So basically, I’ve been accepted to Pitt Bioengineering and I plan to go premed, but I do not know if I should try to get into more prestigious schools (also more expensive) given that medical schools value prestige very little. I actually know an orthopedic surgeon that works in the school of engineering as well as the medical school, and he would be a great connection for research as well as in-hospital experience. I have yet to apply to any other schools, and I do not know if I even should given all that Pitt has to offer me. Given my stats/qualifications below, are there any more prestigious schools I can realistically get into that would be great for a biomedical engineering premed course of study?
Weighted GPA
9th: 3.18
10th: 3.83
11th: 4.53 - AP Calc AB, APUSH, AP Chem, Dual enrollment A&P 1-2, Honors physics (mechanics), rest are college prep courses.
12th: 4.7ish - AP Calc BC, AP English lang, AP Biology, Dual enrollment physics E&M, rest are college prep courses.
I think you should appy to more “prestigious” schools. Otherwise you will never know what it could have been and might have regrets later for not having more options. My daughter got into Pitt and some higher ranked schools, but we are still considering Pitt as one of her top choices due to location, price, research opportunities and strength of her intended major (neuro).
I had a pretty meager visit at Pitt, but that in mainly because they didn’t show us any facilities-academic or dorms. I don’t even know what schools I can reasonable stand a chance at. I got denied ED at CMU for ChemE, and it really deflated me about the whole college admissions process.
Daughter had an excellent visit to Pitt. She saw the labs and said they were really good, even compared to Hopkins (she went to summer university there and took molecular bio lab course)
You can essentially pre-apply to Pitt Medical as an undergraduate. If accepted you are guaranteed admission to Pitt Medical. This application to medical school is before you even start undergraduate. Look it up.
My other suggestion is consider an LAC for pre-med. The resources you need as pre-med are better and when it comes time to apply to medical school you won’t be competing with classmates at the same medical school.
Admit rates at top LACs are just as good if not better than large universities. Most of the top LACs send 30 - 40 students to medical school each year, that is an extremely high percentage of each class. Holy Cross boasts over 10% of its alumni are doctors or dentists.
While I agree that LACs are great for pre-meds, most LACs don’t offer engineering, let alone bio engineering. So if you are sold on that, LACs won’t work (with a few exceptions like Harvey Mudd, Bucknell, Swarthmore, etc…)
Keep in mind that what med schools do care very much about is your GPA. So going to a more selective and competitive place (like JHU which is famously competitive for pre-meds) would not be a great idea unless you are very confident that you are going to pull a 3.7 or better. Most respectable schools will give you sufficient basic sciences to prepare you for med school and the MCAT is going to involve a lot of self-study in any case. Also, you need to avoid debt: Medical school is wickedly expensive so you don’t want undergraduate debt dragging you down and limiting your options once you have to choose a speciality. Finally, if you already have an ‘in’ for research at Pitt with the orthopedic surgeon, that puts you way ahead of the game.
If you aren’t sure Pitt is your best fit, then by all means apply elsewhere. If you can tell us more about what you can afford and what you are looking for in a school, we might be able to offer some target suggestions.
If you want to apply to a couple of others just to see what happens financially and potentially have a choice in the spring, students looking at Biomedical Engineering/Pre-med and liking Pitt often also consider Case Western and U Rochester. Take a look at their websites and run NPCs and see what you think.
As a disclaimer… my pre-med middle son is in his senior year loving U Rochester. Pitt ended up being his second choice. Cost ended up being pretty equal for us. I’m as close to positive as anyone can be feeling that he will get into med school somewhere with his GPA, experiences, and LORs. (He’s not applying until the following year due to being accepted into URoc’s Take 5 program.) Nothing is certain, of course, but… he’s done well with the opportunities he’s had and I don’t see that suddenly stopping.
Bioengineering may not be the best pick since engineering has lower GPAs and bioengineering doesn’t have the advantage of being an “out” if you don’t get into med school since it’s the onl engineering specialty that requires grad school.
However I would second the idea of looking into LACs, especially those with ties to hospitals such as Rhodes.