We are Asian Americans and live in NC. My son want to pursue premed.
We are looking for an institution meeting following criteria:
Diverse, safe and liberal campus.
Strong pre med (or chemistry) program with higher med school acceptance.
Better research and physician research opportunities.
Small class size, better interaction with professor.
Value for money and reputation.
Greek life and partying is not a priority.
Sports are not important
Given all these criteria, how would you rank following colleges/universities in descending order:
Duke
UNC CH
Rice
Vanderbilt
Emory
GA Tech
U of Richmond
Wake Forest
Davidson
Case Western
Furman
NCSU, Raleigh
We understand financial implications of going out of state but provide your inputs without considering finances. He has applied in Early Action for six of them (UNC,NCSU, Case, GA tech, U of Richmond, Furman) and rest are in regular decision. We also understand that he may not be selected in all of these but need an insight to make an cognizant and practical decision when needed.
Thank you in advance for your valuable insights and help.
I should say that, based on your son’s general preferences, he should consider including at least one Northern school on his list. Haverford, for example, could make a nice addition.
Pre-med is an intention, so he plans to major in chemistry? I don’t see any safeties on this list…perhaps NCSU is close to one? If his school uses Naviance what does the probability of admission look like?
Anyway, there are many good schools on this list with good pre-med outcomes. IMO Davidson, Wake Forest and Furman have grade deflation, so although of course students get accepted to med school from those schools, it’s still something to consider and a possible way to cull the list. Furman is also relatively conservative, and has a majority of students participating in Greek Life.
Georgia Tech doesn’t have grade deflation but the number of smart engineers in many pre-med required courses (chem, physics, calc) will make it competitive. Again, just a consideration.
Another thing to look at is opportunities to get patient facing experience…are students allowed to join/train for campus EMT service? Hospitals nearby (walk? Uber?) for jobs/volunteering? Organized physician shadowing experiences?
All these schools will have opportunities to do research, but that’s less important than patient facing experience.
Lastly, research the prehealth advising services, mcat review offerings, and committee letter process at each school…Do all students intending to apply to med school receive a committee letter, or do they limit these letters(required for med school admissions) to students who achieve a certain gpa and/or mcat score?
Thank you Mwfan192, much appreciate your inputs, very helpful. This is what I was looking for.
Yes, he will be majoring in chemistry and based on Naviance he might get into at least six (or possibly more) of these but keeping fingers crossed.
If we take grade deflation into consideration, we should take Wake Forest, Davidson and Furman to the bottom.
Duke, UNC CH, Vanderbilt, Case, and Emory have their own hospitals. UR and NCSU have easy access to other/affiliated medical centers. GA Tech is also not far from major medical centers but competition with smart engineers is a valid point. I think all these schools are providing excellent premed advising.
However, I am not sure about committee letters, how we can find more about it? Is there any input or personal experiences or recommendations?
Would also appreciate if other members can also comment.
If you search “The 25 Best Colleges for Pre-meds,” you will see some general considerations that might be of interest to a pre-med student. Note that small classes and access to research are valued at least as highly by the site as proximity to hospitals.
Thank you for inputs. I was able to find info about premed committee at Vanderbilt but looks like majority do not have one. Hope ain’t am not missing anything?
I absolutely agree that small class size and strong research is equally important.
Thanks again for your time and valuable inputs.
I did a lot of research for one of my daughter’s for pre med and we are fortunate to have a lot of MDs in the family plus one of them teaches at a med school. Generally I’d suggest this:
First look at instate options, and save the money for med school. UNC CH is an excellent school and won’t hold your child back in admissions. I would suggest going to the school and talking to their pre med advisors. Ask hard questions about the type of support. Sometimes big state schools are so big that they struggle to offer solid support.
Next look for liberal arts colleges that your son will thrive at AND they have excellent pre med advising. LACs can offer more hands on help because of their size, and you pay for that. We live on the other side of the country so I didn’t look at schools close to you, but Loyola Marymount in California i a good example of what to look for. Enough academic rigor, but not hard to make 3.7+ GPA and excellent resources for pre med like they help run a clinic in Venice Beach for homeless people. That makes it easy to get volunteer hours plus med schools like to see that the applicant has worked with less fortunate groups. https://cse.lmu.edu/centerforstudentsuccess/healthprofessionsadvising/
AlwaysMoving- that sounds very practical, much appreciate your inputs— very very helpful. The two LACs in our lists are Davidson and U of Richmond. Given the grade deflation described above by Mwfan192, U of Richmond can be a great choice for us. I will explore more on UNC as well and talk to their premed advisory.
Years ago research was a key factor in med school admissions. No longer.
But a factor you haven’t really mentioned is crucial: exposure to patient care. Med schools want their applicants to know what they’re signing up for, and they will even reject otherwise well-qualified students without it.
If your son isn’t already getting exposure to health care thru volunteer work then all of this may be putting the cart before the horse. When a lot of HS kids (or their parents) think of a career in medicine it becomes “I’m pre-med!” and they happily embark on a track that will take 11+ years of school/training plus enormous debt. Doctors are far from the only ones in the health field that help people. Physical therapists, radiology techs, nurses, speech pathologists, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, to name but just a few. as you can see on http://explorehealthcareers.org Unless he’s carefully considered the alternatives and has spent time in a health care setting to see what it’s really like then it’s better to think of him as interested in exploring a career as a doctor rather than someone who has already made the decision.
@mikemac, of course med schools want to see patient/clinical exposure but that is not necessary for a HS kid. I don’t even know what kind of face to patient exposure a minor would have, except maybe delivering a food
tray or the book cart. My kid went into UG with no medical anything except for the HOSA club in HS. She did all the necessary things in UG, went to medschool and now in residency.
The OP will find out soon enough in UG if he/she has what it takes.
Based on your criteria, Rice, Case Western, and URichmond are likely to be the best “fits”. They offer excellent science programs, minimal to no grade deflation, limited to no Greek Life, access to research and medical facilities, are and (relatively) liberal.
Thank you MYOS1634q. I agree with your observation.
Where would you rank Emory, Duke and Vanderbilt in comparison of these three? Any pros and cons for them?
Vanderbilt is more conservative and Greek, Duke is very Greek and into sports. Emory is probably a happy medium - less selective than Rice, less Greek than Duke, etc.
Does your son have matches and safeties? (Because almost all of these are reaches due to acceptance rate.)
If you’re instate for North Carolina, NCSU and UNC-CH are excellent universities, although they’re also very tough for premeds (and probably more into sports than may be preferable.) if you aren’t, Due to the 18% cap, acceptance becomes dicier - as NC public universities, their main goal is to serve North Carolina residents, and as a result, admission from OOS is much harder than instate and never a “match” regardless of stats since you don’t know the ratio of OOS applicant/OOSplaces per college of majors.