<p>Hello fellow CCers! College-bound senior here in desperate need of safeties. I've done tons of research online but I just keep running around in circles.</p>
<p>I have a 3.8 UW GPA and 2300 SAT, and I'd like to double major in international relations/global studies and neurobiology or biochem/evolutionary biology. My future goal is to become a medical doctor and do work with Doctors Without Borders.</p>
<p>I'm looking for safeties that have: </p>
<ul>
<li>Lots of undergrad research opportunities & study abroad options</li>
<li>Strong programs in my prospective fields of study</li>
<li>Good pre-med advising</li>
<li>A large-ish endowment per student</li>
<li>A more liberal atmosphere</li>
<li>At least somewhat close (less than a 3 hour drive?) to a major city</li>
</ul>
<p>Please Help! Throw me any college names you think will fit this criteria!</p>
<p>P.S. - Safeties I've considered so far: URochester, Tulane, and UCSB.</p>
<p>I can’t believe you expect to get meaningful answers for such broad question involving so many criteria! Don’t expect “CCers” to do all the heavy lifting for you. Being self-sufficient is something you should get used to by the time you enter college. Go to collegeboard.com and use their search engine to make list of colleges based on your geographical criteria. The you can google or use the school web sites, to gather the remainder of the information.</p>
<p>Thank you for the advice, but I’ve actually used collegeboard’s college search multiple times. Unfortunately most of the results I end up getting are schools that I would never consider safeties. </p>
<p>Also, safety schools tend to be less well-known, meaning that information on the quality of their programs is more scarce. The benefit of the CC forum is that high school students like me have a chance to ask questions to people who DO have information on these college’s programs, either from first-hand experience as alumni, parents of alumni, or others. That’s why I directed my question to CC’s Pre-Med Forum.</p>
<p>I do, however, agree that my criteria were overly specific. In light of that, I’ll simplify my question. </p>
<p>** Can anyone tell me of some pre-med safeties with good research and study abroad opportunities? I have a 3.8 UW GPA and 2300 SAT. **</p>
<p>You will not know Research opportunities unless you actually talk to current students and / or start contacting people in charge of Research programs / labs. How you going to know this ahead of the time? Others can only comment on places that they were personally involved. Another point to consider, if person A. had an easy time getting internship at Research lab, it does not mean at all that person B. will have an easy time or get in at all.<br>
It applies to the other points.
I can tell you, that D’s UG has covered all of your points (for her, not for you), except for “A more liberal atmosphere”. However, her UG is completely out of your interest, not even close.<br>
You are much better off researching the UG of your interest and doing it very closely. This would include multiple visits, possible overnights, talking to current students, walking on campus…all kind of internet stats…etc.
You may get lucky here if somebody actually attended at one of the UG of your interest.</p>
<p>Princeton has that Woodrow Wilson center of International studies. Also H and Y since they have the biggest endowment in the US. Safeties and big endowments don’t often go together. Need based aid with parents income over 60k gets tough. That’s why the combined programs with merit aid are nice.</p>
<p>Swarthmore has many students doing research while UGs which is rare. I would also research Williams in Mass.</p>
<p>Trinity University (TX) is in San Antonio and would give you a large amount of merit $$$. They also have an one billion dollar endowment for ~2400 students, and a huge amount of research/study abroad opportunities. They are building/built a brand new science building as well and I know they rank highly in PhD production.</p>
<p>Are you looking for only admissions safeties (ie. money is not a problem) or should they be financial safeties as well? If so: in what state are you a resident? Will your parents qualify for need based FA? How much can they afford to pay?</p>
<p>Not sure how they work with your filters but for strong pre-med outcomes, look at the University of Miami in Florida, University of Pittsburgh (so underrated on these boards but an excellent school), Ursinus College, Muhlenberg College, Skidmore College, Truman State, St. Louis University, Creighton, Rhodes College.</p>
<p>We have friends who’ve had wonderful experiences with Villanova, Case Western and John Carroll University, and Sienna College.</p>
<p>" Safeties and big endowments don’t often go together. Need based aid with parents income over 60k gets tough"
-Surprise! They do, I do not know how often, but I easily found couple places for my D. They are simply known. And she got great great Merit awards at both. I actually underestimated the amounts by a lot. You got to research places that you are interested. As I have mentioned, none of the UGs that D. was accepted would be of your interest.
U of Pitt D. considered for Med. School. But she determined that it was not for her after visiting. Got to visit, see for yourself, meet up with people, get a feel of the place. As superior as one program might be, if it does not fit with you, it will be very hard to make it there. Choose the place that you personally belong then everything else will magically fall into your laps. That is how it happened for my kid.</p>
<p>All of those requirements do not mean you will benefit from them. You really have to track down students to follow up on the research opportunities and the true learning environment. I do expect that many students enter college wanting to participate in research projects and then realize how difficult premed can be.</p>
<p>^Yes, Case gave my D. a lot in Merit, this was her biggest award. She has chosen another school for UG though…and looking back it was a great decision.
Just talked to her yesterday. Going thru rotations and working with different types of people and seeing very complicated cases (due to her current rotation place), she stressed one more time that focusing too much on the Med. School while in UG is a huge mistake. You should pursue your interests, follow your heart and try to develop as a human being as much as possible. Do not listen too much to others, value your personal opinion more. Her frineds pre-meds sometime wondered why D. was involved in certain volunteering activity and for couple years also (she was the only pre-med there, others were psychology major), why sorority (again, there were only 2 pre-meds there), few other things. She sticked to whatever her heart told her to get involved and it is paying off in the greatest way right now at Med. Schoool. Actually, she was told during interviews that her experiences were interesting and a break from the same over and over. This makes person to be remembered. However, D. has never had this in mind, she just followed her heart.
Again, do not keep Med. School and all kind of statistics in mind too much when choosing your UG. And while you attending there, stay flexible, be open to opportunites that you did not have in mind before, just try, and yes, take a risk sometime. The UG is the place and time for all of these. You will be happy later that you did.</p>
<p>Ohio Northern…saw this on another thread, and another CC’s daughter did well at Miami University of Ohio, Case Western</p>
<p>Some UNC’s give merit to OOS especially with high stats. With 16 campuses there is a plethora to chose from, different locales, different size ranging from smallish LACs under 4000 to big ones 30,000+…NCSU offers biochem/micro.biomedical engineering and a new Genetics degree, UNC Chapel Hill had another whole range of bio + humanities…again they do award merit to high stat OOS. NCA&T has the new nanotechnology and nanoengineering school, and they have merit as well. And many engineering/research/internships. They key is getting in, 18% cap on OOS.</p>
<p>Yes, exactly “Miami University of Ohio, Case Western” are well known in OH for great Merit awards. Keep in mind though that Miami is state public and very expansive for OOS. For IS, top kids can easily rip the full tuition Merit though. Case is private, so IS / OOS does not matter. But these are OH schools, OOS person might feel out of place there. Got to assess yourself.</p>
<p>I gotta ask: how come you keep making the expansive/expensive typo? “a” does not border “e” on the keyboard but it shows up in your posts with remarkable consistency (especially in contrast to the general lack of typos in your posts).</p>
<p>Are you jut trying to get your midwestern twang across to everyone? :)</p>