<p>I got virtually full ride (scholarship + financial aids) to both schools SMU and UTD. I'm doing Biology and Premed. Where should I go, which one has a better premed program with higher med school acceptance rate? Thank you</p>
<p>I have read that SMU is a more business oriented school and that the premed advising is not up to par. I wouldn’t know about UTD’s advising though.</p>
<p>I’d chose SMU, if you aren’t paying anything for either school. Its a smaller school so you can get more personal attention.</p>
<p>Without a doubt, UTD. I’ve heard they have a 60% med school acceptance rate. It isn’t to say that SMU is no good, especially if your looking for a real college experience (Parties). ViggyRam is absolutely correct when they say that SMU is a more business orientated school. For business world connections, SMU is the place to go. But UTD’s rank is constantly rising, I’ve even heard that they have surpassed SMU for graduate business school. Additionally, UTD’s science programs are nationally recognized.</p>
<p>What I’m about to say might be incorrect, but this is from my own personal experiences.</p>
<p>I believe that outside of Texas, SMU has the bigger name. This may be incorrect, but I had never heard of UTD until I read that they give out big merit scholarships, but I had heard of SMU before and I knew it was a private school.</p>
<p>I would pick UTD. It’s right next to UT Southwestern, which is one of the best med schools and research centers in the nation. It’s tied with Emory, I believe. You’ll get tremendous opportunity to research. UTD’s natural science program is very good. If you’re interested in neuroscience, UTD is really good there too.</p>
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Hmm… Are you pretty sure about this? (I should have known about this but do not.)</p>
<p>I thought UT Southwestern is close to the Dallas downtown which UTD is in Richardson, which is at quite a distance from Southwestern/Dallas downtown.</p>
<p>There’s a lot of misinformation on here including one post that is about 100 percent wrong on every count. I’ve lived in Dallas for 31 years and know both schools well…my daughter is currently finishing her first year at SMU Law School (after going to undergrad OOS) so I’ve recently spent a good deal of time on campus there and my son is an MS3 at UTSW.</p>
<p>***I’m going to answer this as honestly as I can and hope that everyone will take it in the spirit in which it was intended…I am in NO way being judgmental or trying to be disrespectful or demeaning to anyone…I’m merely stating what I know about both schools and if I have offended ANYONE, please understand that it wasn’t my intent. ***</p>
<p>UTD is in far north Richardson a suburb on the NE side of Dallas, I’d say that it’s at a minimum 20 miles from UTSW and probably a little more since they are “across” town as well and there is no “direct” route between them. Before the telecom bust in the early 2000s it was within a few miles of the major “telecom corridor” of companies headquartered in North Texas which was a plus for internships and jobs. That business has virtually dried up.</p>
<p>UTD is an up and coming school and has very strong financial support from Texas Instruments. TI recruits and hires heavily from UTD. It’s a very strong science, math and engineering school but also also lacks the “feel” of most other four year colleges because it was a two year school for a long time. My son has friend who attended there and his parents have described things this way: there’s a fairly high concentration of SE Asian students as would be expected of a school with those strengths as well as a large number of engineering/technical students…video gaming is one of the main leisure activities.</p>
<p>It has no real “campus” feel; it sits in a large, flat, open area with little to no mature trees surrounded by retail and office towers…it feels more like an office park than campus to me…it has no dorms…resident students live in nearby apartments that the university uses as its campus housing…there have been a number of articles written in The Dallas Morning News and local independent papers about apartment quality, serious and ongoing issues with getting things repaired, safety (since they are truly off campus) and numerous complaints about “smell” due to the high volume of ethnic foods being cooked in them. You would really need a car to go to school here because it’s not really walking distance to anything.</p>
<p>SMU on the other hand, sits in the middle of Highland Park which is the most affluent area of Dallas and is about 4 miles from UTSW almost directly across Mockingbird Lane. The campus is quite stunning, heavily covered with tall mature trees, red brick Georgian architecture that retains the look and feel even in brand new buildings. It is in every way a “southern school” with a strong Greek system, and pretty coeds that dress up to go to class…there’s a lot of khaki, polo shirts, designer clothes and designer purses everywhere you look. The parking lots are full of nice cars and SUVs…as I said, it’s a “southern” school.</p>
<p>Academically it’s a bit underrated and there’s a major push to get it into the top 25…they’ve got very well connected, highly placed and wealthy alum who really look out for SMU grads when it comes time for employment. It has a top 40 Law School, outstanding business school, a very strong fine arts and music program and also a Divinity School. You can walk to numerous restaurants, bars and shops which are literally across the street and take public transportation (bus and light rail) to many places including downtown Dallas which is only about four miles away.</p>
<p>“Uptown Dallas” which is the young hip area of Dallas (where everyone wants to hang out) is full of great restaurants, bars and retail is within two miles and is right on a bus line from SMU…or several blocks from light rail. In other words, you can get by here quite nicely without a car</p>
<p>You can get very well prepared for Med school at either place but at SMU you can/will also have a traditional, almost quintessential, undergrad experience *** if that is what you want.*** </p>
<p>My concerns with UTD for the “average” pre med student would be the preponderance of “gunner types” in your pre med classes and perhaps feeling like you go to a commuter school. I think competition in pre med classes here will be more intense…getting a high GPA is very important to Med school admissions…I’m not saying SMU would necessarily be easier but I think you’ll find the student body to be more cooperative than hard core competitive.</p>
<p>My concerns for SMU would be if the somewhat obvious affluence around you bothers you…it shouldn’t, but for some, it will. </p>
<p>The only question is what type of undergrad experience do you want?..They are VERY, VERY different places. Students who grew up locally would apply to one or the other but not both, they are THAT different. I hope this helps to clarify things for you.</p>
<p>Please PM me if you have more specific questions.</p>
<p>^ To clarify several comments…as to diversity, overall the school’s demos break down as follows from the UTD website:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>These last two stats reflect that it still has a large number of commuters.</p>
<p>Note: My comments regarding demographics referred to science and technology related classes.</p>
<p>Thanks for your informative post.</p>
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Something not related to UTD, but more related to top medical schools especially the ones in Texas: I recently notice it appears there is a very high percentage of Asian-American students in the top few medical schools (i.e., both Baylor and UTSW – do not remember which one has a higher percentage than the other. But curm once posted BCM students tend to be somewhat nerdier.). It is not as high as that in the high tech/engineering community, but the percentage is STILL approaching 40% (give and take. – IF MY MEMORY SERVES ME WELL) I am somewhat surprised by this number. (Less so in the medical schools perceived lower-ranked or rumored as not as intense like the one near the beach, UTMB.) Is it because these medical schools do not evaluate their incoming students the same way as those ivy colleges do? For example, MS may care less about whether the family of incoming students can help pay the bills as the MS students can get loans to cover the full cost.</p>
<p>The medical schools are required to take 85-90% of students that are residents of Texas (even Baylor). Southwest takes a large percentage of students from the state schools like UT and A&M. Since Texas has a State law that states top 10% (UT 8% last year and 9% this year) need to be admitted to state schools, a large percentage of Asians end up there by default and a lot of them have figured out it is easier to get into a state medical school that way anyway. Most of them graduate with 4.0, about 33-37 MCAT and voila, they are in Texas medical schools.</p>
<p>texaspg, I may be too picky here: what you posted is almost right but missed it a little bit.</p>
<p>IS students for Texas public medical schools: at most 90% for the number of students ADMITTED. (not necessarily matriculated.)
IS students for Baylor: I think it is about 70%.</p>
<p>BTW, DS knew of an Asian-American student with 3.95/40, who got into a single medical school in the 2009-2010 application cycle. He was from the least favorable state – California. It is rumored that ucsf is full of Asian American students. (He did not get into that one. ucsf is like “Mayo in California” :))</p>
<p>I am mildly surprised by the number of 4.0 students from many Texas public colleges (not refering to UT Austin)!</p>
<p>BTW, a few years ago, on the newspaper, a picture of UT-Austin freshman class was shown. (forgot whether it was about frat/sor or not though.) Almost not a single non-white student was in the picture – And now you are telling me there are a lot of Asian American Students there! (DS noticed something somewhat similar at some medical school’s MS0 event!)</p>
<p>i’m not going to talk about the utd stuff eadad mentioned even though some of those things are no longer true (except for the info he pulled from their website- there def are lots of asians and international people).</p>
<p>and at utsw, there are more utd students attending than other schools, except for ut and a&m of course.</p>
<p>i posted in your other thread, but ill copy and paste for others to see.</p>
<p>utd hands down. if you’re aiming for texas schools, utd has a better rep with all the texas med schools. if you’re aiming for out of state schools like harvard, then it doesnt matter since both are not prestigious. i believe the science department at utd is much stronger, and our process to get a committee letter of rec is stronger and prepares you better (based on looking at their website). plus, gpa and mcat is more important that the name of school you come from.</p>
<p>Mcat2 - I have been told that Baylor needs to admit 85% or more, theoretically not that different from a texas state school, because they receive a large chunk of money from the state. The matriculation has been very high at Baylor and Southwest because there is a process where if they get multiple admissions within the state, they need to give up one of the seats quickly by dropping the lower preferred/ranked schools. Southwest also admits people very early in the process (in 2009 fall, they filled the class by November and whoever was interviewed in December and January did nt even have an open seat). OTOH, UT Houston is known for the diversity of the student body where they are admitting residents that came back from attending schools like Stanford, Princeton etc. because they take their time in interviewing the students and admitting only some from each round. </p>
<p>Since there are only 200 or so seats in Baylor or Southwest and UT and A&M are sending out 14000 students each year (I am making a guess since that many are entering), I dont see it being that hard to have 160 Asians coming out that make it into Southwest or Baylor (1.2%?), ignoring the fact there are hundreds that have left the state to attend some of most prominent schools in the country and then return to claim their resident spot. So if medical schools dont have quotas (they do consider URMs and Texas has a program called JAMP that automatically admits certain groups starting in undergrad) and they admit the best and brightest as someone on CC coined the phrase, it should nt be hard find enough Asians to fill the entire medical class and so 40% may be even a barrier.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.bcm.edu/about/fastfacts.cfm[/url]”>http://www.bcm.edu/about/fastfacts.cfm</a></p>
<p>Baylor also has a bunch of reserved seats. There are 8 seats tied to Debakey high school to University of Houston to Baylor (free 8 year education), Rice Baylor (15 seats?), Baylor/Baylor (4 or 5). They are also listing 20% URMs.</p>
<p>^ I applaud for your love for the school. Because of this, I would bet that school is a fit for you and you will likely be successful from being there.</p>
<p>What usually happens is: A student who is successful in his/her school will think it is a very good school. A student who is not successful in his/her school will think it is not a very good school. A problem is: A high schooler will not know whether he will be successful (both academics and EC-wise), it is very hard for him to tell before he matriculated.</p>
<p>texaspg: I think you may have exaggerated a little bit when you wrote:
I do know someone who has a stat (likely 3.5-3.6 and 32-33) and tons of research (but the publication came too late to help him) was struggling to get into A medical school in the northeast area though. So there may be many 33-37 out there as you claimed.</p>
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Maybe last year, a top Texas medical school found the need to go public to explain why they admit a student with a 24 MCAT. It goes like this: All public medical schools (maybe Baylor as well) have some agreement with the JAMP program that they need to admit the students who have met the JAMP criteria which are often much lower. I would guess if they fail to do that, there may be some troubles in their funding next year.</p>
<p>Sometimes, who gets what depends on how powerful the congressmen from your district are, rather than the merit of the students.</p>
<p>I know a lot of Asians (Indians) who are going to India to study medicine from Texas since they can’t get into medical school (I personally know 4 of them and I heard there is a class of about 30 being filled from Houston alone each year). So if you know one, I know a bunch more who could nt get in. That does nt mean out of a pool of 15000 graduates each year from the two state flag ships, there are nt at least 400 Asians who did extremely well. The premise here is not that every Asian is graduating with 4.0 and a 35 but more of how many could be graduating each year that can easily qualify and we already set the 40% requirement at Baylor and UT Southwest as under 160.</p>
<p>^^^ only 25 percent of those, will become doctors when they enter the u.s. I read somewhere on this forum that 50 percent won’t get into any rotations and 50 percent won’t pass the required exam. The 25 percent that do get into rotations and do pass may not necessarily get their residency of choice.</p>
<p>*. It is in every way a “southern school” with a strong Greek system, and pretty coeds that dress up to go to class…there’s a lot of khaki, polo shirts, designer clothes and designer purses everywhere you look. The parking lots are full of nice cars and SUVs…as I said, it’s a “southern” school.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>Sounds like University of Southern California…but, then again, USC does have Southern in its name.</p>
<p>^^^ Its true at almost all private schools. Schools that cost 40-50K a year are going to have those types of students.</p>
<p>In all honesty, what really matters is your personality. You know what type of person you are. If you are image concerned, and like to have fun, in a greek life sort of way, then SMU is your choice. If you are a bit more academically focused then UTD is right for you. Also, think about the tours you took, I am sure that you had a definite favorite, especially between two schools that contrast so sharply. SMU can be pretentious, but UTD also can be nerdy. One complaint about SMU that I have consistently heard about from from friends who go there is the fact that many people take 5 years to get their undergraduate degree. I’m not sure if that’s going to look so spectacular on your resume. BUT, the fact that SMU gave you a full ride is quite an honor. I know many VERY intellectual students who were unable to get that. UTD on the other hand is very generous with scholarships. It isn’t to say that getting a scholarship at UTD is easy, because it isn’t, it’s just lower cost, so it’s easier to give more scholarships. Also, look and see the minimum requirments to maintain a scholarship at both schools. I have a friend who went to TCU with a full ride, and then she lost it due to a semi low GPA; leaving her in trouble because there is no way she could afford the TCU tution on her own, (TCU tuition is the same as SMU’s)</p>