I’m a current high school senior and I need to make a decision by May 1st but I’m still so conflicted! I narrowed down my 13 colleges to 3 but now I don’t know what to do. I like my top 3 equally but for different reasons. My question is: If YOU were an incoming freshman and you had to choose between these 3, which one would you choose? And WHY? Would love responses catered to being premed but comments about overall school experiences will also be helpful.
Side note: For the sake of this discussion PLEASE (pretty please!) do not talk about cost. I have already heard “go where it is the cheapest to save for med school” but I want perspectives outside of that. In a scenario in which these schools cost around the same, where would you want to go?
If you are a current student at any of these schools I would love to hear about your experiences as well!
not counting affordability? UT-Austin, hands down.
Reasons:
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academics/pre-med: functionally, they are peer schools academically. You can parse specific rankings for any given subject, but in terms of applying to med school (or any other graduate school), you can get anywhere you want to go from any of them. For pre-med, the weed-out courses are going to be super-competitive at all of them, so but on balance imo standing out at ND would be the hardest. Since what I have to really worry about for med school is GPA and LOR, being able to get good grades, and standing out compared to my peers is important, which imo gives a slight edge to UMi & UT-A for this one.
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population: Notre Dame is too small and too much like high school for me (really, really don’t like that part); it is also the most homogenous student body (mostly white, Catholic & midwestern), which is less interesting to me. UMi and UT-Austin have about the same # of students, and and are (relatively) more diverse, so points to UMi or UT-A.
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place: Between UMi & UT-A, hands down Austin. Ann Arbor is a great college town, but Austin is too- and the winters are much, much more agreeable! No interest in being in South Bend (cold, boring), so points to UT-A.
(before anybody starts contradicting / correcting me: the OP asked for opinions, and these are mine from my perspective- the OP has to make their own choice for themselves).
@collegemom3717 thank you for replying!
At your age. Honestly it would have been
UT for the parties
UM for the football games at the big house
ND because my dad made me go
Now it would be
ND for the national alumni network and academic rigor
UM for the ross school of business for its prestige and ability to teach me so much before going to a top MBA program
UT for the mild climate and access to Austin’s charms while having unlimited opportunities across all disciplines. And hopefully getting into their CS program and focus on cyber security and with that the ultimate job security for the next 50 years.
Assume you’re not going to med school. Which university do you prefer?
Did you get into an honors program at either UT or UMich?
Just another perspective on ND. It has 8,000 undergrad and 4,000 grad students for a total of 12,000 students on campus. Therefore it is classified as a medium-size college (5,000-15,000 students). Small college is anything less than 5,000, large is anything greater than 15,000 and huge is anything over 30,000. (I believe UMich is @ 44,000 and UT-Austin @ 50,000?)
Yes, ND is probably less diverse than UMich and UT. But 42% of those accepted into ND class of 2022 are students of color, international students or those living abroad. So while it’s not the most diverse school out there, you would certainly be exposed to a variety of experiences, backgrounds and beliefs. In terms of geographic distribution, roughly 30% of students are from the Midwest, but 22% are from the east, 22% from the west, 15% from the south and 10% international. So 70% of the students are from outside of the Midwest. Yes, 80% of students identify as Catholic, but like at any population that runs the gamut from practicing to non-practicing to basically undeclared atheist. (And the same is not true of the faculty, which is roughly 50% Catholic).
Agree that ND is not as homogenous as it used to be, and the 42% accepted number is encouraging. But of actual enrolled students (which is 50-60% of accepted students), it is still 73% white / 11% hispanic / 5% asian / 4% a-a and 6% international (per College Data). And although it has a good endowment, it only ranks in the middle of the top 200 colleges and universities for economic diversity.
Also agree that ND is not a “small” college- just said that it was too small for me, more b/c of the relatively isolated location than the absolute size.
Also agree that the degree of Catholicism expressed by students varies considerably, and will add that I know a fair few Catholics who consider it barely a ‘real’ Catholic school 
But: the Catholic ethos is a real part of the community. If the OP is Catholic s/he knows what to expect, but if not, it might be a surprise.
To be clear, I am not dissing ND: it is a great college, with a lot to offer, and I know several very happy students & recent grads (including one who turned down Princeton to go there).
Well, I loved going to UT. Yes, it’s huge, but I tell kids it’s like living in a city with lots of neighborhoods. You’re not going to see all 50,000+ students at once (except maybe on football game days, which are awesome). There were 48,000 students when I attended in the dark ages, but my “neighborhood” was the engineering building - I had a close group of friends and had a great time. And there was always something to do on campus, any time!
My son chose UT-Austin as a premed major a few years ago. He was accepted to schools like Wash U and Amherst, but decided to study biomedical engineering at UT with an interest in medical school. I was impressed with the services available for premed students. (He fell ill and had to drop out at the beginning of his sophomore year, unfortunately.)
All your choices are wonderful, though - work hard and you’ll do great!
@myosi1634 no i️ didn’t apply to honors because i️ was misinformed and thought it just meant taking harder courses
Shoot. It makes a big difference for premeds. Look at the pocess for internal admission into honors (end of first semester? End of freshman year? hat conditions/requirements? Possibility to take one or two honors classes even if not in honors?l
If you can’t find the answers online ask admissions AND honors.
Grade distribution information is available for some schools. You may want to check how generous each school is with A grades (in the context of admission selectivity), particularly in the typical pre-med courses:
http://utcatalyst.org/grade-distribution/
https://gradeguide.com/
Other things to consider:
A. Cost? Medical school is expensive, so saving money and avoiding debt can be helpful.
B. What college and major would you prefer if you do not go to medical school? Most pre-meds do not go to medical school.
@ucbalumnus i️ hey what you’re saying but that does not apply to me because I’m not changing my mind
Most pre-meds do not go to medical school not because they change their minds, but because they are unable to get admitted to any medical school.
70-75% are weeded out. Of those, about 50% get a med school admission. (Honors helps but apparently you dont have an honors admission).
So, having a solid plan B is essential.
At least, all three are excellent so you can’t make a bad choice.