<p>I am going to be a freshman next year and I still haven't chosen where I will be attending. I am hoping to attend medical school after undergrad, hence im pre-med. I have narrowed my choices down to UCLA or NYU. I know UCLA has a hospital where I can volunteer and they have numerous programs where I can internship for doctors offices and etc...(only because I live a few blocks away from UCLA so i've become familiar with it)
I am not quite sure what NYU has to offer as far as a pre-med student..
I was really appreciate help on what NYU has to offer and what school would be a smarter decision. To get in a good med school..would it matter if i graduated from either UCLA or NYU? would they consider be if i graduated from one school or the other?</p>
<p>*A is a better ranked school and its 1/4 the price *</p>
<p>On one of your other threads you wrote the above, so the obvious question is… Who would be paying for NYU? Will your parents happily pay the $55k+ to go there? If not, then there really isn’t a choice. NYU isn’t worth the debt especially if you want to go to med school. </p>
<p>That said, if you go to UCLA (which it sounds like you should), then be pro-active about pre-med advising. Go to the office on a regular basis. Find out what they have going on. If they have a Listserve email system, get your email address on that Listserve so that you will get info in a timely manner. </p>
<p>If your parents are willing to pay, and you really, really, really want to attend college in Manhattan (which you must since you are ignoring 30+ days of cc advice which says, ‘UCLA’), then go to NYU. It will not make any difference on your med applications. You will still be considered a Calif resident when you apply (unfortunately for you).</p>
<p>My friends from Cali have told me some bad horror stories about UCLA. For example, I heard that sometimes classes are so big, that there are not enough seats for all the students enrolled in the class and kids are forced to watch the lecture on a TV outside. I don’t know how true that statement is, but if it is true, I’d choose NYU.</p>
<p>Isn’t UCLA much more than 1/4 the cost of NYU?</p>
<p>In the OP, the student says that she lives a few blocks away from UCLA, therefore I’m thinking that she will commute and could likely walk to campus. Fees/books will be $15k per year for her…quite the bargain! :)</p>
<p>*UCLA estimates cost at $22,181 in that scenario.
*</p>
<p>LOL…with lots of fluff for loan purposes. For a normal kid who lives within a couple of minutes of campus (could walk there) and whose family is paying for most food, etc, it doesn’t cost nearly $22k per year. </p>
<p>Seriously, I have nieces and nephews in the UC system. Two have commuted, the rest lived on campus. If you don’t have far to drive, then the “live at home COA” is ridiculously padded to assume that you’re paying “rent” to your parents, etc. </p>
<p>Schools super-pad COAs for those who live at home for loan purposes…because you can only borrow up to COA…and this pad allows those who may need to borrow money to go towards car repairs, car insurance, cell phone plans, gasoline, commuter-meal plans, or even to contribute money to parents ti be able to live at home, etc. </p>
<p>UCLA commuting from home COA</p>
<p>Room and board: $4,359…ha ha!
Estimated personal expenses: $1,869
Transportation expense: $1,959 </p>
<p>I doubt this young lady is going to have $4359 R&B costs while living at home…nor is she likely to have $2k in travel expenses when she lives a couple blocks away from the school. </p>
<p>The OP hasn’t clarified how/who would be paying for the NYU scenario. If parents will only pay tuition (fees) and books for UCLA, and attending NYU would require large student loans, then going to NYU or elsewhere would be impractical.</p>
<p>Jasmine, I already responded to your other post with the same question. I forgot to mention one incredibly important thing. Housing. </p>
<p>If you live near UCLA, please do yourself a favor and go there. Paying rent in Manhattan is not worth the experience. As someone who lived in both LA (undergrad) and NY (med school), trust me on this. Unless your parents have a ton of money to spare, the cost of living near NYU is not worth it. If the draw of The Big Apple is too hard to ignore, then consider going there for med school instead. The cost might not look too different on the surface, but you will be living in a shoebox.</p>
<p>UCLA gave me every opportunity I needed to do well and get into med school. Yes, some classes were huge (biochem = 300), but they are all divided up into smaller sections of less than 30 students, and as soon as you get into the upper division courses, its shrinks exponentially. By the time I was taking my upper division courses in Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology (MCDB), my classes had at most 40 people. Granted, I graduated in '07 but unless it’s changed radically in the last 4 years…</p>
<p>Thanks guys sooo much! Financially neither would be a problem…so does anyone know if there are a lot of opportunities as far as internships and jobs for pre med students at NYU?</p>