My mother has an associate’s degree from NY and I am Asian. So, no and no. 
@Dustyfeathers Thank you so much for the long list of colleges, I’ll be sure to check them all out in my free time! Did a little research on Mount Holyoke and it seems quite appealing actually. Around a 2-3 hour car ride from where I live, has a pretty campus, supportive environment for pre-meds, good aid, and it would be nice to venture out of the city. Do you think this can be a reach or match for me?
@dustyfeathers: thank you for the exceptionally thorough and useful post. I hope @ironfloyd runs the NPC on all the colleges listed and applies to a few. I agree Earlham would be a great safety for a premed as long as s/he shows interest starting now (filling out the request info form, clicking on emails they send, emailing back and forth with admissions rep…) and I do believe they’d offer a better package than that.
Stony is extremely competitive and so is Bing, so it’s true, the weed-out factor is very large and to be honesty, this was my biggest concern because my son was accepted to a few good small liberal arts colleges where I felt he would get tremendous amount of support and I urged him to consider these colleges seriously, but his heart was set on Bing, so go figure. Basically, the weed-out for pre-meds is going to be huge at any large state or private schools, so heed those who recommended SUNY Fredonia for example, another option we had on the table that my son did not take-you might be better off there. Your dilemma is two-fold: the right fit school and affordability, therefore, you first have to narrow down the list of schools that are the right fit and then run the net price calculators. What you also want to check is which medical schools the graduates are going to.
I can’t pretend to know how weeding out works in college but isn’t this something that can prevented by choosing the right professors with the help of Rate My Professors or asking students about which professors to avoid? After your last post, I’m left more confused than ever on if I should go with a college that I would consider a safety and is easier to manage (Fredonia, Queens) or a more stronger yet more difficult one (Stony, Binghamton). I understand that most of all that matters when getting into medical school is the GPA and the MCAT so the easier school would be the ideal option, but I’m still a bit unsure which would help me more in the long run.
Weed out classes are classes where no matter what 2/3-3/4 students will not have a med school worthy grade. This is done by creating excessively difficult tests and by curving so that no more than x% can get a med school worthy grade. This is on purpose. If you’re not top 20% you’re not getting a med school worthy grades period. (This is not the same as natural attrition, ie., Students discovering they don’t like science as much as they thought they would, or students not studying enough to get good grades.)
Typically, large state universities weed and LACs don’t (LACs do have natural attrition.)
Right now you don’t have to make a decision. Apply to many SUNYs, apply HEOP (for the special support and summer session to hit the ground running but also for the extra resources private schools have that public universities can’t afford to have), apply to colleges with good financial aid near NYS. Then, see where it’s cheaper to go.
I would take @MYOS1634 advice seriously. There are schools on the list that I gave that 1) are affordable and 2) don’t have weed-out courses; 3) are rigorous enough to ensure that you will be able to prepare for the MCAT; 4) don’t have student bodies that are aggressive with each other, but rather are supportive of each other.
You may also find this combination in SUNY and CUNY schools. You can get an excellent education at these schools. If you were my child, I’d urge you to look at Geneseo for example, as it’s an LAC and avoid the large unis. If you feel your grades are not there for Geneseo, then maybe New Paltz or some other smaller SUNY. To my mind the best way for you to ensure that you get the support you need in getting through those hard courses is to attend a smaller, nurturing, school with small classes. If you’re in a classroom with 300 students for organic chemistry, it will be very hard. TA-taught review classes are a complete roll of the dice. TAs aren’t on Rate My Professor. In fact scant few professors are on Rate My Professor. While RMP is a great tool as far as it goes, it’s saddled with two issues. One is that not all professors are on there and no TAs. The second is that the people who rate professors tend to be only those highly motivated. They are either motivated by disliking the professor or loving the professor. Far fewer of the middling feelings are on that site. So use the site, absolutely. It’s better than having no information, maybe. But be aware that the information is biased and incomplete.
For finding the “just right” school, think of a Venn diagram with the above four circles. You want the schools that sit where all four circles overlap. 1) affordability; 2) nurturing of talent (no weed out); 3) rigorous without being punishingly so; 4) supportive student peers.
As for your question about Mt. H – because it looks at applications in a holistic way, you stand a good chance. Mt. H and Bryn Mawr have nearly identical GPA and SAT requirements (although both don’t require SAT scores and do not hold it against you if you don’t submit them). If you like Mt H, then seriously consider BMC as well. They share school-culture similarities too, such as SIMILAR (but not the same) honor codes and non-competitive student bodies (or the closest you can probably get to that). Many people who like one like the other.
Again, I’d urge you to at least consider applying to Earlham early action – nothing to lose and that school has so much to offer. As you describe yourself as Asian, and not knowing more about your cultural background, I would also like to let you know that Earlham has a well-known Japan program. It’s welcoming of and at least somewhat culturally aware of Asian culture. Beloit also has EA option. It would be great to at least get those acceptances and see what they offer
Also maybe look at Bates and some of the other further-away posh schools. Many of the posh schools offer transportation home for low-income students who live beyond a certain distance. This sort of thing was not offered back in my day, but I understand that some schools are now offering “travel” for students from far away in order to bring in people from different backgrounds and perspectives to their campuses. Bates would cost maybe $3K a year for you – estimated – and I would bet they would toss in travel for you if that’s the policy. It’s worth a try for $3K per year tuition/ R&B etc.
For CUNY I would look at Brooklyn College as it has a coordinated BA/MD program. If you don’t do that program, then at least you know that the premed courses are appropriately rigorous. City College also probably has good premed courses.
Simmons is a nice school for you, too, possibly.
- Boston (trainline to NYC and nice town)
- Consortium
- Nurturing
- Very solid academics
- Ask them about their full-scholarship opportunity with the early-fall deadline. I couldn’t find it online just now but this past year they offered this opportunity.
- Nursing program and solid health courses/ prep
I’d recommend Hartwick College. It’s definitely not the most selective school, but they are good with merit aid and and they give $10K a year just for being a New York State resident. I also think it’s a good school for sciences.
I also recommend Emmanuel College (MA). Also, not necessarily the best school, but I think its strengths are in the sciences. I also think it’s pretty decent for psychology. Though the cost of attendance is about $53K a year, you’d probably get the maximum merit award of $25K, making it $28K a year. Then there’s financial aid, which they are generous with.
Another is Juniata College, a school that also is strong in the sciences, and is overall better than Hartwick and Emmanuel. It’s good for both financial and need-based aid. I have similar stats, and got the maximum merit-based gift of $27K a year, making the cost of attendance like $28K a year without financial aid.
Even though these schools have high sticker prices, they would be affordable to you. So my point is, don’t limit the search to SUNY and CUNY. Look at private liberal arts schools too.
If you are OK with a Catholic college, run the NPC for Siena College (near Albany). I visited with my S and although he did not attend, we liked the school very much, the tuition was lower than many private colleges, and they gave good merit aid. They also give an admission decision in a couple of weeks.
SUNY New Paltz may be an option as well.
To add more information: Siena college does offer generous merit aid, and they also have an early acceptance/assurance programs with several medical schools, you need to have a certain GPA and SAT scores to be in that program and maintain the GPA for all 4 years, more info is directly on their site. Here is my general take: large state schools have large introductory classes and very tough curves which is what the weed out process looks like. LAC’s on the other hand, have small classes, nurturing environment and professors who truly care, this is not to say that it’s easier to get good grades at LAC’s, you will work hard, but the support system is incredible and you will be well prepared for the MCAT, possibly, without having to resort to an outside prep courses. One of the schools that my son was accepted to and I absolutely loved was Allegheny college in Meadville, PA, this is northwestern part of PA so closer to Pittsburgh and Cleveland, and 7 hour drive from NYC, ouch, a small town in a middle of nowhere, but the academics were solid, the professors seemed incredible. We met with two profs from bio/chem and I asked them about intro class size, they told me 60 people at most and the format is, they do a bit of formal instruction, then split students into groups of 6, give them problems to work on and curate the room to see how everyone is doing. I still lament the fact that I did not push my son hard enough to go there, his heart was set on Bing, I understand, socially, he is very comfortable there, but looking back I feel that what I should have done is find an alternative to Allegheny closer to home, within 4 hour drive and a more lively city to convince him.