I have been reaching all these posts. My STEM-oriented son went through the college admissions process last year. He considered big schools, because of their robust science programs, and smaller schools, because he likes small, discussion-based classes. He applied to a range of schools, and landed at a top 20 university. He is in Engineering, but there is overlap with pre-meds. Based on his experience, it sounds like the best way to avoid being weeded-out in a large school is to arrive strong. My son took Honors Calc I and Honors Calc II in high school, and opted not to test out of those classes; he took Calc i thos semester. He has reported that the students who dropped the challenging STEM classes do not seem less intellgent than the others, but that they do seem less well-prepared. Also, the presence of a high number of students in the classes that have already been taught the material makes it very difficult for those who have not had the material to compete. His classmates who are at other schools (mostly top 20 universities and LACs) are having similar experiences. So, if your daughter is interested in med school, it sounds like a critical first step is to go in very well prepared and to choose classes wisely. Good luck to your daughter, whatever she chooses!
Itās funny you say this and there is a poster who always writes a rebuttal to this and they may not be wrong but when we did the visit Colorado School of Mines student panel, they all guided against taking AP credits for math and science. They said take it again.
Sure enough my son had to WD from calc 2 and repeat the next semester. It may be in part a new teacher but he got a 5 on the Calc AP test and yet was woefully unprepared.
I was warned by another mom about his. Her son was a National Merit Finalist, winner in Vex Robotics Worlds, etc. He had a 5 on AP Calc, and started at The University of Alabama in engineering in Calc II. He was fine for the first 6 weeks and then his grades plummetted, and it was too late to drop. I think schools should publish data about the grades achieved by those who choose to take credit for their AP scores. It just seems that students need more information about the consequences of these decisions. This seems especially important for pre-health, because of the high sensitivity to GPA.
Letās move on from swapping war stories and revert to the OPās question please.
This student is looking for a small school, and if I recall correctly the OP did not speak favorably of the AP classes that were taken. This student also has dual enrollment courses that I believe she wants credit for. There was a whole discussion awhile ago as to how this would impact premed and the higher level courses she would end up taking.
I believe if this student attends her state school (University of Maryland) she will not be premed.
I am curious to hear which schools come in at an affordable cost- I wish this student well!
Any update @momsearcheng ?
It is far from final yet. DD is interviewing for some scholarships and flying to one weekend event soon. She was accepted to all safeties with significant scholarships. All safety schools would cost us after all scholarships identical amount around 20k (with tuitions discount that we have). Difference is within 1-2k. In retrospective it was waste of time and money to apply, and visit so many safety schools. I would strongly recommend future students to avoid to have more than 2 affordable safety schools on the list. My older DD had 1 safety - she was fine. At this point we can easily cross out 3 safety schools from the list.
Thanks. These are very correct approaches. That is why I strongly support CC classes and against repeating classes. It is good when student starts college well prepared.
So far all schools DD was accepted are affordable and under 20k with family work discount.
I will provide details when we will have more results. We do not have any results yet but safeties.
True unless the safeties happen to be the favorites which for many they are.
Nothing is really wasted. In the end you can only choose one. But itās nice to have options. And thatās why people apply to many. You are seeking merit so volume matters.
Youāve done well but you didnāt know up front all would cost the same so throwing out many was the right thing.
Congratulations! Now she has affordable schools to choose from while she waits for the others.
I agree, and while one of my kids ended up receiving very similar packages from most of her schools, another applying to OOS public and some privates had different results sheād wouldnāt have known beforehand.
Thank you for the update. It is always much appreciated and itās great that your daughter will have options!
So that others do not need to search through this thread, this appears to be the list of schools that OPās D is applying to.
Thanks for the update!
And she did the right thing in applying to several safeties, because they werenāt just academic safeties, they had to be financial safeties too and you couldnāt know ahead of time whether 1 or 4 would be within budget.
Visiting safeties is important too - often, parents visit dream schools first and the kid canāt accept to āsettleā for the safeties.
After that, you can look at her favorite choices and post again, we can try&help with values or choices. Usually for students who had a āgood listā, it comes down to 3 or 4 choices that all have +s and -s.
Does āunder 20Kā include room and board?
Congrats on all the acceptances so far!
This is actually opposite of what @Suzie1145 is saying:
āMy son took Honors Calc I and Honors Calc II in high school, and opted not to test out of those classes;ā
I am not arguing what is right or wrongā¦ there are obviously different approaches to this (with their advantages and disadvantages) and the right one depends on the student.
And Iām not the one to answer this but Iāve read posts on here related to med school since thatās the goal - and taking classes at community classes.
So perhaps someone else can chime in if thereās an issue here with this comment and med school admissionsā¦
I actually came across similar postsā¦ I have no experience though (and no plans to transfer any science credits for my student)ā¦ I am sure momsearcheng know what she is doingā¦
It gets confusing (at least to me) when discussing community college/DE classes for med school. I think if it happens, students take upper level classes (beyond what is expected) as well. At least that is how I understand it.
I believe that the OP stated that some medical schools accept DE classes, but that was discussed many pages back and of course I may be wrong.
Once this student chooses a school she can speak with a premed advisor.
Washington College in Maryland has a great pre-med program (my childās roommate is pre-med) with options to double major so she can have a back-up plan. They have a pre-med committee that helps students prepare for med school applications and interviews, etc. My understanding is they have a good acceptance rate. Recommendation letters are important, and your child will form much better relationships at WAC than UMD (I went to UMD and my child to WAC-- the difference in how well my child knows and likes her professors is hugeāprofessors are a huge part of the community at WAC). Merit at Washington is great. They have an active Hillel center, although I am not sure how many students are active in it, I just know it exists and they invite the whole school for bagels twice a year! And the application is free and I believe still open