I think in your both have their own risk. With my little my knowledge from this thread, I think SLU has weed out classes in the 1st year, many kids drop out after 1st year. Please check the discussions about SLU few days ago. Ranking wise SLU is little better but there is no guarantee that you can graduate to medical school. It would be worth exploring if you have full ride/presidential scholarship there otherwise it’s expensive.
At UCF, you at least have a guarantee if you work hard. If you can get that GPA or better you can always try applying out later and it’s full ride.
This is just my opinion and I am also new to this process.
Was thinking the same, but I know absolutely nothing about this particular school. It’s also weird to send something like that out to the applicant, so I really have no idea why that would even happen. It sounds freaky.
My DC got admission to FAU BSMD and SLU Medical scholars with Presidential scholarship. DC gets full ride at FAU and we like the school. With presidential scholarship(Full tuition) and better medical school rating SLU looks attractive too. SLU’s MCAT cutoff is lower at 500 compared to FAU. However, maintaining GPA seems to be hard at SLU and the interview is not guaranteed to end up with medical school admission. Any thoughts or other comparisons that we need to think about?
BTW, this forum is very helpful and thank you all for sharing your thoughts here.
Everyone that I know with a 3.7 GPA have scored 514 or higher on the MCAT, some have hit 520.
The reverse is not necessarily true, there are those with 514 - 520 MCAT with a GPA lower than 3.5
The cumulative undergraduate GPA depends a lot on the school you go to (grade deflation), the major, and if you start freshman year strong.
For those who are not that focused during freshman year (a lot of us), they dig themselves into a 3.0 hole, which is really difficult to get out of, no matter hard you work the following semesters.
But if a reasonably intelligent person focus intensely for 3-4 months (I am betting that all of the students here on CC), they can get a 514+ MCAT, regardless of their GPA.
FAU seems like a more guaranteed BSMD option with lower cost too. If we were in this situation, I believe my DD would pick FAU. Good luck with making the choice and please let us know what you or your DC decide.
Don’t know enough about SLU other than the seemingly high attrition in the 1st year, may not be an issue for the kind of students on this forum.
Regarding FAU, happened to remember the thoughts of one of the parents private messaging me 2-3 years back. He is a physician himself and the child applied only to BS/MD programs and got into about a dozen or so programs including FAU. Both of them seemed to be impressed and pleased with FAU (went to another program though). Gather it is a relatively new med school, but will build up reputation over time. If possible suggest to visit both the schools again before final decision.
Thank you for the advice. We are planning to visit FAU soon, will try to make a trip to SLU As well. We’ve heard only good things about FAU so far. Thank you for the comments
How confident are you with your high school rigor and college preparedness? Is your high school competitive where teachers challenge you and have enough good students to excel amongst or have had a smooth sailing with easy grading? If you are confident you should do fine with either programs. 514 or 3.8 is not too tough a bar to cross, so think you might as well save the cost.
I have done very well throughout high school (taken nearly every AP pertaining to premed and done very well in them). My high school is solid and grading is by no means smooth sailing.
However, I have heard so many horror stories about Organic Chemistry or 75 percent of people failing a class etc. That I am still a little nervous. Also, I have read that you want to avoid traditional medical school applications at all costs. But as @mygrad2021 pointed out SLU definitely has its pitfalls as well, so I am leaning towards UCF anyways at this point.
We know brilliant kids that got a huge hit in gpa just one semester and struggled rest of their UG years. Couple were because they fell terribly sick (Cali kids not able to handle first winter) and some just got distracted by their new-found free time after demanding high school years. Most managed to get back on track soon after though it took lot more effort. Best we can do is talk to our kids on what to expect and be around to call them out and help them if they seem to be trending down, especially the first year when they need our support adjusting to their new lives.
For example, 3.8 GPA requirement in final year (like UCF) could be above recommended risk tolerance for some, because it will be too late to apply out by then and DC will need to spend a gap year, whereas SLU might be tolerable risk because student will know end of second year where they stand and can start applying out if they are doing too well and can aim for better medical school or may not make SLU cut and thus need backup options.
@Mom22DDs , I think you have an older kid in college. I have a general question. How difficult it’s to maintain 3.8 GPA? What’s the approximate percentage of kids that cannot attain that GPA? I understand one has to focus from the beginning which is true even in High school but that becomes more challenge when they go to college as the course load and the difficulty increases but I am still curious to estimate the difficulty.
It depends on the school really. My older kid was an athlete that was being considered for recruitment by U Penn and got washed out due to severe injury and her world fell apart. She pivoted to medicine, partly due to the injury, so she was extremely risk averse when it came to BSMD. She gave up Univ Houston - Texas Southwestern BSMD with 6/10 matriculation rate (hope I got name right) for NJIT-NJMS, which does not have any grade deflation and had very reasonable GPA (3.4 or 3.6) and MCAT (no min. score) requirement. She breezed through UG with 3.9x GPA. We know folks in RPI that struggled to maintain GPA for RPI/AMC BSMD, and their parents are setting up remote tutors for UG courses - it depends on the UG really. If others are telling you the UG is tough, expect it to be tough for your DC too, cos these are exceptional kids that are already enrolled in these programs and it might be naive to think our kids would somehow find it easy when others don’t. Reverse also typically holds - if kids usually make it through without major concerns, like FAU, NJMS, then your kid will likely make it through fine too.
I would take it at face value when we hear a program is easy or tough, especially for well-known programs with large enrollment like SLU, and factor that into risk tolerance.