On top of what others suggested, try to get a feel of how big are classes like Organic Chem? Checkout student faculty ratio from their website or common data set.
Separately you may want to find out what is the annual research budget vs. the size of the university.
Look up the department of the major you are interested in (if you know), check the faculty profiles, their areas of interest, any current projects or research etc.
Try to find out how much of being a UW student plays a factor while applying to med school there vs instate from some outside school (if s/he knows). Checkout the med school website for the latest incoming class to see if they gave a distribution of students, what number of UW undergrad/alumni made it (doubt if they will publish that).
Since your interest is in research ask if he/she knows any other students with research publications.
Find out how accessible the med school is from the main campus for any volunteering/ECs.
That’s a good point about how accessible are the clinical opportunities. It’s nice having them close-by if you don’t have a car or public transportation is spotty.
At Pitt everything is within a few blocks. The hospitals, clinics, and labs are all pretty much on-campus. There are also facilities off-campus but easy to get to with public transportation (pre-Covid).
Emory has a hospital close by but they also have a hospital in downtown Atlanta close to Georgia Tech. I think Case is similar, one near and one downtown.
The student-faculty ratio at University of Wisconsin–Madison is 17:1, and the school has 44.3% of its classes with fewer than 20 students!
The largest portion of the UW-Madison’s budget, approximately $906 million, or 29 percent, is from the federal government. Most of this is competitively awarded to UW–Madison for specific research projects and supports salaries for faculty, staff, and students, and funds research facilities. UW–Madison surpassed $1.2 billion from federal and state government and private sources for research and development in fiscal year 2018. 57% of its funding is channeled to Health and Human Services research.
33% of UW-Madison SOM’s recent class is underrepresented in medicine. Total number of WI residents who applied was 673, 376 of those got an interview and 136 were accepted (versus 4,402 out of state who applied, 236 who got an interview, and 40 who got accepted).
1:17 isn’t bad, although it’s not “good” like at private colleges (“good” is 1:12-1:13, “good for a public” is 1:14-1:16, some elite colleges have 1:10 or 1:9) many large flagships are at 1:18 or even higher.
From a practical point of view, what you want to know isn’t the average class size. Clearly classes in Ancient Greek, Advanced French translation or Senior Neurobiology, are going to be very small. You need to know the class sizes for the classes you want to take. We already know there are 600 to 1,000 students taking General Biology and General Chemitry: how many are in one lecture hall? Even more importantly, how many students in a recitation or lab session (ideally, 20 and under)? What about the freshman seminar, Freshman composition? Is there a separate recitation for Honors students? How many students per section? what’s the cap in foreign language classes, freshman economics, Psychology 101 “regular” or “honors”? (and in … whatever class you’ll be taking)
“resident” depends on where your permanent residence (ie., parents) reside. It doesnt matter where you go to college since that doesn’t make you a resident in that state.
Being Indian American (Bollywood dance team, Indian culture mentioned in first post) makes you part of an “over-represented group in medicine” or ORM.
Honestly, any of those on your list are terrific schools. I’d pick based upon total financial cost to you coupled with which ones you feel you like better (for whatever reason - could be number of squirrels on campus IME). You’re going to want less debt when you graduate (or more money in your savings account) and you’re more likely to do better somewhere you internally like.
Regardless of where you pick, put in the effort on your part. Get great grades. Find ECs you like and be active in them. Look for opportunities to volunteer in your community. Look for opportunities to shadow all sorts of medical people. A couple years down the road prep well for the MCAT. Be the person med school decision makers feel can be successful in med school and is also likely to have a terrific bedside manner.
It would help us figure out value if you could list the net price* for each university where you’re admitted (not the “waiting for a decision” contenders).
*(tuition fees room board) - (grants scholarships)= $…
University, program(s) accepted to, net price would help us figure out if there are choices that don’t make sense or, on the contrary, do, which might not be obvious with “half tuition”.
The two top contenders, I assume, are UT Dallas and UWisconsin.
Emory and Wake are fantastic choices but we don’t know whether either one’s within budget.
In terms of “med school” programs, the Bacc2MD program is a better “deal” than the SLU one: you get the community, activities, and mentorship; there’s no obligation, no request not to apply to their own med school if you apply elsewhere; if you want to go for their med school only, you don’t need to take the MCAT and --much less onerous than the semester by semester/year by year system that would cut you from the program if, despite excellent grades, you have a “bad semester” for whatever reason…–, as long as you have a 3.5 overall by the end of junior year, you skip the “first cut” and “human eyes review” stages in the process, moving directly to the interview stage, which is a tremendous benefit for what is usually a very stretched out process. That being said, Toledo is an urban university, like SLU, but not private, so without some of its amenities. Outside of the Honors College (and the top 25% score 620 according to collegedata), the classes aren’t very fast-paced or in-depth, so you’ll need to take advantage of the scholarship that covers 18 credits a semester in order to learn as much as you can and take, if possible taking graduate courses in the sciences jr/sr years. If you don’t know whether that’s possible, email the Honors College and the Bacc2MD program.
How certain are you that med school is your end goal? If 95%+ certain of this, then go with the Bacc2MD or SLU program. If there is a reasonably high chance you might pivot more toward research/PHD or possibly MD/PHD then UW Madison is obvious choice given cost & research opportunities. I would take Duke off the list just for cost differential unless it is a dream school & money is no issue/no loan of any kind would be needed.
My top three would probably be the same as before: UW-Madison, UPitt, and SLU. Not sure about Duke since I haven’t heard back yet, but cost wise I would probably use up all of my savings and not have anything left for medical school. I will post NPC results shortly.
Hi! I’m pretty set on going to med school, but I would also want to pursue research as a physician. Not sure about MD/PhD, but research is something I’m definitely interested in. Of course, I’m not 100% sure about it but it’s definitely something I want to dive deeper into in college to see if it’s right for me.
That’s a solid final 3 list. Hard to beat UW. Pitt’s Honors program has advising for pre-med/health professionals. Don’t underestimate the help and assistance these type of programs offer but you have to utilize them.
One program I would consider investigating further is Loyola. Are you an Ignatian finalist? Beautiful campus, Jesuit education, Chicago, and they have their own hospital. Lots of pre-med advising.
These values don’t include outside scholarships that I’ve received, or future scholarships that I may receive. In total, that extra scholarship (not included in this calculation) would amount to approximately $10,000/year (solely for tuition) and $5,000 (for anything other than tuition). All values are cost per year:
There’s no appreciable difference between Wake and Emory so I’d cross out Wake.
Then, cross out either Marquette or Loyola: same price point, both Catholic institutions, in two different cities.
UNC and Emory would remain as the most expensive choices, offering a different experience than Wisconsin, so you’d have to be able to argue why you really want those.
I don’t understand UToledo’s price, considering their merit scholarships - did you apply and not get selected, or did you forget to apply?
The leading contenders would likely be Pitt, UTD, and UWisconsin in terms of best value, and 2 are OOS so if you don’t want to stay in Wisconsin you’ve got choices.
Not sure SLU Med Scholars is worth it, although you’d likely pay about 16K there.
See where UTD recent grads have been accepted to med school - specifically where, not just “x” number have been, because at some schools, “x” includes Caribbean schools from which it is much tougher getting residencies. If it seems like a reasonable list (not all biased state schools for instate students - schools that reserve most of their med school slots for in state), then the “Fully Covered” would be awfully tough to pass up considering how expensive med school is.
Otherwise, I’d stick with the two less expensive ones for the same reason - nice schools and less cost. It’s difficult for me to factor in so much extra cost for possible admission to med school unless you feel those schools are better for your Plan B if you didn’t make it in. (Better programs for your major or similar.)