Occidental or College of William and Mary?

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
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<p>Hi everyone
I'm new here, and this is my first time posting something on the discussion board.
I'm an international undergraduate student and I plan to pursue a career in medicine in the States. Past few days, I received the acceptance letters back from the schools- Occidental College, Grinnell College and College of William and Mary. So, my question is, out of these 3 schools, which school has the best pre-med program and internships? I can't decide between Occidental and William&Mary.
These are just my opinions about the schools: Although Occidental tuition fees is expensive compared to that of William&Mary, I love its urban setting and the school somewhat seems "fun" to me. William&Mary is a lot cheaper in terms of tuition fees, but I don't really enjoy studying in old school buildings. I mean, the school looks "ancient" to me and I feel like something is lacking there.
I would LOVE to hear all kinds of advice and suggestion.</p>

<p>PS: You can talk about Grinnell too. I don't know much about Grinnell and pre-med, but my counselor has already crossed it out from my list :(</p>

<p>THANK YOU SOO MUCH!!! ;D</p>

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<p><a href=“If you are in high school, please read this before posting - Pre-Med Topics - College Confidential Forums”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/1484178-if-you-are-in-high-school-please-read-this-before-posting-p1.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Also please search for posts by @WOWmom about international students and medical careers in the US. It’s a very expensive uphill battle that you need to be aware of (short version: some schools flat out won’t accept internationals, many that do don’t provide any sort of aid and/or require all the funds to be paid upfront in an escrow account.)</p>

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<p>W&M is older than the hills and is part of what they use to sell you when you visit the college. If that turns you of f than avoid W&M like the plague.</p>

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<p>D’s Med. School definitely accepts international students.
I cannot tell about others.</p>

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<p>In 2012 there were 175 international students matriculated in us med schools. That is about 12% of the application pool. No FA will be given to international students. A few school require all four years tuition in an escrow account before accepting. </p>

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<p>The 12% must be a typo as the total number of med school apps is 48K + and around 20K enroll. </p>

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<p>Actually in 2012, 198 internationals were matriculated into US allopathic schools</p>

<p><a href=“https://www.aamc.org/download/321462/data/2012factstable4.pdf”>https://www.aamc.org/download/321462/data/2012factstable4.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>That’s less than 1% of matriculating med students. (199 internationals vs 19,318 domestic students) </p>

<p>For domestic US applicants, the med school acceptance rate is ~40%; for internationals it’s ~ 14%. (199 matriculants out of 1419 applicants in 2012)</p>

<p>I suspect that 12% is supposed to represent the percentage of accepted international applicants out of all internationals who applied.</p>

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<p>WOWM
We are talking about the same set of stats. the 12% figure is Matriculated and the 14% is accepted. Camom, no that is not a typo. We are using the number of accepted/matriculated dividing the number of international applicants, not get confused with domestic applicants.</p>

<p>Yes there is a big difference in Domestic ~40% Vs International ~14% acceptance.</p>

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<p>To OP</p>

<p>I’d suggest William and Mary over Occidental in your situation if the price of COA is about the same. </p>