Hello all,
I am planning to go pre-med and will be choosing a science major. I was accepted to both Binghamton & UAlbany. I am hoping to get some insight on which you think would be a better choice and why.
Here is my dilemma. UAlbany offered me a $4500 per year scholarship, which would help with my tuition. I know Bing is known as a better school in general, but I think UA is also very good and at UA I would most likely be in the honors college, which would give me better dorms, early class registration and smaller class sizes.
My goal is Med School and it looks like UA also has an assurance program with Albany Med. Both have assurance programs with SUNY Upstate, but I have been told they are impossible to get so I have discounted that for both schools.
I was accepted to Stony Brook as well, but felt like it was too much of a commuter school and was too close to home.
I am very conflicted and would hate to give up the scholarship unless it is going to Bing is going to look better when it comes to applying to Med School later. I would love to get some insight especially from someone that is familiar with one or both schools or who knows how Med schools would at this.
I would take Honors at Albany rather than Binghamton. Bing is great for business and engineering, not so much for pre-med and when you are applying to med schools, Bing is not going to look much better than Albany. I can tell you one thing about Bing-the chemistry classes for pre-med are brutal and there is absolutely no curve which in most cases, helps students. My son just finished his first semester there and got a C. He is smart, worked hard, did not party at all, did all the work, but there is just so much material and despite huge class size, the professor stuck to his word and did not curve, the only thing he did was drop the lowest of the 3 exams, the two lowest labs and 1 lowest discussion to sort of boost the grade a bit. In a meanwhile, he could have gone to an easier school where there is curve and probably gotten like B+.
Both are great options! I went to Bing so I am partial to that but I do agree that the pre-med track is brutal. It might be better to be the big fish at Albany. Plus, 4.5k times four years is awesome! Especially if you have to pay for grad school later.
Thank you both for the responses.
My younger d has a friend with a younger sister who is a junior in bio at Albany in the Honors. It is a good program and the Honors perks of early registration and better dorms mean a lot.