Sorry about that – his previous comments applied to only one specific school so I was just acknowledging familiarity with it. When it’s deleted that original description should be too or its the same as listing the name to anyone with familiarity with NJ private and parochial schools.
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Deleted the specific references to his school as well as some of the identifying info.
Looks like you have good enough stats to get into many schools. Your future career plans will mature as you continue to evolve while in college and beyond. Adding philosophy to a science/math major is logical (sorry). Many schools work for getting into medical school but you need a plan B since more than half of those considering it will not make it. This can be discovering a different field, not doing that well in required premed courses or simply that the supply of students exceeds the number of available places in medical schools.
There are many ways of being of benefit to society, and the disadvantaged. You will learn and refine your goals in college.
Ask yourself- why science? Also, you need to figure which type of science you enjoy most among the many that utilize the basic biology, chemistry and physics. Once you figure out which type of science appeals to you the most you can figure out good schools for majors. btw- ANY major plus required classes will work for medical school. There is nothing wrong with indulging in your love of philosophy as a major while adding the needed courses for the goal of medical school.
Many state flagships are research institutions and have excellent departments in many different sciences. Your family finances come first- be sure to have that talk with your parents before making a list of unaffordable schools.
I saw Michigan mentioned and many other schools. Wisconsin is another good one despite its size, many from NJ often attend. Do not only consider schools we posters mention- there are many more excellent choices out there.
You are lucky if your finances and stats allow a ton of options. Be realistic. Make some lists of factors and prioritize which are most important to you. Remember there can be culture shock when you leave your region. Good luck.
Connecticut College
@wis75 The philosophy degree is more based around Ethics and Morality since I feel that American society is devoid of those principles. I mean, if I don’t become a surgeon I would still love to work in a laboratory on the upcoming field of Immunotherapy. However, I feel that a good moral background is necessary…that’s why I want to either double major or minor in philosophy. It’s just for myself because of principles that my parents and religion instilled within me. As for finances, I should be able to afford whatever institution I feel would fit with me ($75-80k annually). As for sciences that I’m interested in, I feel that the field of gene therapy really intrigues me…and if I’m not mistaken that is under biology. Thank you for the reply though! Also, I’ll take a look into Wisconsin – thanks for the recommendation!
@writer80 Noted! I’ll take a look at its webpage – thank you!
@Mentanyanya
" Maybe undergraduate isn’t important…however, I still want a school that will prepare me for the rigor of medical school in terms of the curriculum. " - I am sorry that I was confusing in my post before and did not emphasize enough that NO SCHOOL will prepare you for the medical school. ALL and EVERY college, including lowest of the lowest ranked is extremely challenging for ANY pre-med. Every college will require a great step up in academic efforts in comparison to HS. It requires it even if the student graduated #1 from the most rigorous private HS in area. Those who do not realize it (about 85% of initial pre-meds) fall out of their initial pre-med track. However, the medical school academic level is still about “quantum leap” higher than ANY college academics. College academics provide only some background. More so, in a future, depending on the your specialty, some specialties require a great academic effort during residency as medical schools do not cover all specialties deeply enough.
Overall, what I am trying to say, ALL of the above will depend ONLY on YOU and no college will make any difference in this process.
However, it is entirely up to you to choose your college, you do not need to listen to anybody. The set of individual goals is very different from person to person. My comments strictly dealt with the college as far as medical school is concerned, not any other goals outside of this relation.
Best wishes selecting the college that matches you personally and have a happy 4 years there!
I think @MiamiDAP considerably oversimplifies the situation. My own experience and observations are that the quality of your classmates usually makes a considerable difference in how hard you have to work to be at or near the top of the curve, which is how many classes are graded, especially the classes in the pre-med rota (not really the right word but close and I wanted to use it after watching the British Open golf championship). So for example, if you attend a school where the other students are all very bright and academically accomplished in high school, human nature is that you will work harder to make sure you keep up with their performance on exams. If, on the other hand, you are that kind of high quality student but attend a regional state branch school, for example, your fellow classmates will mostly be very average academically. In that case you would find yourself far more easily at the top of the curve on exams, and thus likely to not work as hard preparing for exams. Some people are very disciplined even without that kind of motivation, but most are not, I have found. Also, of course, you tend to learn more from brighter classmates. But the main point is that you will have to work very hard in med school, and an undergrad school where you surround yourself with high level competition will prepare you better in that way. Of course, the flip side is if you don’t rise to the occasion your GPA will suffer and med school dreams may vanish.
^ And some colleges weed. Purposely. It’s not as simple as the kid just working harder.
Well, I don’t think they weed randomly, like looking at the class list and predetermining they are going to grade Student A harder than Student B. I really don’t understand the comment. If a college is making a class very challenging in order to weed out the students that can’t cut it, then it seems to me working harder is exactly the right answer. What’s the (ethical) alternative?
“My own experience and observations are that the quality of your classmates usually makes a considerable difference in how hard you have to work to be at or near the top of the curve” - this is a great misconception that the pre-med crowd at in-state public consists of the lower caliber students. Many pre-meds (as well as pre-law - no experience with this, just have read here, on CC) know that the name of the college is irrelevant when considering medical school. So, the wise ones and more mature ones just choose the cheapest (or better yet, free / tuiton free) option for themselves. Most pre-meds are usually valedictorians ( or very close to the top in their respective HS classes), who end up attending in Honors colleges on full tuition / free ride Merit awards in case they are pursuing in-state options. But as I mentioned before, even these very high caliber HS student (some Honors have requirement of being top 2% of HS class with ACT=31+) have only about 15% survival rate on the pre-med track. So perception that making the curve is easy at no-name college is basically out the window, simply not true. They all have to work extremely hard since while med. school will not pay much attention to the name of the UG, they will pay great attention to your college GPA, the general one as well as the science GPA (separately) and most are taking very challenging (for the college kid) upper level Bio classes, Physiology, Genetics, etc. in order to do well on MCAT. MCAT is an equalizer, it will not care where you attended UG.
Again, it is OP’s decision where to attend. However, there is a lot of discussion going on in Medical school forum and specifically in Pre-Med. They deal with a lot of detailed issues, so my recommendation for OP at this point is to skim there and not in general Parents Forum.
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/
This is poppycock. An n of 1 is not data. Its anecdotal.
Let’s be clear here. I know for a fact, having observed numerous classes in the pre-med track at various schools, that:
A) Pre-meds at any school tend to be academically over the average of the school as a whole, especially at less selective schools; and
B) This still does not in any way mean that the pre-meds at less selective schools, on average, are academically statistically equal to their counterparts at more selective schools. They simply are not. Certainly some are. Ivy quality students do pick less selective schools for cost and other reasons, but these are a small minority of any given pre-med cohort at the less selective schools, especially most state schools.
To second @jym626’s statement, pure poppycock. Again, they are as a group above the average student at their school, but certainly the majority were not valedictorians. The Honors college statement is just bizarre, as is the merit award statement. The Ivies and some other elite schools don’t have merit awards, and some have very few, not nearly enough to cover all or even a small percentage of the pre-meds, since non-pre-meds get some of those coveted merit awards as well.
Whatever others are thinking, I thought that the OP has a right to know that good number of graduating medical students who originally attended UG at Ivy’s. Looking back they realize that the Ivy education did not provide any advantages to them. Let me be clear here, I am not talking in any general terms and I am NOT stating my opinion here. I feel that one sided story that is being painted on this thread is simply not fair. Whatever OP decides, OP is entitled to hear different facts that out there, not opinions, not fairy tales, but the facts that people are facing at the graduation knowing that they are about to engaged in a long road of paying off their huge student loans that could have been avoided if only they knew the truth or maybe if they did not cover their ears when they actually heard these facts. Again, this fact may not be applicable to OP, whose family may have unlimited resources. However, there are others who are reading here and they may need to be aware of it.
2 thoughts.
If you go to a top private school in NJ you should be making full use of the college guidance counselors. What are they saying?
Have you considered applying to the 7 year med program through Rutgers or SUNY?
You own a restaurant, OP?
With regard to post #54 by @MiamiDAP
That, I think, is largely true. Pre-meds at less selective schools can be every bit as successful in their applications to med schools as their Ivy League and similar schools counterparts. There is nothing particularly magical about freshman chem at Harvard compared to U Alabama Honors, for example, and the same is true regarding the other basic pre-med requirements. There might be some difference in the pace at which they cover the material, but that would have a negligible effect in the end. As I stated earlier, the bigger difference is the overall higher level of competition from the classmates, and that probably sharpens the Ivy student to some degree. But the inherently disciplined student at any school can get equal results for sure.
However
I think is most likely quite untrue. To the extent it is true it is because they don’t realize how much they benefited from being in a very high level environment, because it was all they ever knew.
"
Looking back they realize that the Ivy education did not provide any advantages to them.
I think is most likely quite untrue. To the extent it is true it is because they don’t realize how much they benefited from being in a very high level environment, because it was all they ever knew. "
- Sorry for confusion. I did not say that everybody had regrets, I mentioned that the good number have regrets. I also did not state it clear enough that at the end when everybody could look back at their very hard and at times torturous road and compare themselves to others, they had a chance to realize that their Ivy education did not provide them any advantages in regard to the medical school experiences in comparison to their medical school classmates who graduated from state publics, not during application cycle, not with academics. So, it is not all that they ever knew, they were in exactly the same medical school class as public college graduates and they had 4 years of chances to compare themselves to others. They also went thru residency matching, results of which in no way reflected the names of their respective colleges.
However, it is important to keep in mind that the student / college match is very important for a pre-med. You do not want additional stress, they have enough of it. And if Ivy happen to be the most fit for a specific student and family can afford it (and paying for medical school after), then, why not? Go for it and leave all those spots in Honors colleges for those who truly pursuing them.
"Have you considered applying to the 7 year med program through Rutgers or SUNY? "- These programs are very competitive, some are more than Ivy’s. I am not familiar with the ones at Rutgers, but we have several of them in OH and I am very familiar with all of them. Application to these programs is all different ball game than simple college application. As of now, the OP does not have medical EC’s and there is no time left to get sufficient amount of them to successfully compete with other applicants who have hundreds of hours volunteering at the hospitals, shadowed physicians and have several months of internships/jobs at Medical Research lab.
Miami- someday when you are bored take a look at the educational backgrounds of the countries top medical researchers at major institutions like MGH or Mayo. You will notice that Harvard and Yale Med schools are quite adequately represented- AND a host of elite-type undergrads as well.
I am willing to bet that these physicians who are at the top of their field don’t spend a lot of time regretting their educational choices.
Your local pediatrician or gastro? Sure. But you seem unwilling to recognize that there is a medical elite – just as your D’s HS was the “top” HS in Ohio. Do you need an elite undergrad to get there? of course not. Do the doctors who have taken that route regret it?
Willing to bet a year of med school tuition that they do not.