Transfer as a premed?

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
1

<p>I am a Freshman in the LSA Honors Program at the University of Michigan considering transferring to, of all places, Michigan State University; I would start at MSU in the Fall 2009 Semester.</p>

<p>My reasons for this are many and varied, but the main ones are the following:</p>

<li><p>At Michigan State I would be in an apartment with three of my good high school friends; one of them is on the exact same pre-medicine track as I am.
At Michigan, I have absolutely no one from my high school.</p></li>
<li><p>My older sister will be in Graduate School at Michigan State for the next two years. The word “convenience” pops up here.</p></li>
<li><p>My primary goal is to gain entrance into Medical School in 3-3.5 years (I have AP and dual-enrollment credit galore), however I would like to major in Political Science; James Madison College at MSU is world-renowned for its education in the Political Science Field.</p></li>
<li><p>Finances aren’t a huge concern, but Michigan State does have a cheaper tuition than Michigan.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>For all you experts out there, my questions are the following:
Would transferring to Michigan State University be a wise move?<br>
As far as earning entrance to Medical School, would a U. of M. degree really carry that much more weight than an MSU degree?
Is MSU better for a Political Science Major? </p>

<p>Personally, I assume that performance matters over anything else.</p>

<p>Please offer me your upper-echelon advice.</p>

2

<p>you’re correct, performance trumps it all.</p>

<p>In general transferring is less than ideal. Mainly this is due to the disruption of all the things that take time to build. You impact your ability to meet professors and build relationships, on campus involvement (and the associated leadership positions that come about from being in an organization for several years), clinical experiences, and research opportunities are all affected.</p>

<p>If however you know that staying at Michigan is detrimental to your ability to perform, and that you’ll do better in East Lansing (in all those things and in classes), then it is worthwhile to move. </p>

<p>If however you believe things are a wash, and you’ll do roughly the same in both places, then it becomes harder to justify a transfer, because of the negative things I’ve mentioned. If you are going to transfer then the sooner the better, but realize it’s not without consequences if you aren’t going to see otherwise marked improvement.</p>

<p>I’d also, really advise against finishing college in 3 years - there are a multitude of threads about this, so do a search. The negatives in doing so absolutely put you at a significant disadvantage in med school admissions.</p>