UC Merced Pre-Med vs other Private Schools

College Search & Selection
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Hi everyone,

I am trying to decide between a few colleges and need your help. I have been admitted to a number of Cal state schools (SJSU, SFSU, CSEB, …), UC Merced, ASU (with scholarship), UO, and private schools: the University of San Francisco with scholarship and USD without a scholarship. My intended track is pre-med–I am planning to become a physician someday. The school with the highest ranking among the schools above seems to be USD, but it is expensive and I have no scholarships. USF is expensive, but with the scholarship and the housing exemption (we are in Bay Area and I will be commuting to school), the cost of attendance will be somewhat equal to the cost of attendance+room+board at UC Merced.
I have visited UCM a couple of times and I think it is a good school, but their relatively loose acceptance requirements make me wonder if I choose this school for premed studies, I will have a chance later in the future when I plan to apply to medical schools? Also, with a relatively high admit ratio, I could have studied much less and still secure a spot at this school-I respect the idea of being open to a wider range of applicants, but the less selective admission criteria can potentially influence the medical school admission committee at the time of med school applications.

In summary, I wonder if it worth paying $$$ and attend USD or better off with UC Merced that I will be close to home, stay on campus, and save 100~120K. Of course, USF with scholarship is another option and it is a private school with good future networking opportunities and a better city-life experience during college. My other option is ASU and UO, but I think these three schools are more reasonable options.

My other worry is the risk involved with selecting a slightly lower-tier public school like UCM. If I cannot score all As at my lower-division classes (which is necessary for med school application) and end up changing my major, I will be in loss: i.e. I have chosen a lower-tier school to save $$$s for the med school, but now that I change my major I need more prestigious schools for obvious reason than what is needed for a premed college student.

I tried to look at school websites and see the chances of getting into med school from each of these schools, but I have not been able to find great information. However, it seems like USD has a stronger track record of successful med school applicants. UCM, on the contrary, does not provide such information. It could be due to a smaller graduating class and possibly smaller class size as well as a relatively younger age of the school.

I really appreciate your insights in .helping me to make the right decision.

Thank you.

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You can apply to med school with any major. Being premed is just an intention, your major should be whatever you think you’ll be very good at and lead you to a job if, like most premeds, you don’t get into med school. It could be Physics, Anthropology, etc.
The name of your university doesn’t factor into the first cut at all - it’s all MCAT XGPA X Science GPA. the algorithm doesn’t even know where you went to college. Then, you worked very hard right from the first week, went to tutoring so that each B turned into an A, attended review sessions and office hours, got straight As and did well on the MCAT: you pass the first cut. Next step they review the rest of your application – UCM is seen as a very strong university because it’s a UC, with excellent research activity, excellent results, etc. The quality of undergrads who got in isn’t as important as the quality of the students who graduate, and there, UCM performs very well.
So, when making your choice, choose the university that’ll cost you the least, where you’re top 25%, that’ll be supportive and help you achieve As in a major that can be a Plan B.

@WayOutWestMom (who’s advised for years in the premed forum) has a must-read post about being premed and choosing a university.

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Most undergrad do not provide a reliable source of data regarding their medical school admission rates. Schools manipulate their data in a half dozen ways to more to make their stats look better. So take any claims you find on a college’s website with a heaping spoon of salt.

And take pre-med out of your decision. Most freshmen pre-meds will never apply to medical school. And of the 25% or less of pre-meds who persist and actually do apply to med school, more than 60% will get ZERO acceptances.

This means you should choose a school that offers you the best combinations of fit, opportunity (including to the opportunity to pursue other career paths besides medicine) and cost. (Pre meds are strongly advised to minimize all undergrad debt because you will be taking out at least $250+K in loans to pay for medical school and won’t be earning a doctor’s salary so you can start to pay them back for 3-12 years after med school.)

Successful med school applicants come from all sorts of colleges–powerhouse research Us, tiny rural LACs, directional state universities, even from community colleges. Medical school adcomms don’t look at where you graduated from, they look at what you have achieved–your GPA/sGPA, your MCAT score, your leadership roles, your clinical experiences, your ECs.

Med school adcoms are looking for people who will make good doctors and they don’t especially care about the undergrad listed on their diploma.

Adcomms want people who have the necessary personal characteristics that make a good doctor (compassion, altruism, cultural competency, emotional maturity, resilience, strong ethics), who have a certain level of academic ability, who do well on standardized exams (medicine is a career-long slog of high stakes standardized exams), who have demonstrated leadership ability through their activities, and who can communicate comfortably with individuals from a wide range of diverse backgrounds. All of these are things that no undergrad can teach you.

The road to med school is long and difficult. Choose your path wisely. Good luck whatever you decide.

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USD, USF, and SFSU will be expensive.
The locations of the SF schools will affect your study time because you are commuting into the city. You’re doing that often because of the labs and group meets at your school. If you’re not living on campus at those SF sites, it’s going to be really inconvenient as you drive back-and-forth into town.

The goal for med school is to stay on a budget. Rankings of the schools don’t mean squat.
MCAT, GPA, and low socio-economic clinical experiences matter.

Med schools cost $300k. I know from personal experience how expensive it is in San Francisco, as my daughter is finishing up at the UCSF Medical center. You won’t even begin to actually draw an actual salary till about 10 years out, and even then, it’s not enough to repay those loan fees.

USD, in San Diego is just expensive overall. I went there many years ago and, yes, it’s pretty to look at, but that’s what you’re paying for. USD has a lot of students whose parents have money and can afford to pay for extra fees, tutors, and premed counselors. The preponderance of students being accepted to med schools, has a lot to do with having a lot of money. You’re looking at rankings which shouldn’t be your focus. There are other students, who go to USD, and apply to med school, and don’t get in. How does that fit into your rankings?

As you know, Merced is in the middle of farmland, with a lot of low, medically-indigent, clinical patients. Those kind of experiences will be really limited in San Francisco unless you are a strong Native speaker of Mandarin or Cantonese and know acupuncture theories. My daughter has a couple of friends who fit this latter category In SF.

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You can’t go wrong with an affordable school. I highly recommend something flexible and affordable. The vast majority of HS premed prospects don’t even apply to medical school. This is because students find hidden passions and decide to pursue other things. That’s the normal process in college. You don’t want to be up to your eyeballs in debt, or be in an unhealthy hyper-competitive environment if you decide to change your major to business or technology, for instance.

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Blockquote Merced is in the middle of farmland, with a lot of low, medically-indigent, clinical patients.

THIS is, first and foremost, what Med schools look for : have you, in college, tried to help people who needed it the most? Were you effective, efficient, compassionate?
Contact pre health advisers and ask them how premeds can serve local populations. It’ll be the most important activity you do to prepare for med school (assuming you do well academically, choose a major where you can excel, etc.)

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What about ASU? Did you get into the Honors program? What is the cost? Did you visit?

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I don’t think that I got in. I just checked and don’t see anything about the honors program in my admission portal-I assume it was by invitation only? If it was directly offered by school, I don’t think that I got it. If I had to apply, unfortunately I didn’t know and didn’t apply for it.

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Thank you! Great advice. Appreciated.

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Thank you. You summarized the difficulty that I am dealing with. The annual cost of school (unless I choose one of CSUs) will be 38K (UCM and USF). It can decrease in the next year if I stay off-campus. I don’t know what other options I may have but selecting a computer science at Merced, even if possible, is a big shift that will be very hard for someone like me-although I have very strong math background, but I am not a coding gig.
Other chances at Merced will be Business and possibly other engineering majors-if allowed. The fact that I could be in a private school that is perceived—and from what I heard is more highly regarded for a business or engineering degree with like-minded peers compared to students at UCM—makes the decision difficult for me. Though I believe in UC system and its great education, but whoever hears about UCM takes it as granted that it is a school “where extras go”.

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selecting a computer science at Merced, even if possible, is a big shift that will be very hard for someone like me

I’m not sure what you mean. If you have a strong math background, then you should do fine - CS is math+logical thinking. If they admitted you, they think you can succeed. If you mean you don’t like CS, no problem.

People who are experts at advising premeds in California consider that UCM is better for premeds than USD/USF. Now it’s up to you to see how serious you are about being premed.

Are you worried there’s a “stigma” to attending UCM?
For premeds, there’s none whatsoever.
It is my impression that, for CS in particular, what matters is what you are able to do. Your college is just there to facilitate it (or leave you to fend on your own or create obstacles), optimally by pushing you and offering you resources you can take advantage of.
You can totally be a CS major and premed, BTW. So, you’d get the best of both worlds (and for both, no one will care whether it’s a private Catholic college or a UC, in both cases it’ll all be on you, what you’ve done, how involved you were with campus life, how you showed your qualities, etc.) You can always email UCM to ask if there’s an Honors Program in your potential majors.
Honestly I think the differences between USF/USD and UCMerced is 1° socio-economic: most USF/USD students are upper middle class to wealthy, most UCM students are middle class. 2° research: UCM is a high research university like all UCs, neither USD nor USF is (they’re “comprehensive” universities, meaning professors are allowed to conduct only minimal research).
For what it’s worth, someone just described USF as “a large community college”, so, really, prestige is in the eye of the beholder. :innocent:

@Gumbymom : is there a “stigma” to UCM? Would it be better for this poster to attend one of the Catholic universities that admitted him?
(It doesn’t look like it to me but I’m not in CA).

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selecting a computer science at Merced, even if possible, is a big shift that will be very hard for someone like me…Other chances at Merced will be Business and possibly other engineering majors

Yeah, this struck me as odd also.
Why do you need to major in computer science? Or business? Or some sort of engineering? There are plenty of other majors that offer good post-graduation employment opportunities.

If you don’t like coding, then consider math or applied math since you say you’re a strong math student. Both will offer good job prospects.

And if you don’t want to major in an engineering field–then don’t. Engineering (and CS) have reputations as being difficult for students to maintain a high GPA in. A 2.5 GPA for MechE is perfectly fine and will lead to a job at graduation, but a 2.5 GPA will kill any chance for a med school admission.

Consider that biology can offer decent job prospects IF you make an effort to appeal to potential employers. Learning some basic computer skills. Maybe take a couple of agricultural bio or environmental science electives. And reach out to industry during undergrad by doing industry internships. Doing this will make a bio degree much more employable after graduation.

You can also use a bio degree as springboard for other healthcare-related careers that aren’t medical school. Like a built environment specialist, or a pathologist’s assistant. A clinical lab scientist, medical dosimetrist or perfusionist.

Here’s a helpful site that will allow you to explore other healthcare jobs:
http://healthcareerexplorer.com

Taking a–as in one-- basic coding class will also enhance your job prospects. Learn R or MatLab. (You may want to to do that anyway if you plan to get involved with lab research in college. It’s a critically needed skill in the lab if you want to be more than just a set of hands.)

Regarding the prestige --or perceived lack thereof for Merced:
The odds says you won’t be going to medical school in CA. California is the single largest producer of med school applicants in the country, and California has way too few seats to accommodate them all. 2/3rd of successful California med school applicants attend an OOS medical school. And outside of CA–no one really “gets” the prestige difference of the UCs beyond UCLA and UC-Berkeley being the top. All the rest are the perceived the as being the same. Ditto for the CSUs. Outside of CA, no one knows, or cares, about the differences between the UC and CSU systems.

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Pell grant percentages:
64% UCM
27% USF
16% USD

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@MYOS1634, every UC has a so called “stigma” associated with it but since UCM is the easier UC to get into and they the are considered the default campus for top 9% of UC applicants whom are not admitted into any of their choice UC’s, yes many people look down upon UC Merced.

UC Riverside use to be the default ELC campus and it is still referred to the UC for Rejects.

UCM has many great opportunities and if Medical school is the career path, then UCM should definitely be a consideration and you get the UC education. UC Merced is now ranked above UC Santa Cruz if rankings are something of interest.

Smaller campus, better professor interaction, more opportunities for research are all pro’s in UC Merced’s favor.

I have seen a couple of CC posters that have stated they know graduates from UC Merced that were accepted into Medical school recently.

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After reading thru the thread with the OP talking about pre-med but also CS and business, it seems to me the OP is basically entering college undeclared. As do a lot of students. It’s easy to say “I’m pre-med” since HS kids see it as a well-paying & prestigious career, but many haven’t taken any steps beyond this to find out what it takes to get accepted into med school or done volunteering to find out if a career in medicine is right for them. I get the impression the OP is going to dip a toe into the pre-med stream without any great commitment.

So my recommendation is USF (provided the OP realizes it is a Jesuit school). Cost is similar to Merced but USF is going to have smaller classes and more personal attention, something I sense could benefit the OP. The OP writes

USF is expensive, but with the scholarship and the housing exemption (we are in Bay Area and I will be commuting to school), the cost of attendance will be somewhat equal to the cost of attendance+room+board at UC Merced.

And not only is the OP dismayed about going to UCM but talks up USF, so reading between the lines I think that is where they want to go

Of course, USF with scholarship is another option and it is a private school with good future networking opportunities and a better city-life experience during college.

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Thank you Mikemac for your notes. Admission results came this year with a big surprise when I didn’t get accepted into my top college choices, made me think twice and asking around from experts before committing to any long-term plans. With 10+ AP courses, honor courses, research, leadership and extracurricular activities in a competitive public school, being fluent in many languages, extensive music activities, I was still not good enough to get into top CA schools of my choice. As such I have been quite—so to speak cautious if not necessarily scared. One thing that hurt me at the beginning and was hard for me to digest and then accept it was the fact that I didn’t need to study hard all my sophomore and Junior years, I still could get into some of the schools that I got accepted including UCM. That is nothing to do with the fact that in the days after, I searched about the school and visited the college campus and found out that facilities at this public school (UCM) are top notch and more importantly people are very kind. However, it’s not all about facilities, it’s about faculties and peers, too. While I am still researching about the latter two, so far I have learned that UCM is undoubtedly a great new school, but the more I search the less I can find track record of success stories of medical school applicants from UCM. There are programs like SJV at UCD, but other than that I couldn’t find others who went through this path and got into medical school.

Medicine is my passion and has always been since my fifth grade. I have done a couple of summer research at UCs, shadowing and helping UC professors at labs with anything that a High Schooler is allowed to do and I cannot explain enough how I loved it. I even have a dream specialty major that I imagined as my career in the future, but I also wanted to be realistic with the current conditions. After all these trials and unfortunately errors, I learned that it is not just how hard I work, it is how smart I work. So far, everything proved to me that UCM can be a great undergraduate school for someone like me, but the downside is that if I couldn’t get into medicine for any reason including GPA and MCAT score (which are more or less in my control) and possibly school prestige (which as I hear has a very small weight in the selection criteria of medical school admission which unfortunately will be outside my hand unless I select the premed college wisely), I could become stuck with a degree that will be hard to employ with.

One thing that made me to post and ask for advice was that a few of my close relatives are physicians and dentists from which a couple of them are clinical and research UC professors in medical schools. I remember four years ago when I started high school I asked one of them who studied in East Coast at a public school about the pre-med program. She explained to me that she had studied in a great research university: Rochester Institute of Technology—it is not an IVY school but still a great school—she was an athlete at her college team and graduated with an excellent GPA—I cannot remember exactly what was it but perhaps close to 4.0 GPA and possibly first in her class. She advised me that she had great MCAT-I am not sure about her research activities at college, but she had good ECs-was the only one or possibly among a very few premed students who could get from her college into a not-so-great med school. That statement stayed with until receiving reject letters from the top and mid-tier UCs and caused me to reach out for advice.

I brought up USD and USF as the only other options that remain for me, I personally didn’t apply to USF until after receiving my early decision rejection letter, which made me scared to death, therefore applying to USF as a safety school. It is a very unpleasant situation that I am dealing with, but I know with great advice that I will receive I will make it through and succeed. I just need to be wiser this time and your and others’ help will warrant that success.

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@Hwy101 I am sorry that you had such a disappointing cycle. It’s been tough year for many students.

I’m sorry you feel that your hard work was for nothing. It wasn’t. Your achievements belong to you, even if you feel they didn’t get the recognition you expected.

RE: your relative.
RIT is not known for its pre-med program and it sends very few students to medical school. The type of student who enrolls at RIT just don’t tend to lean that way. (Premeds enroll at University of Rochester–RIT’s cross-town rival, the one that has the med school and gets tons of NIH research funding. How do I know this? Had a kiddo let who graduated from the cross-town rival. UR has ~10x the number of med school matriculants as RIT despite RIT having almost 2X as many undergrads.)

Getting accepted at any medical school is a tremendous achievement. And there just aren’t any “not-so-great medical schools.” Stop thinking that way. It’s very counter-productive. US medical education is very “flat”–meaning the curriculum is pretty well standardized nationally and all US med student must take & pass the same national standardized exams to graduate. It’s what you do and achieve during med school that gets you into the niche specialty or IVY residency program, not what med school you attend.

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If you think medical school is in your future…follow the money for undergrad. Your medical school costs will be funded with loans loans and more loans.

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OP can attend a UC for the same costs (tuition, room, board) as a private catholic school (commuting).

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I think that living away from home, if affordable, is a good thing for a potential premed. Living on one’s own offers a student an opportunity to develop greater maturity by becoming responsible for managing your own day-to-day needs/wants (laundry, meals, medical care, etc), a opportunity to practice key interpersonal skills (living with a roommate and hall mates), and a opportunity to develop/improve time management skill since there’e not a authority (parent) setting a schedule you have to live by.

If the price is the same–I’d recommend living away from home if possible.

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