@texaspg - not for OOS kids, I confirmed directly with their financial aid office. I remember it being full ride a couple of years ago, so this might be a recent change. They do offer full tuition and fees, and some additional funds for tech/books as well as support summer study program. In addition, my DD has a special NMS scholarship ($10k over 4 years), so her total cost should be under $10K, even with living on campus. While we would have taken a free-ride if offered, $10K/yr is affordable for us.
Would you know anything at all about HBS programs? weāve heard bad reviews from 4+ students/parents that are already in the program, and no good reviews at all. Even when we went there, there was some indication the students were struggling, but it is looking more like an issue of severe grade deflation overall than one or two specific distracted students. We also learned that the general classes are taught by grad/PhD students and not by profs, and those students grade pretty harshly. However, I wonder if the harsh grading is true even for smaller Honors classes which would (hopefully) be taught by profs. Not sure if DD should continue to have it on her list and wait for decision.
@mom22DDs - I am surprised grad students are teaching classes in the honors program. I thought these were exclusive classes. I believe there are only 2 years of grads (last and current years) and so the school should be able to provide any stats. The people who I know are in a different track - Debakey high to UH to Baylor and there are usually 8 or so students in that path. Couple of them actually were admitted to the UH 3+4 but got Baylor and so they switched.
What I heard was that HBS is a bit hard on the requirements in terms of requiring specific number of credits each semester with specific load of sciences and so some students dont do as well since the load is fixed. There is no opportunity to take fewer classes or easier classes in some semesters.
It looks like they changed the room and board payments this year and are no longer offering them. I am sure one of the kids who joined last year was given full ride with NMS. The housing is quite new.
Thank you @texaspg . To clarify what I said, we ran into a PhD student that said she takes Physics classes (not honors) and separately, we heard from some current students that PhD students do the grading for the large classes and are tough. Nothing to do with HBS or Honors classes.
I donāt know what the situation is with Honors classes for HBS curriculum. Those should be small and taught by profs, so Iām puzzled as to why the GPAs are low for many students. These are the top students that are selected into the program, so somethingās off. may be it is that they are asked to take too many courses, which means new batch will also have same issue and same low GPA. Not promising. From first batch, 6 out of 10 matriculated to medical school (3 each to McGovern and Galveston). We met the three that were at McGovern. I assumed 4 didnāt make it or dropped out because it is new program. I now heard only 4 out of 10 matriculated to medical school this year (second batch), and I just cannot understand this. I hope someone will explain, cos Iām worried my DD will go with UH if she is offered admission there.
Hello All, My son got admitted into couple of combined programs and other programs in pipeline. He is in the process of deciding between HPME, Baylor/Baylor, UMSI, FAME, UPitt,. He also rejected UMKC and Drexel offers. We are also waiting for UH3/4 where he was offered Tier One Scholarship with two years free boarding, National Merit Finalist Scholarship, Paid Study Abroad and Paid Research.UH3/4 sounds attractive from scholarships perspective. I also heard the same thing that @Mon22DDs was referring about. We went to UH on different occassions for various scholarship competitions (Tier One, $6000, $10000 and other Natural Science Honors Programs) and came to know about only 40% of the admitted students matriculate into medical school. We also have to commit to UMSI as we are given very short time. Can some one suggest their ideas with their expertise. We are from Texas. Is UPitt worth 50K medical school per year when compared to Texas Medical Schools. We did not get any scholarship from Baylor.
@TexasMedical ā¦ Did your son hear back from Pitt? When did he receive the notification? There seems to be some confusion about Pitt decisions being out. @path2md apparently called Pitt and was told that decisions would be released next week.
@texasmedical - I may be in minority, I donāt see a reason to leave TX for combined programs outside with kind of results your son already had. I would go with Baylor/Baylor or go traditional and aim for Southwestern.
Thanks @srk2017. @Mom22DDs - Did you get the confirmation from UH for 10000 scholarship? or Are you just making an assumption that all finalists will get the scholarship? My son got another 6000 scholarship and I am not sure whether they will give another 10000, On top ot that he also got Tier One which is full tuition and two years of free room. The scholarship is really tempting. However, the BSMD kids are not happy with the deflation and complain that they are trying to limit the number of students entering into medical school. I am worried that the real number might be around 4 - 6 and Houston just take additional candidates just to boost the input.We met a student this year who is moving to Business as he was not able to maintain the GPA and rejected from both medical schools
With typical 15-20% Aās, not every one will have high GPA in pre-med classes. This is true in most STEM classes. One should not blame it on graduate students. The grading guidelines are set by department and university as a whole. Poor graduate students follow what is required to keep their job as graduate teaching assistant and finish their program of study. Sometimes program may require them to teach UG classes. Have been there and done it.
@TexasMedical - DD received a formal letter by regular mail with the $10K scholarship.
That said, the scholarships your son already has at UH seem excellent. My suggestion would be to not leave TX (especially for cold winters) at high UG and med school cost. Baylor is a top notch medical school, so he has nothing to gain by paying lot of $$, and then trying to come back to TX for residency. On Baylor vs UH, would you really want to give up Baylor med school for UH scholarship, assuming you can afford Baylor UG?if anything, ask Baylor if there are additional
Scholarships they can consider your DS for.
Thanks @Mom22Ds. I like UH. However I am really worried about weeding out selected students for medical school admission. That does not seem correct. Baylor UG cost is around 50K per year and it is very expensive. I dont have a problem in spending that much for Rice. But I dont feel like paying 50K for Baylor UG. I am confused.
@TexasMedical - I will try to call UH now and report back with any information I get, though weāre not even sure DD will get offered admission to UH HBS 3+4 program.
Baylor offers generous scholarships (at least $20K/year) - have you tried asking them?
Also, what about UMSI? multiple folks have commented that it is the better TX option.
Also, I can tell you that UH program does not weed out. The medical college was slightly frustrated that only 6 students from 10 made it to the college, and someone mentioned they should consider having more students start in 3+4 program so they will have 10 students to matriculate to medical college. I believe strongly there is every real intention to have 10 students go to medical college through the program.
On a separate note, sending this request on behalf of my DD:
Could folks please help her compare between NJMS and FAU? As I said, she was very impressed with FAU Deans. They have A- avg. GPA requirement each semester, and sGPA needs to be 3.5GPA at end of graduation. Also, MCAT reqd. is 507 if she maintains 4.0 GPA and 510 if she has 3.7 GPA. Merit aid: full ride for UG, and instate portion of tuition and fees waived for medical school - lowest cost of the options she has. FAU is new, first group graduated 2015, and recent match is not yet that impressive, but comparable to UCFās 3rd group that graduated 2 years ago.
She is clear she wants to go to the school with best opportunity for her to go into clinical part of translational research if she wants to. That means, med school has to be reasonably known/good. Sheāll go to NJMS with cold weather for that (but not to Temple), and wants to know if FAU compares or will compare well when she graduates medical school (in 7 years).
Could we get thoughts on the above between FAU and NJMS? Also, if NJMS, does Rutgers make that big of a difference over NJIT? (TCNJ is over 40K/year and not sure she should give up NJIT full-ride for that).
@Mom22DDs Take NJIT/NJMS over TCNJ/NJMS with a saving of 40k/year anytime. NJMS-Newark is adjacent to NJIT. MA/CT/PA/NJ/NY get the same cold wave/snow storm.
@Mom22DDs: My view is NJMS over FAU any day - this is a no brainer. Here are the cons with FAU in my humble opinion, would like to hear your views on these.
Honors college located in Jupiter has 400 odd students - do you want to send your daughter with that student size. Will she be able to get the well rounded college experience ?
Interview at the end of the 3 years - this is not a guarantee.
GPA requirement for each semester of 3.7 - this is for each semester and not commulative.
@Mom22DDs Iām a little confused,was she accepted to TCNJ or NYIT (or both) as the undergrad feeder school? If she got a full ride at NJIT I would seriously consider that. TCNJ is in a much nicer location, but Iām not clear if she was accepted there. Either way all roads lead to NJMS which is an excellent med school with great matching. Unless she has a medical issue when it comes to cold weather, I wouldnāt be too concerned with that where as she could end up in residency in 7 or 8 years in a warmer climate. NJMS is much more established program than FAU, to me that would carry a lot of weight. Any quality program will have challenging academics so best to accept that and just push forward.
Thank you @grtd2010 - agree with your suggestion. Though i feel bad about her not going to TCNJ when everyone else in the NJMS program seems to be going there, it bothers me to pay $40k+/yr for TCNJ. How about NJIT vs Rutgers? We hear many folks saying it is better than NJIT. Is it worth additional $20+k/year for Rutgers Newark? Iām on the phone with them to see if she qualifies for additional scholarships.
Side note: DD took Temple off the list because she didnāt fit with the UG school, not the weather at Temple.
Anyone else considering NJIT or Rutgers over TCNJ for NJMS, and can share thoughts?
@Mom22DDs: Just about nothing you have reported here about UH HBS is true. Literally every course in the curriculum is taught by a faculty member with a terminal degree. In two cases (accelerated calculus and honors chemistry) the courses are taught by full professors who are also department chairs. Itās also not true that the program suffers from grade deflation. I donāt know how it could, given that there are no HBS-specific courses. HBS majors on average have higher GPAs than majors in biology and biochemistry at UH, even though the curriculum may be a little more demanding. This is true even when correcting for pre-college academic preparation.
What is true is that pre-meds everywhere are so anxious about grades that other students find them difficult to endure. Please donāt encourage this behavior.
Thank you @BS_MD2017 & @Empire007 - NJMS does seem the better choice over FAU. Iāll let her know.
@BS_MD2017 - She is accepted to all three UGs, and NJMS program is such that she can choose to matriculate into it from any of the three schools. Of the three, NJIT seems like the best fit for DD, with their honors college and dorms, tech crowd and proximity to Rutgers for research. TCNJ might be good too, but TBH, weāre not looking to pay that cost. Also agree with you that FAU is not a guaranteed program, given the interview. the whole point of her applying so widely in high school and traveling to all these interviews is so that she does not have to do this all over again. Another advantage of choosing guaranteed BSMD program is the freedom to pursue ECs of her choice rather than build up standard ECs for applications just in case she needs to apply out. FAU will take away that freedom and introduce stress, so as much as she is impressed with the leadership there, we donāt think this is the better program. If she still wants to go for FAU, Iām sure sheāll do fine, given how she did so far in school and the interviews, so weāll support her if she goes that route.
One of the hardest part of the college experience for parents like me that needed to help their student and stay engaged, is this part where we need to let go and watch them (silently) as they make their own decisions. I feel like Iām too old to be growing up now
