<p>Good? Bad? Pros/Cons?</p>
<p>BUMP</p>
<p>pre-med is not a major, OP. what do you want to major in?</p>
<p><a href=“Medical School Acceptance Rate - Institutional Research - Reed College”>http://www.reed.edu/ir/medschool.html</a></p>
<p>The real question would be, how hard is it to maintain that GPA at Reed? And that’s a pretty low GPA compared to other schools, so obviously there’s some accounting for the intensity and difficulty of the place.</p>
<p>I would take the following into account when choosing an undergraduate school for pre-med:</p>
<p>1) You have to maintain a good GPA to get into med school. You might get a tiny bit of slack for the difficulty of the school but many med schools have automatic cutoffs so make sure you can maintain a 3.5+ GPA.</p>
<p>2) Many many people say they are pre-med but don’t make it through. What opportunities does this school have if you don’t end up going to med school?</p>
<p>3) Cost: You want a cheap out of pocket option for undergraduate so you don’t have any loans unless you have unlimited funds. You need to save your/your parents money to pay for med school.</p>
<p>4) Pre-med activities: Is there a hospital near by to volunteer at? How is the health advisory committee?</p>
<p>Be careful when looking at pre-med acceptance rates:
There are all the people who start off in pre-med
There are all the people who finish as pre-med and take the MCATs
There are all of the people who the committee thinks are worthy of a recommendation letter</p>
<p>When they talk about 80%, which population are they talking about (hint: most likely the last one)</p>
<p>Do you qualify for financial aid? If you do, your primary concern, after determining if a premed program is good enough, should be to do undergrad with as little debt as possible. If you’re full pay, I think you should determine if Reed is the best value for your money.</p>
<p>We took the tour at Ursinus and we were blown away by the opportunity for students interested in pre-med. And, Ursinus is very generous with merit aid. I don’t believe Reed gives any. Of course, Ursinus is on the other side of the country from Reed, so that may rule it out for you. If you can’t imagine moving across the country, take a look around for cheaper, high rated programs in your own area - med school’s expensive! Save where you can. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.ursinus.edu/netcommunity/page.aspx?pid=440”>http://www.ursinus.edu/netcommunity/page.aspx?pid=440</a></p>
<p>
This is something worth looking into at any college. When you see astounding numbers, its either a school starting with great kids or screening.</p>
<p>But as it turns out, Reed does not provide a committee letter so they aren’t screening kids. See <a href=“http://www.reed.edu/beyond-reed/career-development/students/advanced-study/medical-school.html”>http://www.reed.edu/beyond-reed/career-development/students/advanced-study/medical-school.html</a></p>
<p>Since the OP (and others reading this thread) is picking an undergrad college, its worth reading thru the excellent online guide from Amherst at <a href=“Amherst College Guide for Premedical Students”>https://www3.amherst.edu/~sageorge/guide1.html</a> to understand the whole premed process</p>
<p>Wow, thank you all for such great advice! Applying right now is stressful but will be worth it at the end. Do you think UCI would be a good place for a premed? Major in Bio?</p>
<p>almost any school is good for biology. the question is whether or not you can earn a high enough GPA there to get into med school. Without knowing your stats, we cannot tell whether you will fall into the upper half of pre-meds who are admitted to UCI or Reed.</p>
<p>American colleges do biology very well, and they get a lot of practice. So much so that you might want to consider something else or something in addition to bio. There are a lot of bio majors who don’t get into med school, don’t apply to med school, and don’t find jobs when they graduate. Make sure you major in something you a) love and b) will enjoy doing if you don’t go to med school (which, frankly, is more likely than that you will go to med school). If that major helps you to find a job, all the better. </p>
<p>How should I post my stats?</p>
<p>Give us your unwtd GPA, if you want, but definitely provide us with your CR+M SAT and your ACT with the math score showing. If you’ve taken any SATIIs yet, tell us how you scored there.</p>
<p>Unwtd. GPA: 4.00
SAT: None
ACT: 34 C
33 E
34 M
34 R
34 S
Haven’t gotten the writing score yet…
SAT II’s: Math 2 (800), Biology (740), and Chemistry (740)
AP’s: Chemistry (5), Biology (4), Calculus AB (5), Eng. Lang (4)</p>
<p>Would it be a waste of time to retake the SAT II Bio, or take the Spanish with listening? What’s considered a good score for the Spanish SAT II with Listening?</p>
<p>That would undoubtedly get you into Reed under most circumstances. But you could shoot for any of the Top 10 LACs as well with those stats. Or aim for an awesome merit package somewhere decent and save your money for med school. You can pretty much go any direction you choose.</p>
<p>One suggestion about Reed, the top LACs, and the mid-sized unis. They like to be told that you love them, so don’t ignore the opportunities to show them that you’re really interested in them and not just using them as safeties. Reach out to the AOs, make official visits to campus, visit them if they come near your high school. Some schools will even count webpage visits and email contacts. Put in the effort on the essays.</p>
<p>So UCI and Reed and hundreds of other schools are good for applicants with your great resumé who are thinking someday of attending med school. I suggest that you save your money for med school by looking at colleges where you can go to school inexpensively and by all means avoid undergrad debt. Reed is not such a college probably. If you’re not a CA resident, UCI probably is not such a college.</p>
<p>Run the net price calculator found on the Financial Aid webpage at each school and gain some idea of what each school will cost your family and cost you in loans. Then after talking to your parents and learning what they can offer you every year for four years (and if there’s any money for med school after that) you can decide whether Reed or UCI is a good school for you.</p>
<p>Wow, thank you guys! I think I have a clearer picture of what to do next. Also, could you give me some suggestions for reach, match, and safetys? I know Amherst and Pomona are reaches, but I’m stuck on which colleges are matches for me.</p>
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</p>
<p>Run the online Net Price Calculators to compare.
Reed’s need-based financial aid is quite good. In terms of the percentage of students whose need is fully met, the average percentage of need met, average aid package value, and debt at graduation, Reed is competitive with the NESCAC schools (Amherst, Williams, etc.) … but is less selective than some of those schools.</p>
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<p>Looking at just the LACs and given your numbers, I would say that if you pick a number of schools in the Top 20 that you like, you have a match in there somewhere but we really can’t name any specific one, although the less selective you go, the higher the chance. When even the #15 schools are on the order of 25% admission rate, even top students are at some risk of rejection, so it becomes a numbers game of making sure you have enough picks. Outside of the Top 5, I’d say you have a very high possibility of admission if you show sufficient love and write great essays, especially the supplementals - if that’s a definition of a “match”, then you’ve got those. And if you really settled on just one or two outside the Top 5 and did ED, you’d likely be accepted, so be careful about that option.</p>
<p>Lots of students with your stats have trouble imagining matches for themselves, but you have to remember there are several thousand colleges that are matches and safeties for you. You might not want to think about them, but you need to. So let’s try to solve two birds with one stone: non-“ivies” where you might get a bunch of merit or need-based aid:</p>
<p>Tulane*
UPitt*
URochester**
Alabama Tuscaloosa*
Alabama Birmingham*
Boston U***
Case Western**
Vanderbilt*
WashU*
Emory**
UGeorgia**
Miami, OH**
Ohio State**
Mount Holyoke
New College of Florida*
Ohio U*
URichmond*
Washington & Lee*
South Carolina*
Southern California*
Syracuse**
Temple*
Vassar
Wellesley
Rutgers**
Rhodes*
the rest of the non-“ivies” that offer “meets 100% of need” </p>
<p><em>either inexpensive or offers many full tuition and/or full ride merit awards
*</em>offers some FT and/or FR awards</p>
<p>These are only some of them, and hopefully people will fill in the gaps I’ve left. Your essays and ECs will be key. The higher ranked the school, the more those essays and ECs will matter. There’s more info at the financial aid and scholarship link seen on the left side of this page. </p>
<p>My personal favs for med school bound students are UPitt, URochester, Vandy, WashU, Emory, and Ohio State.</p>
<p>How hard is the curriculum at WashU of St. Louis? Since they have a BS/MD program that requires the students to maintain 3.8, is the curriculum really hard?</p>
<p>There are many views on WashU as a place to do pre-med and they conflict dramatically. Some say it’s a great place because of its access to the med school, others say it’s a cut-throat pit because there are so many pre-meds, sort of like Johns Hopkins-lite. The pre-med track is known to be pretty tough, at least by reputation.</p>
<p>About the WashU BS/MD program, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be - if you read through the fine print, you are guaranteed admission to the Med School only if you maintain a 3.8 undgrad GPA AND score at least a 36 on the MCAT. Neither of those requirements is exactly easy to do and if you did have them from any other top institution, you’d be a top candidate for WashU or any other top medical school anyway, so other than the guarantee, I’m not sure how much it’s worth.</p>
<p>One interesting twist I recently heard from an insider is that if you want to go to WashU Med School the last place you want to do pre-med is WashU because the med school admissions committee intentionally restricts the number of WashU pre-meds they let in - they are already committed to the BS/MD people, so to mix it up, all but a very few WashU pre-meds are forced to do med school elsewhere. Maybe that’s not a bad thing, but the source is pretty reliable, so I wouldn’t go to WashU thinking you have an inside track to the Med School. But that’s probably true anywhere, no med school likes to be dominated by any one school, even it’s own homegrown candidates. They like to cross-pollinate.</p>
<p>Bottom line -go to WashU because it’s a good fit and you want to go to WashU and/or they offer you a lot of money. There is no inherent advantage to going there over any other comparable institution.</p>