I am currently a high school Junior with a year and a bit until I will be attending a university. I am becoming overwhelmed with my situation as a student looking for schools that might interest me. Vermont is my home state but I don’t plan on staying here, because of a lack of universities and a general distaste for New England as a whole. I plan on applying for lots of scholarships and financial aid. Money is tight within my family and I will be paying for a large majority of my own education.
My main focus when looking at colleges is finding a school with a premed or biochemistry major that won’t put me over my head in debt after merely an undergrad. I love the Washington/Oregon/California area of the country but my heart is not set on attending a university there. My father attended WSU and we have lots of family within the Washington state area, so that is a plus to attending a school there. I am interested in WSU because of the great reviews and my fathers insight but UW is also a high hope of mine because of their great premed program. However, I have heard and read things about the competition at UW that is extremely discouraging.
Are there any schools that provide a noteworthy premed or biochem undergrad that won’t break the bank? If you have any experience at colleges in Washington, how does UW compare to WSU and Gonzaga? What college did you attend for a premed degree that was affordable or offered reasonable cost of attendance after scholarships and aid? What kinds of loans did you get to pay for school?
Most reputable schools will provide decent chem, bio and biochem and do a competent job of premed advising. Some are better than others, but with the internet resources these days, you can get what you need. You don’t need a school with a ‘pre-med program.’ (In fact, most schools don’t have one because its just not necessary.) And because med schools are famously prestige insensitive, your best bet is to go somewhere that you don’t incur debt. There are lots of threads on cc about places that offer significant financial aid to top students. University of Alabama gets a lot of press here for example.
I’ll leave others to point out schools in the NW that offer significant financial aid and have strong sciences, but I’ll also direct you to the pre-med forum on CC, which can be accessed from Forum Home. Read the threads at the top of the page for background information.
UW has arguably the best med school in the country for primary care (not medical research). But OOS will be high and getting a scholarship could be difficult. If your grades/scores are quite high, and you have good ECs, I would shoot for a private school for your undergrad where you can get good merit scholarships, hopefully full tuition, and/or financial aid depending on your parent’s financials, and then focus on getting into UW for medical school (when it really matters).
You don’t have to go to a top undergrad univ to get into a top med school. A friend’s daughter just got into UW medical school and she just graduated from Whitworth in Spokane. Biology is a very popular major there, so check it out.
Since there are lots of schools that provide good bio/chem programs, focus on the one that will cost you the least (or free tuition).
I’ve heard Rice gives free tuition to students with family incomes under $80. But it’s tough to get into. Still worth a try.
BAD IDEA to go to UWash as an OOS premed. You won’t get into their med school. UW Med accepts its instate students and students from the few states in the region that pay UW Med to accept their students because their states don’t have a med school (off the top of my head, Alaska, Idaho and Montana)
Schools don’t have “premed programs” (except for maybe 2 in the country). All universities have the premed prereqs, they’re just regular science classes…nothing special. …they’re the same classes STEM majors take.
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Are there any schools that provide a noteworthy premed or biochem undergrad that won’t break the bank? If you have any experience at colleges in Washington, how does UW compare to WSU and Gonzaga? What college did you attend for a premed degree that was affordable or offered reasonable cost of attendance after scholarships and aid? What kinds of loans did you get to pay for school?
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My son is a 3rd year med student and he went to his flagship university with a large merit scholarship. Its a very bad idea to borrow much/anything for premed undergrad because many med students have to take out very large loans.
We have no idea if your family would qualify for financial aid (or enough financial aid) particularly since most schools give lousy aid. For instance, the Washington public univs give lousy aid to OOS students.
You need to ask your parents how much they’ll pay each year.
Run the online net price calculators on colleges that interest you. Discuss with your parents whether they are able and willing to cover the estimated family contribution (EFC).
Usually, public universities do not give very good need-based aid to out-of-state students. However, their full sticker prices usually are lower (often much lower) than the full sticker prices at private schools. So they may be relative bargains compared to private alternatives. In those cases, of course, you’d still need to come up with a way to cover the ~$25K-$50K annual costs. Merit scholarships can cover some (or even most) of that amount, provided you meet the criteria and the application deadlines. http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/
Again, run the online net price calculators on any of these colleges that interest you. Discuss with your parents whether they are able and willing to cover the estimated family contribution (EFC).
I wouldnt want this student to wrongly think that there is some list of schools out there that are “better for premed” than the 100s of other schools. The OP already seems to have misunderstood what being premed is.
His flagship or 100+ other schools would be fine for a premed student. What he needs to find is a school that is affordable (without much/any debt) and where his stats would put him towards the top of the class.
Like many HS kids you seem to hold misconceptions about how to get to med school. There is no such thing as a “premed” major. Nor is there any basis to what you’ve heard about this school or that school having a “great premed program” although you have learned something valuable; those telling you this are poorly informed on the topic.
To help prevent your next mistake, avoid is placing any importance into acceptance numbers. Some schools boast incredible rates, but it boils down to one of two things. Either they start with great students (think Stanford, etc) or the school weeds out students using the “committee letter” which small schools with average students use to dissuade all but the strongest applicants from applying; to no surprise, they often boast 90% or better med school “acceptance” numbers. Often a regular poster will chime in to recommend one such school, Holy Cross.
The real question to address at this point is: why an M.D? Not that I know it is wrong for you, it may be the right fit, but have you actually looked into the medical field and considered the alternatives? From the day you start college it will be 11-15 years before you are a practicing doctor, depending on what field you go into. In other words, think back to 1st grade; all those years since then matches the minimum it will take to become a practicing doc! Its almost a reflex action among HS kids, they think of a career in medicine and its “I’m pre-med!” Doctors are far from the only ones in the health field that help people. Physical therapists, radiology techs, nurses, speech pathologists, to name but just a few. Unless you’ve considered the alternatives and have spent time actually working in a health care setting (which is an unofficial requirement to get into med school, BTW) its better to think of yourself as interested in exploring a career as a doctor rather than someone who has already made the decision.
Thank you for the links and information! i didn’t know that so many private institutions gave such high amounts of financial aid (like BU and BC). My only question is how to these private institutions perceive additional scholarships and money from local or merit scholarships?
Many people seem to be unaware of this. Actually, some of the richest and most selective schools (Ivies, Stanford etc.) award need-based aid to some families making as much as $200K/year (3-4 times the national median family income).
You’d need to investigate each school’s policy.
Typically, though, any merit scholarship will offset the amount of demonstrated need.
It’s as though a merit scholarship is considered additional family income (or worse, because the amount of need-based aid might be reduced by 100% of the merit scholarship value.)
The most selective private schools usually emphasize need-based aid (and in some cases don’t offer merit scholarships at all.) You can view average need-based and merit aid amounts in each school’s Common Data Set, section H (although, to estimate n-b aid, it’s better to run the online net price calculator).