<p>Interesting, <a href=“mailto:b@rium”>b@rium</a>. That is exactly the kind of advice all college applicants should be getting. 17-year-old kids have no idea even what to ask. One can’t blame them for getting hoodwinked.</p>
<p>They actually don’t discourage anyone. My pre med adviser saw a bunch of people who didn’t do so well their first semester and she didn’t say they wouldn’t get into med school. Scranton showed that about 50 - 100 kids apply to med school and 80% are accepted on average. My problem is the MCAT. Even though I didn’t take it yet, I’m a terrible standardize test taker. I didn’t do so well on the ACT and I believe I only got into the 600 zone on my SAT 2s. So yea that will be a challenge. But when I herd about the 80% acceptance rate I was hooked. Again as far as I know they don’t discourage people and that people usually leave themselves if they figure they can’t get accepted. </p>
<p>Back to what redpoint was saying. DO you mean the situation when students take out loans and can not pay them back ? If so I make this claim. Its really not the students fault for taking loans out rather its mostly the government, which took over the student loan business and they don’t even ask questions like, whats your major, your GPA, what do you plan to do after college, etc. I mean at least I’m spending money to become a doctor its not like I’m majoring in sociology, history, or Asian studies.</p>
<p>Well, they wouldn’t discourage students right away. b@r!um said exactly what I was thinking - it’s your junior and senior year that are going to get tough. And that’s the make-or-break point for a lot of students. The more important question would be to ask, how many first-year pre-med majors finish with a pre-med major upon graduation? And for those who change majors or drop out, what were their reasons? Personal? Grades? The school may not even have this kind of data. People change majors all the time because their interests change - but how many change because they simply aren’t doing well? If you’re concerned about taking calc at a community college, you should be asking Scranton what kind of support they offer to students in their 2nd or 3rd years who are struggling. How easy is it to retake a class if needed, or would it push you back a year? People can skew statistics any way they want, really. </p>
<p>As an example, my community college is pretty…awful academically, to my standards. Yet their RN program has above an 80% pass rate for the NCLEX. The college I graduated from is a well-respected private LAC with only a 60% pass rate on the NCLEX for RNs. No, I would never say my community college has a stronger program. But what it does have are lots of older students who are paying for the education themselves and are therefore more likely to take it seriously than the young, entitled-minded kids at my private LAC. </p>
<p>No one is trying to say you’re going to a bad school. But we are cautioning you to question your program a little more before dishing out all of that money.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Ah, but you don’t know if you’ll finish, get into med school, or ever actually become a doctor. It’s the cold, hard truth. You have no idea how often, or how drastically your interests or life circumstances will change. I didn’t expect to have a chronic illness at the age of 24, which limits a lot of my activity - what if something happens to you? Or something happens to someone in your family that affects your ability to finish school? Or…who knows? You can’t just assume that because you want to be a doctor, that you will be a doctor. </p>
<p>Again, I’m not trying to tell you that you won’t make it. But I do want you to realize some of the things that I did not think about at your age. Things that the people who love you don’t want you to worry about. But it’s better to consider these possibilities than to pretend they can’t happen, and then they do.</p>
<p>Your 100% right when you say things could change or won’t work out. I know that from high school thinking I was going to go to some big fancy nationally ranked school. Plus I’m working something out for next year that’s going to save me money on room and bored and also meal plan. I could only be paying tuition which is a little over 30,000, but its better then 47, 000. I just don’t want to transfer now. I would like to plan things out way in advance and become a stronger candidate for a school like Cornell’s CALS. I thought though however that its usually the earlier years (Fresh and Soph) that are the big determining factors. I mean more kids drop out during those two years because they take Chem and Orgo. The last two years your taking physics which I herd in GENERAL really isn’t that bad compared to orgo. ANd a bunch of electives which could be easy or not.</p>
<p>Well thats good that you’re trying to decrease your costs as much as possible. Look at outside scholarships too that you can win by writing essays or doing other projects. They usually aren’t large sums of money, but they add up quickly.</p>
<p>It gets tough in junior/senior year because of the stuff going on outside of your classes - studying for and taking the MCAT, looking at a variety of med schools and pulling the applications together while keeping up with all of your courses. So keep an open mind and get as good of a head start as you can.</p>
<p>
That’s not the main concern. Med schools nowadays ask for a composite letter from your university that summarizes and interprets your application. Some colleges provide these letters to any student who asks; others restrict these letters to “qualified” applicants. (It’s possible to apply without such a letter but it puts the applicant at a disadvantage.) That’s the most common way in which colleges discourage their weaker students from applying.</p>
<p>Where (besides my school because they don’t give out scholarships after you enter the school) can you sign up for scholarships? I applied to a bunch of them, mostly on scholarship search engines, and didn’t win one yet. Someone said to go to my high school and talk to my GC. Is that a good way?</p>
<p>Oh, also how can I find out what credits will be accepted by the schools I’m looking to transfer to ? Do I just call each individual school up ? I’m trying to do this year so I’ll know what classes to take. I’m scheduled to take theology and philosophy classes next year and I don’t know if they’ll be accepted by schools like Cornell, or Penn State</p>
<p>Schools will typically transfer courses that are very similar to their own. General courses like Calculus, English I, etc. are the safest. Usually once you apply to the schools you can sit down with a counselor and they will tell you which courses will transfer. They compare course titles and syllabi to make sure the courses are similar enough for credit. My suggestion is not to take any strange elective course (e.g., “Photography and Modern Medicine”) as this may be a special course for your college that is not accepted for transfer.</p>
<p>What about computer literacy its part of Scrantons general education course ? Basically its about applications to computers like Microsoft.</p>
<p>I’m sure those colleges have something similar to that. You really won’t know until you apply. Their admissions won’t have time to go through transfer credits with students who may not even get in. Sometimes they’ll accept them as “elective” credits, but they won’t fulfill any particular class requirement.</p>
<p>Gotcha. I just want to take classes next year that they will accept. I they don’t take theology classes then I shouldn’t take them because they’ll be a waste. Same with philosophy.</p>
<p>They would probably take general philosophy courses since those are offered at most schools. The theology classes I would hold off on, since it’s likely that they’re a school requirement specific to Scranton and the schools you’re looking at (mainly PSU) are not religious schools that would require such courses. Like I said, they may still transfer them as general electives toward graduating, but would not take the place of any other course requirements.</p>
<p>I took a class called freshman seminar. It was basically a one credit class that introduces you into college work and stuff. That probably won’t transfer right?</p>
<p>It might…a lot of colleges I know have started that “freshman experience” type of course. I even had it at my community college which I took my last semester of high school. The credit may transfer, but its only 1 credit so I wouldn’t get bent out of shape over it. At least you won’t have to retake anything like it at your next college. Transfer students are often excused from those types of freshman prep courses, even if they didn’t have them at their previous college.</p>
<p>I transferred twice - once from community college and then from my 4-year uni to a small LAC. The 4-year uni took all of my credits. The private LAC took all except for some of my fine art courses. I could have scheduled a portfolio review to fight for those credits, but I was having trouble getting a hold of the art prof since it was the summer so I let it go because I didn’t need them anyway. Stick to more “common” courses and look over the schools’ websites that you want to transfer to. See what requirements they have for graduation and try to pick your courses based on that. Most of your elective and interesting courses are taken during your junior and senior year anyway, so it doesn’t hurt to take the general stuff your first year or two.</p>
<p>who is your “friend” who says to wait 2 years? Some sort of expert? Stop wasting your $ and move on. You can get apps done in no time if you really try. If I were an admissions person I would totally understand the financial aspect of transferring. Sounds like you might be full pay at a less expensive school (and yet you’re still saving $) so why wouldn’t they like that?!</p>
<p>In another year will you cry that you have made so many friends and taken so many classes that won’t transfer, and hope Dad lets you stay? Do YOU really want to pay the mega-loans?</p>
<p>PS
Computer Literacy, here in NJ, is pretty much now considered a remedial course. It generally was for people with very little computer experience (microsoft word, excel, explorer, windows etc). They have now decided that most kids coming from HS should know all these things, so they don’t accept it as a transfer. I’d be careful taking that unless you actually NEED it, but the fact that you made it to this site probably shows that you DON’T need it.</p>
<p>About the Computer Literacy class, my friend who goes to Penn State says they have a similar class to it. So I do think that a couple other schools offer it. Second I decided to stay another year because 1 I’m not competitive yet for the schools I’m applying to, 2 I’m living with my friend next year and it should save me a lot of money on rooms and the meal plan, etc. My plan for the classes is as Nova stated, I’m only taking general classes that will most likely transfer. I also have to collaborate with my college and my prospective colleges about classes that I should be taken. And I don’t think that “my dad just doesn’t want to pay for my school even though he could afford it” is a good reason to transfer. Its not like I’m poor or financially broke.</p>
<p>Regardless of whether you’re poor, you’re still paying a significant amount of tuition than you should be (possibly because of FAFSA problems as you said?). Honestly, would you be happier if your father would stop complaining to you about your tuition? Personally, I wouldn’t be able to handle that for an extra year. Transferring to save your relationship with your father is a very good reason.</p>