UC Davis, UW-Seattle, UMD or ASU Barrett Honors

Hi,

I got accepted into UC Davis (in-state), UW-Seattle, UMD, and ASU Barrett Honors.

Majors:
UCD: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
UW-Seattle: Biochemistry
UMD: Undeclared
Barrett: Biochemistry (Medicinal Chemistry)

Tuition and Scholarships:
UCD: In-state; no scholarship
UW-Seattle: OOS; $3k scholarship
UMD: OOS; $12.5k scholarship
Barrett: OOS; $12k scholarship
UCD is the cheapest option.

My eventual goal is to get into medical school and from my research, all these schools offer great education, research opportunities, and guidance.

One thing for sure is that UCD is about 2 hours away from my home and my parents prefer I go there.

Please offer any guidance or suggestion as to where I should go.

Thank you!

I’m biased but my daughter is a Freshman at Davis and we could not have asked for a better experience. It probably comes down to if you want to go far away from home, or how far. Maryland is very far and it has winter. Seattle is very rainy a lot of the time, and I don’t know a lot about ASU except it was a party school and it’s easier to get into than the others. The other criteria is cost if that is an issue because Davis is a lot cheaper in state than the others.

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We were looking at U of Arizona with a scholarship but it was still a lot, so I assume ASU would be similar. $12,000 seems lot but the out of state cost is close to double in state, so it all depends on whether cost is an issue because the OOS even with scholarships are still a lot more expensive than in state.

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Since medical school is expensive, you may want to choose the less expensive undergraduate school to save money for medical school.

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Money is not that big of an issue as all of these fit perfectly in my budget. However, I am also leaning towards Davis as it is roughly 2 hours away from home. My parents also prefer Davis, but the concern is whether Davis is comparable to the rest in terms of pre-med prep.

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If you are sure about medical school, keep costs down and go to the school where you can be most successful academically.

What are you looking for in a college environment - large school, small school, big town, small town, Greek life, football games?

From a college campus, community, non competitive environment, I am biased towards Davis. That said, @sbdad12 has a daughter at ASU Barrett who sounds very happy.

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I posted this on the Davis acceptance thread but the pre-health advising at Davis is great. Take a look at their website and all that they offer https://hpa.ucdavis.edu/
Test prep: Test Prep
Pre-med bootcamp: hpa - Summer Pre-Med Bootcamp
Personal statement prep: Personal Statements
Mock interviews: Interviews

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@medstud101 , congrats, those are all good options. Daughter considered UCD, UDub, and ASU Barrett.

I really like Davis, especially the town, but it was too rural for her. UDub was too expensive and the weather was too rainy and gloomy for her, but again, I liked it.

ASU is not the party school that it was 30+ years. President Crow has changed the culture completely. It’s now the #1 innovative school, according to US NEWS. And Barrett is considered by nearly every publication to be the #1 honors college in the country. And the best part of Barrett is it’s a smaller school within a big school.

As has been said, it depends what you want. Big school vs smaller school, bigger city vs rural, big time sports vs not as big sports.

Costwise they’re similar. I think Barrett is $2-$3K more per year after your scholarship.

I think it comes down to being close to home vs a 1.5 hour flight. Academically, not a huge difference and neither is cost.

They’re all great schools. Unless you overspend, you can’t go wrong.

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Definitely, Davis is rated higher than those other schools on every list I’ve looked at. For 2021 Davis is rated #1 in the country for Biological and Biomedical science. #1 in the world for Vet Schools.

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Thank you for your insight!