About six months ago I was admitted to USC as a spring admit with half-tuition National Merit Scholarship. I am currently doing GE courses at a community college, preparing to move in to LA this coming January.
Would it be a waste of an opportunity to transfer to Temple instead as Temple is ranked so much lower than USC?
I would save about 60k over my last three years of college. Approx. 160k for USC and Approx. 100K for Temple.
I am looking to go into Biomedical engineering for either school on a pre-med track. I’ve read a lot of posts saying undergrad prestige doesn’t really matter that much for med school, so I was thinking of saving as much money as possible by transferring to a local in-state school.
Why are you looking to move ? Is it purely money or something else ? Both are fine schools. But in the end if a ‘fine’ school isn’t for you, it doesn’t matter its reputation.
I agree as usual broadly speaking with @DadOfJerseyGirl conclusions but would suggest a discussion with your parents.
Different families have unique financial situations and priorities. Often children are not aware (for better or worse) of what family finances look like.
Your parents may have saved for the expensive opportunity (and med school) and may value a prestige name. Conversely they may absolutely appreciate your desire to optimize. Either way not for anyone but you and your parents to impose our values.
If you can graduate with a bio-engineering degree, good grades, and do well on the MCAT, the undergrad institution shouldn’t impact your admission to Med school.
FWIW - Temple’s department is Bio-engineering, not bio-med. There are subsets in the department that allow for a more specialized focus, but it’s going to be different than the standard bio-med. They have a particular focus for pre-med, which I assume is what you’ve looked at/considered.