<p>So these are my top two picks. I am stuck between the two schools entering as a freshman. I will enter with an undecided major on the pre-med track. Could I get some pros and cons of the two schools to help me get a better opinion on them? I’m really at a stalemate between choosing where I want to go.</p>
<p>Money is no issue for either school.</p>
<p>We are PA residences with a son in his second year as an engineering major at UA. </p>
<p>Though Penn State is regarded highly in engineering, I discouraged my son from applying to Penn State for 2 reasons: 1. Money, which I know you said was not an issue for you, but you may want to reconsider that unless you have both undergrad and Medical School money already sitting in a Money Market account and</p>
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<li> Red Tape. All our friends and relatives at Penn State have had many headaches when needing to deal with administrative issues and getting classes needed to graduate within 4 years.</li>
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<p>UA generally responds to any questions with a call back same day. I get instant replies via e-mail. Most of my son’s professors have been very good with quick e-mail responses. We have experienced no Red Tape issues. Some of that is thanks to this forum for pointing us in the correct direction. </p>
<p>If you qualify for the Honors College, I strongly suggest a visit and set it up through the Honors College. The personalized attention really impressed us. Penn State (even Schreyer) could not compare in that department</p>
<p>@Momtocollegestudents can chime in on the pre-med. One of her son’s majored in Chem E and went pre-med. An Engineering major with 1330 SAT / 30 ACT gets $2,500/yr scholarship on top of the other tuition scholarships. This may be a reason to at least enter UA as an Engineering Major rather than undecided.</p>
<p>I have heard many students, in all majors, be locked out of classes at Penn State. Getting classes at UA for my son has been painless. My son does have priority registration via the Honors College; others have complained at UA but the administration has been responsive. There was a recent article in the Crimson White of being locked out of courses at UA.</p>
<p>Many on this forum may disagree, but Penn State wins hands down with the alumni network, co-ops and landing jobs.</p>
<p>Football wins at both schools – UA has the better team and plenty of spirit, but Happy Valley is much louder.</p>
<p>Giving up the heavenly ice cream at Happy Valley has been worth the trade for great BBQ!</p>
<p>Have you visited both? If no and you qualify for the Honors College and have applied, definitely set up a visit through the Honors College to meet with HC (Dean Sharp if possible), sit in on a class, lunch with a student.</p>
<p>Location - many find Penn State is in the sticks. If you are used to a more urban setting (like my son), you will also fell UA is isolated. </p>
<p>PM me with any specific questions. </p>
<p>@longhaul Thanks for the reply! I have visited both schools, and really enjoyed both. I am also not interested in engineering so that’s out as a choice. I do not qualify for the honors college because of a low GPA (3.1), but I would absolutely reapply later on if I had the credentials. I’ll be sure to PM you any other specific questions.</p>
<p>Does Penn State write Committee Letters for med school applicants? Bama does.</p>
<p>I will look at PSU’s premed website and see. most state schools do NOT write CLs. </p>
<p>Yes, my son was premed at Bama and is now in med school. </p>
<p>As mentioned above, it is harder to get needed classes at PSU, and there’s often red tape to deal with when you have a concern. I think Bama is very responsive.</p>
<p>I know that you visited Bama and really liked it, so that’s good!</p>
<p>@mom2collegekids</p>
<p>I visited Bama and I absolutely liked it, but I also liked Penn State. Another thing, Penn State has a pre-med major. At this point, I’m hesitant to go to Alabama because it is not as well respected as Penn State.</p>
<p>Respected is a regional thing. In the south, UA is a bigger name than Penn St. In the Northeast, Penn St is a bigger name. I would say they are roughly equivalent in terms of prestige.</p>
<p>Is a pre-med major going to give you an edge over someone with a Biology, liberal arts, or engineering major? I thoght it’s all about GPA and MCAT scores.</p>
<p><<<<
@mom2collegekids</p>
<p>I visited Bama and I absolutely liked it, but I also liked Penn State. Another thing, Penn State has a pre-med major. At this point, I’m hesitant to go to Alabama because it is not as well respected as Penn State.
<<<<</p>
<p>What GOOD does having a premed major do you? Only 1-3 schools in the nation have crazily called a major Premed. It’s actually one of the dumbest things ever.</p>
<p>Since most premeds never end up applying to med school, who would want to put Premed Major on a resume for a job?? That screams, “I didn’t make it to med school.”</p>
<p>Do you think med schools care about applicants who have a Premed major? Absolutely NOT. Med schools could give a rat’s patootie if a student has a premed major…which is why MOST schools do not have one. </p>
<p>Med schools would NEVER consider PSU to be more prestigious than Bama…ever. The only schools that “might” have a prestigious edge in med school admission are the top 8-10. And, even then, attending a tippy top school is only a TINY nudge…so small it can’t really be worried about. Once a school is beyond the top 8-10, med schools consider all schools to be “the same.”</p>
<p>Entrance to med schools has to do with:</p>
<p>BCMP GPA
cum GPA
MCAT score
LORs
Medically related ECs</p>
<p>I have stated many times that I’m not even sure that med schools even do more than a casual glance at one’s major. That’s why they’ll admit Music majors, English majors, History majors, and so forth. Med schools don’t care. med schools are not impressed by choice of major, double majors, minors or anything like that.</p>
<p>Now…during an interview, particularly a BLIND interview (the interviewer does not have your grades or scores), he/she may be given your major just for “chatting purposes,” Interviews are the “crazy test” so topics can range just to get a feel of the applicant. “Oh, I see that you majored in Music Performance, what instrument do you play”" The mention of one’s major during an interview is not done to “diminish” one’s major, but just something used to “get to know you,” just a chatting topic. </p>
<p>Many/most med schools use Blind Interviews. The interviewer has no access to your grades or scores. The reason is this…The Adcoms have already deemed you worthy of acceptance and have invited you for an interview. The Adcoms do not want the interviewer to be swayed one way or another by numbers during the interview. The interviewer (often a prof) is given minimal info about you.</p>
<p>You should choose the school with the better football team lol. </p>
<p>Seriously, Alabama has a committee that will write your med school recommendation letter. </p>
<p>Research is now paramount to a med school resume. Attending Alabama did not come up when he was one of 50 students to earn a research internship with Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, NC. They indicated that over 500 college students applied for this internship.<br>
My DS is pre-med but is a Geography/Biology Major, so major in what interest you.</p>
<p>You will have opportunities with Emerging Scholar Program and other programs. You have a faculty that is approachable and down to earth.</p>
<p>Shadowing doctors are options for students during the semester which is now important…ROLL TIDE!</p>
<p>Where would you rather go if pre-med falls by the way side as it does for most pre-med students? </p>
<p>Born and raised in PA. Graduated from Penn State and a HUGE Nittany Lion fan. Beautiful campus.</p>
<p>Can’t go wrong with either one but fast forward 27 years…</p>
<p>Twin sons are in their 3rd and final year at Bama prior to heading off to medical school next year (probably Ohio State no less, ROLL TIDE).</p>
<p>Bama Positives not in any particular order (not sure about PSU anymore)
<p>The list goes on…</p>
<p>If I could do it over, I would attend BAMA but it’s all about personal preference. No matter where you go, have fun but get involved and study hard as you’re setting yourself up for the rest of your life. Your undergraduate school is not going to get you into medical school, you’re going to get yourself into med school!!!</p>
<p>@HersheyBear </p>
<p>Congrats to your twin boys who found success at Bama and who are now heading to med school! I bet you are so thrilled!</p>
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<p>lol…I think many of us would also say that! Roll Tide!</p>
<p>Most of you are all big supporters of Bama, but I’m still not sure where I want to go. I may be leaning towards Bama, but I have to wait until I visit both campuses again. I should be visiting both schools right after Mid-terms (around January).</p>
<p>@ChrisF, it would be helpful to know which state you’re applying from. Is it New York? If so, and if you are not going to qualify for scholarships at either school, you need to weigh the overall VALUE.</p>
<p>I’m a PA resident, and Penn State and Alabama were originally my son’s safety schools–in that we knew he’d be accepted to both and, because of the automatic scholarships at Bama, we knew we could afford both. Since money is not an issue for you (I hope you’ve run the net price calculators for both schools and have VERIFIED with your parents that they can afford the totals), you need to compare what each school would offer a student of your profile. And this is where I want to give you some straight talk:</p>
<p>*What are your standardized test scores? If they are not in the 30+/1400+ range, you need to seriously consider that you may not be medical school material. Especially given a high school GPA of 3.1.</p>
<p>*If you get to any school and find that you can’t make it through the premed weeder courses (you may be plenty smart, but if you didn’t place out of these classes or do the groundwork in HS to prepare you for them, you may find yourself among those first premed “casualties” freshman year), what are your other options? A strong undergraduate major is a “fail safe” (so to speak) for premeds whose original “best laid plans” are thwarted, for whatever reason. </p>
<p>Case in point: One of my closest friends has a son who was accepted to the Eberly School of Science at PSU with a nice scholarship. Bright kid, but he never was able to score above about an 1800 on the SAT (not sure what his CR/M were, but I’m guessing in the <1300 range) even with a paid tutor. He never wanted to be anything but a doctor. Guess what? One semester at Penn State (and he did well, BTW) and he knew he wasn’t medical school material. He switched from a biology major into a program in their school of information sciences and technology that I had been eyeing for my son if he chose Penn State in case it turned out he didn’t like (or couldn’t cut it) in engineering. (My son had applied to both schools as an undeclared engineering major, since it’s one of the hardest schools to get admitted to in any university. We figured it would be easier to transfer out of engineering than to try to transfer in–something virtually impossible to do if you want to graduate in four years.) </p>
<p>Penn State is VERY strong in the sciences, and they have many, many more programs to offer a STEM student than Bama does, so that’s worth familiarizing yourself with before you make a decision. Both schools have strong business programs, but as others have pointed out, Penn State’s alumni network is in a league of its own, and they were ranked no. 1 by corporate recruiters back in 2010 according to the Wall Street Journal.</p>
<p>In the end, my son chose Bama over Penn State because he just plain liked it better (the campus, the atmosphere, the college of arts & sciences), but if we had been full pay at Bama, he never would have even applied there. Value was key for us. Although I was fairly cynical about Penn State for a number of reasons, after visiting, we would have gladly paid the the tuition for him to go to there if he’d felt it was a better fit. He didn’t. And fortunately, so far, he loves engineering and is doing well in those weeder courses, so we feel we made an excellent decision.</p>
<p>As far as Penn State being more “respected” than Alabama, I think it depends on whom you talk to. Certainly in the Northeast, Penn State has more cachet, but hiring managers know both schools well. My son had a HS classmate whose dad is the head of HR for one of the big cable companies in the Northeast and his kid is now at an Ivy. At the senior farewell dinner last spring, my kid proudly wore his Alabama t-shirt and this dad came up to me and asked me if that’s where my son was headed. I expected a “Are you kidding me?” reaction, but he was VERY happy for him and VERY impressed that he earned the scholarships. He told me Bama engineers have an excellent reputation and that he was going to love going to school in Tuscaloosa. I also have a friend who works in Philly for one of the biggest aerospace contractors in the world – he told me that while they recruit heavily from Penn State, the head of this company is a Bama grad, so not to worry!</p>
<p>In any event, carefully consider all the ramifications and then make the best decision for YOU. And best of luck!</p>
<p>Marilyn Hewitt, the CEO of Lockheed Martin, is a Bama alum.</p>
<p>Marilyn Hewitt, the CEO of Lockheed Martin, is a Bama alum.</p>
<p>Marilyn HEWSON. She was a business major at Bama, too, not an engineer. Even my friend didn’t realize that until I told him! :)</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/who-we-are/leadership/hewson.html”>About Us | Lockheed Martin;
<p>Not to nit-pick but I believe- Marillyn Hewson, is the CEO of Lockheed Martin. She is a bama grad.</p>
<p>@LucieTheLakie, @WAPacker - Yes. Brain fart this morning. It’s my Alzheimers catching up with me. </p>
<p>@LucieTheLakie I’m not too concerned about my low GPA being a warning sign about not being medical school material (but if I’m not meant for it, then I’m not. We will see). I was honestly very lazy until last year, and did not care or try much in school. Last three quarters my grades have not dropped below a 3.5 (3.75, 3.75, and 3.59GPA for each quarter respectively). This is with AP and honors classes. I have a 29 ACT without any studying, so I’m sure that could be bumped up to a 30 with some studying and preparation. </p>
<p>I’m not sure what I want to major in. I’m undecided at both schools, but I’m really not sure. I know I want to have something in science; engineering, business, and many others are out. I’m also very interested in astronomy, but I don’t believe it is offered as a major at Bama.</p>