Transfer to Penn or stay at UT austin?

Transfer Students
1

<p>hi,</p>

<p>i m sort of in a dilemma. i was accepted to upenn as a junior transfer from ut austin, and i am not sure whether i should go. here is my situation:</p>

<p>i've completed my liberal arts degree at ut austin in 2 years, but i've just decided i want to go to medical school, for which i've done nothing (no premed courses, activities, etc) in the last two years. if i were to stay at UT Austin, over the next two years, i would take the required premed courses (in 2009-2010, two semesters each of chem, bio, english, and cal; in 2010-2011, two semesters each of physics and o chem). if went to upenn, though, on top of the required premed courses listed above, i would have to take 8 more courses in my liberal arts major and 3 additional requirements courses to graduate from there.</p>

<p>b/c of this situation, I'm not sure whether I should go to upenn or stay at ut austin. if i went to upenn, i would have to do summer school and take additional courses over the years to the tune of 2, 2, 1, 1 liberal arts major course(s) over my four semesters there (these don't include the summer semesters), but I don't think they would be too much of a burden (but I could be wrong--i always underestimate how much time i spend doing work).</p>

<p>but if i stayed at ut austin, i could avoid having to do those liberal arts courses (which i frankly am tired of doing) and hopefully spend time doing substantial activities and work.</p>

<p>but here is the catch: i do sort of want to go to upenn b/c it would be nice and i always wanted to go to a "better" school, but i have a feeling that for the most part upenn and ut austin will be the same, in the sense that students study everywhere, party everywhere, take part in similar clubs and do similar activities. as a result, i feel that staying at ut austin would be good as well b/c i could avoid those extra courses and focus on non-course work, though i've been bad at finding stuff to do outside of the classroom for the last two years; hopefully i could do better over the next two years. but on the other hand i wonder whether i am being too narrow-minded by not wanting to take some (11 to be exact) extra courses b/c in the long-run i'll still get to graduate in two years and taking the extra courses won't be such a big deal (hopefully they wouldn't affect my grades in my premed courses).</p>

<p>anyway, if i can find meaningful stuff to do in austin, i wouldn't mind staying.</p>

<p>i've thought this issue quite a bit, but i would be interested to hear others thoughts. thanks.</p>

2

<p>You should post this on the Pre-Med Topics forum as well, there are several current Med school students there that could give you some advice that comes from actual experience with Med school applications.</p>

<p>Two possible problems with transferring to consider are: disrupting ECs started at UT-Austin, as these are important for Med school applications; and if you are planning on taking any of your premed requirements during the summer, that can be a problem as summer courses are often considered to cover less material than in regular semesters and are easier to get high grades in. These points are discussed in several threads on the Pre-Med forum, just use the Search function to find them.</p>

3

<p>i used to go to UT (i just transferred out). your situation is the reverse of mine. I was business and finished all my pre-med requirements before transferring.</p>

<p>science at UT isn’t that bad. I feel that your science gpa would probably be higher at UT than at Penn (although i’m not sure about that anymore since there will be +/- at UT this fall). you will be more challenged at Penn taking science classes since the classes will probably be harder. also the students in Penn classes are likely to be more competitive and push you to keep up/do better.</p>

<p>keep in mind that two or more science classes + labs + math in one semester is quite a heavy courseload, so searching/participating in ECs at UT will be more of a challenge.</p>

4

<p>i would go to upenn. when you apply to med schools, if you have a strong gpa from a school like upenn, it’ll look really good. if youre just taking 2 sciences and either english or math, you can add those other courses and still comfortably take only 5 classes a semester.</p>