My daughter got in to SLU medical scholar program and other pre med programs in to U Pitt, Rutgers , Penn State and few other colleges .
Should we join her in to SLU or go in traditional way ( do pre med in better school and then apply medical school ) ?
We are not able to decide , can any one suggest what would be ideal thing ?
Is she in state for any of the public’s? Any price breaks at SLU? Has she visited any of the schools?
Everyone starts with good intentions, but less than 20% pf pre-meds end up in medical school. Having a bird in hand is always nice IF you can afford it. Four and four at SLU is going to be EXPENSIVE, and it’s a conditional admit. If she’s full pay, you’ll be in for well over half a million by the time she starts her internship.
I wouldn’t consider any of the other schools “better,” just different. I’m guessing based on Pitt and Penn State that you live in PA and they are vastly less expensive.
It really boils down to how confident you feel in the conditional admit, how much aid you received and whether or not you can afford it without causing harm to your personal finances or your ability to send other kids to college.
Please do a search. There’s been several SLU Med Scholar vs University XYZ threads this year.
Did your daughter get into the Pitt Honors program? They have advising for students considering health care professions.
Nearly every school offers this. I had access to this at a random midwest state school in the mid-80s.
We are from Virginia and she got Vice Presidential scholar ship at SLU and we didn’t get any scholarship at Pitt
Thank you we got merit scholarship in SLU and nothing in U Pitt or Penn state
She visited both SLU and Upitt (which are her top choices) and liked both of them. The prices are around the same with scholarships and aid. The only positive point about SLU is the fact that she got into the Medical Scholars program, which provides a guaranteed interview for med school if she maintains the necessary criteria. However with Upitt, it’s much closer and has more opportunities on campus. Our main concern with Upitt is the fact that there’s no guarantee that she’ll get an interview for med school.
Good for you and yes I’m aware most schools offer pre-med advising. I was specifically talking about Pitt’s Honors program. It gives pre-med students a bump.
http://www.ieee-iri.org/honorscollege_subdomain/health-professions-advising.html
Pitt undergraduate students applying for admission to schools of the health professions are fortunate to have the benefit of a powerful multiplier effect in this regard. Each year, the University Honors College (UHC) convenes two subcommittees, each consisting of five faculty members from the Schools of Engineering and Arts & Sciences, who meet weekly for approximately 10 weeks beginning in mid-May to evaluate the students who are applying that year for admission to a Health Professional School and prepare a letter that is submitted along with the students’ credentials.
“Honors courses are highlighted in the committee letter,” explains UHC Director of pre-Health Professions Advising Andrea Abt. “The committee looks for evidence of a curious student, a life-long learner who will be able to seek out resources as a professional and apply this information to their practice. Our committee highly ranks candidates who enroll in honors courses where they demonstrate a depth of learning and passion toward subject material.” (As a footnote, she adds that “the letters of recommendation from instructors of Honors courses tend to be more personal due to the smaller class sizes and greater opportunity to interact with faculty”.)
This guarantees an interview…it does not guarantee admission. Medical schools interview about 4 times as many folks as they admit.
Thank you so much for detailed explanation about Pitt honor program
You said she didn’t get a scholarship to Pitt so I’m assuming she didn’t get into the Honors program?
What are the other schools was she accepted?
Without keeping the GPA requirement, it doesn’t even guarantee that.
I just saw a statistic that said of the 130 Medical Scholars they admitted, 95 dropped out because they could not maintain the GPA requirement. Of the 35 that remained, 30 were admitted into the medical school.
If medical school is the primary objective, I’d have her call both schools to get a solid handle on those numbers. If that stat is correct, it’s far less of a bird in hand than I thought.
She didn’t know that she needed a separate application for honors in Pitt, so she just applied like 3 weeks ago n waiting !!! She got into Rutgers, Drexel and Temple with merit based scholarship n Penn state with no scholarship
Maybe the answer is Rutgers? It really depends on how each institution supports their pre-healthcare students, what their admissions stats are (not of those who applied, but of those who started as pre-med and made it all the way through to apply) and what your finances are like.
You’re from Virginia. Did she apply to UVA, VT, W&M, or even James Madison?
Here’s one of the SLU med scholars discussions.
There’s a medical school forum on College Confidential. Maybe post there.
You didn’t say what you can afford and what the cost of each school would be. Without that information it’s tough to recommend anything.
In general, med school is very expensive. Minimizing your undergrad costs is a very good idea.
Med schools don’t care where you went for your undergraduate degree. Prestige means very little. GPA and MCAT scores are most important along with recommendations and clinical/research experience.
Has your daughter shadowed any doctors? Is she sure she wants to be an MD?
With SLU, what if she changes her mind and doesn’t want to be a doctor? Will SLU still be a good option?
Which schools does your daughter like the best? She has about 10 days to decide. She needs to whittle the list down to 2 or 3 options quickly.
The SLU option isn’t bad but it’s not great either. If she knows she wants to be a doctor then it’s not a bad option.
If Pitt is same cost as SLU that’s a really good option. I think she can apply to the Honors program any time as long as she has a high GPA. There’s also a lot of medical research opportunities on-campus. I was an Econ/Math major and I had a job in the neuroscience lab taking care of lab animals. They couldn’t find enough people. They get over $500M each year from the NIH for research.
Both of my sons applied to Drexel. We liked it more than we thought we would. They’re on the quarter system, not semester so it’s a little more fast paced. Does your daughter want to do Co-ops? If so, Drexel is a known for that. I think they also have their own hospital system or they’re affiliated with a hospital system.
Good luck.
She applied for in state for VCU and her final choices are either SLU or U Pitt, thank you for detailed explanation. She wants to be doctor and she went to gifted science school that’s the reason she applied for direct med program. Will update the thread once we decide
If your D went to a rigorous HS and succeeded without too much stress, she should will be fine for traditional path i.e. U Pitt.
Thank you yeah that’s what we are thinking too