreciated.

(High Prestige + “Good Potential” at Johns Hopkins) versus (Lower Prestige + “High Probability of immediate career prospects” at Northeastern) is really the comparison here.

2

When my D was considering NEU pharm, they guaranteed the same FA package for all the years (except the last, as I recall, since that’s post-bachelor technically). So there’s that.

She wasn’t 100% sure she wanted Pharm and liked that NEU made it pretty easy to switch -the first year classes are pretty basic science stuff that would be fine for pre-med too.

I’m not sure the market for pharm grads is all that awesome right now, I read that there is a bit of a glut so it can be hard to get a good job out of the gate?

3

Med schools don’t take prestige into account. What matters is GPA and MCAT score, first - and then experience (which she’d have plenty of at NEU through coops). I’m also not sure the competitive nature of premeds at JHU is all that good - premeds need support and advice more than anything else.
Does she have a preference?

4

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. She is not 100% certain of med-school, which is why I am not 100% sure if $ 250 K is worth the price of a JHU
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And you’re thinking that if she’s sure on med school then JHU would be worth it.

You don’t understand the modern US med school app process. med schools don’t give a rip about which undergrad you went to. Spending $250k for premed is nearly always unnecessary. If you’ve got money to burn or you’re totally fine with saying goodbye to that much money, then go for it. (I spent less than $40k TOTAL on my kid’s undergrad and he’s a 3rd year med student at a well ranked med school.)

If you’d rather put the money towards med school (or pharm school) then go somewhere less expensive.


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fighting your way through the MCAT's

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While taking the MCAT isn’t a cakewalk, let’s not be so dramatic as to act like a student who can get into JHU would likely do poorly. You prepare for it, you take it.

Where else was she accepted and how much are those schools?

Since she’s not sure about either career, she shouldn’t be pidgeon-holed into either.

5

She was accepted to Carnegie Mellon with a 7k scholarship, which still costs 61k per year. Others were U.Va (oos), so 60k/year, U.Roc with 17k scholarship, so 48k/year, Penn state Schreyer’s Honor College (oos), which would cost @ 42k/year because of a small 4500 scholarship, and Boston university with presidential scholarship of 20k, but still costing 45k/year. Unfortunately our efc was high, and no, we don’t have money to burn ! We did prepare as best we could with 529’s and being prepared to put more money from earnings for 4years. But it seems colleges want us to start selling any assets we may have in addition to this. It is a scam which we parents willingly/unwillingly participate in :-(.

6

A family that didn’t buy those assets and put the money away would be expected to use the money to pay for college.

7

I don’t get it. These investments one make may have been “earmarked” for their own retirement. We have put away significant funds in 529’s, and are willing to put in a lot more from earnings in the next few years. We do have a younger one who will be in college in 9 years time, so we need to put away for her too (we are in low 5 figures in a 529 for her) ! Not to sound too negative, but it feels like a mountain to climb of immense proportions.

8

The best choice (beside NEU ?) if you can afford it is Penn State Schreyer. It has enormous prestige on the East Coast and terrific opportunities - it’s one of the top honors colleges in the country and has an 8% acceptance rate or so. Students are selected by professors and are as accomplished as JHU students (lots of cross admits wonder it as better value), so, she’d be among peers.
And it’s still 20k/year cheaper than your other choices. So, if she’s not sure about Pharma, that gives her more options for a more reasonable cost than JHU. Note that Schreyer has a special program where 4 freshmen are selected to spend the summer doing medical research in Hershey (Medical). Those selected typically have excellent grades and research experience. Schreyer also has a special Leadership class (Jump-start) that admits 24 scholars and includes lots of opportunities for driven students.

9

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She was accepted to Carnegie Mellon with a 7k scholarship, which still costs 61k per year. Others were U.Va (oos), so 60k/year, U.Roc with 17k scholarship, so 48k/year, Penn state Schreyer’s Honor College (oos), which would cost @ 42k/year because of a small 4500 scholarship, and Boston university with presidential scholarship of 20k, but still costing 45k/year.
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Well, it appears that she didn’t apply to any place that would give her large merit for her stats…likely because she believed that you would pay for wherever she went.

She sounds like a good fit for UAB, which is still accepting apps and awarding large merit. It would be a good choice for someone who will work in the healthcare field …either in pharm or MD.

But, if she wants to stick with her choices, then I would pick the school that would probably choose PSU-Schreyer.

She could select PSU, but still throw out some apps to a school like UAB and see what happens. If she were to be accepted with large merit, then visit and decide. It’s a “medical world” there. I would contact them and see if she could get into their elite science and technology honors program.

What about becoming a physicians assistant? My son’s GF is in the PA program at UAB. It’s an excellent program and being a PA is far more interesting than being a pharmacist. PA’s are extremely highly paid.

Is she a NMF?

What is your home state?

10

If she were NMF she would have received $30,000/year merit from Northeastern.

11

We are from MA. She isn’t NMF. We haven’t visited Penn State. She got into pre-med there. We felt like if she could have got more merit aid from places like JHU or CMU, we would have gone ahead with them, but that didn’t happen. So here we are between a rock & a hard place. Northeastern is flexible enough to allow change of major from pharm to anything else if she doesn’t like it, and she is in honors program & close to home too. The merit scholarship of 18k does make it reasonable and the co-op for all majors even more so. So that’s the reasoning to lean towards Northeastern.

12

Her stats were solid but not very high. 2250 on sat, 34 act, very high gpa, straight A’s with all honors and a total of 8 AP’s in junior & senior years, and 4 subject SAT scires between 760-790, plays 2 musical instruments, honors band, and 300 hours of volunteer work, besides research internship at a university.

13

"So that’s the reasoning to lean towards Northeastern. "

Sounds like she has a good head on her shoulders.
If she decides against NE, then I agree that PennState is the next best choice.

LISTEN to mom2collegekids- she KNOWS what she is talking about what Med schools want .

14

I really think the true choices are Penn State Schreyer or Northeastern.

Here’s a blog I follow of a Schreyer student interested in premed/neuroscience/science research, on Tumblr: AFrenchie36. Very interesting in any case. :slight_smile:

Some differences:
Northeastern has co-ops.It’s its “brand” and why students go there. It means preprofessional students and friends who may not be at school at the same time as you are, but it also means driven/dedicated students and trying out a variety of job possibilities.
Penn State Schreyer allows for a greater variety of choices: honors classes and opportunities (like the special summer program or the special leadership program, networking, housing in “The Globe”…), ease of modulating intensity of classes between “regular” and “honors” classes, LOTS of class choices (something like 300 Honors classes but literally thousands and thousands of ‘regular choices’), flexibility of schduling (Fall + Spring, but also Maymester and 2 summer sessions), and a greater variety of student profiles, plus best alumni network and excellent career fairs.
Northeastern is smaller, with a well-defined campus in the middle of an ideal city, Boston.
Penn State is very large, in a classic college town that focuses on college students and activities.

@bodangles may be able to chime in with personal experiences.

15

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She got into pre-med there


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Does that just mean that she got into some sort of health sciences major? I think PSU has created some sort of major that they’re calling premed. That doesn’t mean anything. There really isn’t such a thing as a pre-med major, although a couple of schools seem to have clustered the premed prereqs together along with a couple of unnecessary courses and are calling it a premed or prehealth major.

NO MED SCHOOL requires or expects a “premed major” since there really isn’t such a thing.

Frankly…we’re not sure if SOM adcoms even notice a student’s major unless it’s really unusual for an applicant.

Anyway…I would lean towards PSU since she got into SHC…as long as it’s affordable.

I don’t see any real advantage to going to NEU since co-oping isn’t high on the list for many pre-professionals. It’s super for those who will be going right into the private sector upon graduation. I’m not saying it’s useless for pre-professionals…not at all. It’s just not usually high on list.

Whether she wants med school, PA school, or pharm school, the important things are cum GPA, BCPM GPA, and MCAT, GRE or PCAT score. No matter which way she goes, she needs medically related activities.

Pharm schools seem to like students who work part-time as pharm techs. (This actually weeds a bunch of pre-pharm students because they see, first hand, whether being a pharmacist is for them).

PA schools expect that the students have 1000-3000 hours of 'hands on clinical patient care" (which is why military medics, EMTs and paramedics seem to have an admissions advantage since they have a gazillion hours…but that isn’t insurmountable for a student…he/she just has to “get hours”.)

Med schools…they want shadowing/medically related ECs, volunteering. They aren’t nearly as particular as PA schools. SOMs mostly care about cum/BCPM GPA and MCAT scores.

What are your/your DD’s plans for funding pharm/med/grad school?

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Her stats were solid but not very high. 2250 on sat, 34 act, very high gpa, straight A’s with all honors and a total of 8 AP’s in junior & senior years


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oh good heavens. Your DD’s stats are very high. please don’t be one of those parents that anything less than perfect isn’t “high enough”. I don’t know what you do for a living, but your DD could be on track to meet or exceed whatever you’ve achieved.

16

What kind of schools does she like? PSU is going to be rah rah/spirited …with much hoopla going on during fall months with alums and everyone descending on campus during about 7 weekends. This can be fun, but not if you truly hate this sort of thing.

PSU is like its own city.

Others can chime in about the atmosphere of NEU. It seems less cohesive to me (not the We Are Penn State atmosphere, but I could be very wrong.

17

^if she picks Schreyer, I would move AWAY from the “premed major”, which is a major for weaker students who can’t handle the premed pre-reqs and a full major. It means she is admitted to the College of Science so she can easily switch to other science majors (there are lots of different tracks in biology, or chemistry, plus one neuroscience track) or Human Health and Development or… anything else. They have a minor in Biomedical Ethics, classes in Medical History and Psychiatric History, Medical Communication, African Americans and the Health System, Spanish for Health Sciences, Calculus classes dedicated to Health/Bio applications, biostatistics, bioinformatics… (I had to look that up for someone else so the info’s fresh in my mind and I was really impressed with the incredible wealth of choices. I would want to stay in college and take all these classes if I were into medicine!) Schreyer students can take graduate-level classes as early as Junior Year.

Yes, your daughter’s stats are really high. And since test scores aren’t taken into account for Schreyer - professors look at course rigor, essays, EC’s, and recommendations, for evidence of intellectual vitality and ability to contribute - it means her overall profile is among the finest in the country. Schreyer will “signal” that, as well as JHU and NEU (and perhaps more, depending on where/whom you ask.) Don’t downplay that. Be proud. She got lots of really terrific admissions. Buy merch, display stickers, plan a party for tomorrow evening! :slight_smile:

18

She definitely likes urban schools, Penn State is more out in the countryside sort of school, correct ?
We aren’t the perfectionist parents, lol ! But she is a great kid, very mature & we want the best for her. We want to get through undergrad mostly loan free, except maybe a small loan for her to understand fiscal responsibility. At the same time, she wants to be financially on her own feet relatively soon (which kind of put her off from committing to med school) - we want her to be much more successful than we could ever be, after having immigrated to the US in our late 20’s. So, all these “prestigious” colleges should be worth the $$$ we throw at them :-). I myself went to top colleges in my country completely free of cost. It sounds crazy to be spending a mortgage on an education these days, but what are we to do ? :frowning:

19

Mom2collegekids, thanks for your insightful responses. The Northeastern program is a 6-year assurance program with a Pharm.D terminal degree. It has co-ops built into it. No PCAT required. It’s like the combined BS/MD 7-8 year programs offered by Penn State & several others, which are really hard to get into (she didn’t).

20

Well, I would let the career goal slide right now since she’s not certain (and many 18 year olds aren’t).

It’s best that she go where she can have the flexibility to decide on which health career …or not.

The NEU option sounds like a 2+4 deal? 2 years of intense undergrad + 4 years PharmD. Is that right?

It has co-ops built in? where would those be within the 6 years? or does it extend the time? Do you have to pay tuition while the co-op is going on?

Unless she’s determined to be a pharmacist, I would pick PSU.

@MYOS1634 interesting about the premed major at PSU. Would being a bio major be that much different?