I’d love to know what it is that makes the west coast schools the strongest academic choices for a young woman with an interest in pre-med.
Occidental is certainly much artsier and for someone who wants to connect with the arts and literary scene in LA, this would be a great choice. Santa Clara’s Silicon Valley location certainly makes it a better choice for someone who would like to do an internship at Apple, Google, or the like. But for pre-med?
All of these schools report a 90% +/- acceptance rate to medical school for their students with high gpa and letters of reference from the college. So, it’s student performance that determines success getting into med school, not which college.
How do students at these 3 colleges do overall? In a recent (2020) data based study, stacker.com published a list of the top 100 private colleges based on return-on-investment. Santa Clara ranked #36, Loyola ranked #58, Occidental didn’t make the list.
In another recent (2020) study, payscale.com tracked alumni earnings - both early and mid career. Santa Clara placed #16, Occidental placed #102, Loyola placed #113. Santa Clara’s engineering and high tech students give them a clear advantage, but otherwise Loyola graduates do quite well in the comparison.
See the links below for these 2 studies.
Career earnings don’t tell the whole story in an undergraduate education, but they certainly provide important data. Loyola must be doing something right as they seem to be turning out graduates who go on to successful careers. I don’t see how they can be written off as clearly not as strong as the 2 west coast schools being considered.
I think that everything you say about Occidental and Santa Clara is true. If location were not an issue, they might be preferable. But Loyola is also a very good school and I personally don’t see what advantages the other 2 provide that are significant enough to justify doubling the length of distance from home. Some young adults sail smoothly through their college years. But in other cases there are unanticipated family crises of a wide variety that can occur during those 4 years or crises for the student that make distance a serious consideration.