Hi there! I’m currently stuck between deciding on a dream college of mine, Scripps, and a state college, UMD. I’ll be honest, the only reason I’m having an issue choosing it is that, for Scripps, I’d have to pay so much more money and I’m not sure if it would be worth it. I got the Founder’s Scholarship at Scripps, so that helps a bit, but it’s still so much money per year. I can honestly see myself enjoying college life at Scripps and it hits everything on my list, but I’m not sure I can justify paying so much. I love the idea of small class sizes and the consortium model, and pretty much everything else that Scripps can offer.
My parents have reservations, though. They’re paying for my tuition so I understand their hesitation to drop such an incredible amount of money on a school across the country. But, they would be willing to consider letting me go if I can prove to them that I would be receiving a better education at Scripps than at UMD. Personally, I think I would - I believe that the smaller class sizes and the research opportunities would be better than those at a larger state school, but they remain unconvinced. I’m planning to major in biology and pursue a pre-med track, so if anyone has any experience with this at Scripps, please let me know about any pros and cons to attending Scripps on the pre-med track!! Any insight at all would be lovely.
Scripps College is a small, private college. In-State and OOS students pay the same rate for both residents and non-residents.
This is not a school funded by the State of California, so the fees are paid by the students. California students pay the same price.
If you are premed, and you hope to go to medical school, you need to go to school as inexpensively as possible. Medical school is going to run your parents about $300-400K. There are NO scholarships for med school-everyone has perfect grades, MCAT’s, community and hospital experiences and EC’s. You and your parents will pay via their savings and loans, loans and more loans. We’ve just been through this with our daughter.
If you are really serious about med school, don’t go to Scripps. Too expensive and you can create the same experience at a less expensive school.
Obviously your parents are experiencing sticker shock now that a Scripps education is moving into the realm of reality . . . possibly. They want reassurance that their money will be well spent and that they will not be paying more than twice as much for pretty much the same thing. They have a fair point.
You have equally obviously researched the differences. Scripps is an undergraduate college so all of its resources and research opportunities go to undergrads. Opportunities to work closely with professors are enhanced by the 9:1 student:faculty ratio vs the 18:1 ratio at UMD. Almost 80% of the classes which Scripps offers have fewer than 20 students and you’ll never be in a class with more than 40 students. In contrast, only 45% of the classes at UMD have fewer than 20 students and almost 1/4 have more than 40 students.
But you already knew all that, right? And I assume that you’ve shared that with your parents, right? So, the question is more complicated than it appears. First of all, your parents love you and you’re asking them to pay all that money + the cost of travel to send you all the way to the other side of the country. They fear you’ll never come back and they might never see you again. You might want to talk with them about that.
But we’re still left with that nagging question, will you be receiving a better education at Scripps? To me there is no such thing as “a better education”. We need to ask, better at what? Better in what way? Better for whom?
Starting with the last one, obviously we’re talking about better for you. You’re interested in becoming a doctor, so that means 8 years of college, not 4. How do you and your parents afford twice as many years of college? Let’s also talk about the fact that most students who start out pre-med, change their minds. And most students who apply to medical school aren’t accepted. So, what’s your backup plan if the doctor track doesn’t materialize? It might help your parents if they see that you’ve given some thought to long range planning and that you’re looking beyond just enjoying your 4 years at college. The cost of college is an investment and your parents need to know what they’re investing in.
As far as a Scripps education being better at whatever and better in some unknown way, you need to research this and come up with specifics to present to your parents. You’re obviously bright, so you can do research. I would start by contacting an Admissions Officer at Scripps and having this conversation with her. You might ask her to connect you with some pre-med students there with whom you can face time and see if they can tell you in what way that Scripps has been better for them. At what exactly is Scripps better at than State U?
UMD is an excellent flagship, with a very nice setting and student quality of life. A strong pre-med education can be had there. It definitely bears serious consideration, whether the appeal of Scripps warrants the additional cost.
I’m a Scripps parent. It took a while for my daughter to be glad that she chose Scripps, even though merit money had made it the least expensive of her top three choices. She had several friends who submitted applications to transfer out, and one who did decide to leave. (She also made several friends who transferred in and were glad they did.) Scripps, and the 5C’s generally, truly do offer a lot for the considerable cost. But the cost raises the stakes. When people aren’t as instantly happy upon arrival as they imagined they would be, the awareness of what they’re spending can definitely amplify any ambivalence they may feel along the way. The cost also raises the bar in terms of internal pressure to take advantage of every possible opportunity. For some, making the experience live up to the cost is well aligned with their internal drive; for others it can feel burdensome. A school like Scripps, with small classes and direct faculty contact from day one, does take care of its students in a more personal way than most public universities can. But I think a lot of students and parents expect that a nurturing environment like this will require less boldness and drive to reap the benefits, and I haven’t necessarily seen that to be the case.
I do feel this decision could go either way. It really depends on how the cost benefit analysis shakes out for you and your family. UMD would certainly not be “settling” in terms of quality; it just comes with tradeoffs that make perfect sense vis-a-vis the relative cost.
Scripps is a great place for premed; between the undergrad program and the post-bacc program, they really know how to advise and support premed students. Local shadowing opportunities aren’t the most amazing (there are fantastic medical centers in greater LA, but the Inland Empire is pretty “meh” in this regard), but the educational opportunities are excellent and there’s lots of help with connecting with internships, etc. But nobody can tell you whether it’s worth what is likely double the cost. There’s no bad choice here. Whatever you decide, try not to second-guess; you can have a great experience at either school, and you’ll never have direct experience of the warts and drawbacks of the “road not taken.” Make the best choice you can and don’t look back. Congrats on having great options!
I’m with your parents on this one. Freshman classes might be smaller at Scripps, but usually upper division courses are 30-40 students at most. Really large classes at flagships tend to have a professor and sometimes several TAs who run discussion groups, extra study sessions, more office hours that might make connecting with someone more convenient for you. A big department can also offer more courses and more sections of those courses (although with the 5C, you might get more selection at one of the other schools too).
What research opportunities are better at Scripps?
There are a lot of ways to make UMd feel smaller - honors college, dorm with a LLC, clubs, working in your department (even a job answering phones gets you contact with professors and inside info on research opportunities). Save your money. Go Terps.
If medical school is in your future, don’t have any or have very minimal loans for undergrad….because medical school will be funded with loans, loans and more loans. And by the time you potentially get accepted and enroll the cost could easily be $500,000 at many places.
UMD is a fine school. I honestly can’t say that you will totally be better off at Scripps…And especially with a cost that sounds like it is significantly more.
Will your parents need to take loans or cut back on retirement contributions to send you to Scripps?
I’ll add one more thing about research at UMD. UMD has something called Departmental Honors. Students can apply for Departmental Honors at the beginning of their Junior year.
UMD’s description of Departmental Honors states - “Departmental honors programs typically involve working closely with a faculty mentor on an independent research or scholarly project culminating in a thesis. There is a minimum GPA requirement, upper level course requirements, and an honors thesis project. Departmental honors programs are a powerful way for students to experience innovative research and discovery in their field of interest.”
My D graduated from UMD a few years ago. She was in the Honors College and applied for Departmental Honors and was accepted. She did independent research under the guidance of a specific Faculty Professor/Mentor. She developed a Thesis and defended it before a panel of Professors.
Her Faculty Mentor submitted it for publication and it was subsequently published. Her thesis has since been cited by several other Researchers from Columbia to UCLA.
It was, however, a lot of hard work.
Both schools offer research opportunities. In the end, it’s up to you.
Can you please share what your daughter was disappointed with about Scripps? And why some of her friends transferred out? My daughter got admitted to U Michigan but imagines Scripps to be paradise in comparison.
Medical school is very expensive, so you and your parents may want to consider how much less medical school debt you will end up with if you choose the lower cost undergraduate and then get into medical school.
Also, since biology does not have well-paid major-related job prospects at the BA/BS level, you may be interested in other (expensive) professional school if you do not get into any medical school.
I wouldn’t say my daughter was disappointed. She “found her groove,” both socially and major-wise, in the fall of her sophomore year… had a good sophomore spring abroad… and had a wonderful 3/4 of a junior year until they all got sent home at spring break And while “Zoom U” for the rest of her college experience wasn’t ideal (and she ended up letting a planned art minor go because it just didn’t feel worth doing remotely), she still had excellent classes and professors, and feels good about the education she got from Scripps. She had more friends who transferred in than out (only one ultimately left). She had two majors based at two different colleges and took classes offered by all five schools. It all worked out well.
I just think that there’s a bit of a disconnect between how Scripps looks from the outside, and what the experience is like for new students. It seems like such an intimate and close-knit place, and of course the campus is gorgeous. There’s a sense that there is a Community there that will welcome you. People don’t realize that community is more of a DIY thing than it appears; and the pattern I see is that many of the more introverted first-years struggle for a while before finding their people. First-year rooms tend to be crowded and not as comfortable as the gorgeous surroundings might have led you to expect. The mixing of grade levels in the dorms, which in theory should enable students to make friends across age groups, doesn’t always work out that way. Scripps keeps trying different strategies to build “dorm culture” and while the efforts are nice, they don’t really seem to build momentum because people shuffle around every year and aren’t in any kind of permanent groupings. (I observed this in contrast to the older sib’s experience with the residential college experience at Rice, which is as big an intentional community-building effort as you’ll find anywhere!) All in all… unless people affiliate right away with a group that gives them built-in community (like an athletic team, or joining the staff of the student paper, or etc. - and I’ll note that joining choir, while worthwhile, did not fulfill this function), it can just take a while to find and/or build one’s tribe.
Funnily enough, my daughter’s best friends from her semester abroad were UMich students, and she traveled to visit them the next year and thought the school, which she never considered in her search, looked amazing. (Of course, she went at the absolute nicest time of year - fall color and lovely weather!) I don’t think she had any serious “road not taken” feelings about it, but it did give her an appreciation of what a good experience students can have there!
And while “Zoom U” for the rest of her college experience wasn’t ideal (and she ended up letting a planned art minor go because it just didn’t feel worth doing remotely), she still had excellent classes and professors, and feels good about the education she got from Scripps. She had more friends who transferred in than out (only one ultimately left). She had two majors based at two different colleges and took classes offered by all five schools. It all worked out well.