Hello everyone!
As you saw from the title, I’m having trouble choosing between 2 colleges. I am grateful to be accepted into UC San Diego as a Regents Scholar (Human Biology major) and UNC Chapel Hill.
I was wondering if anyone had insight and advice for either of them in the contexts of the pre-med track as well as the scholarship UCSD offered me.
Thank you!
Are you in state for UCSD? Which college are you in? Regents scholarship is a real honor. It means that UCSD has selected you as one of their top applicants. Besides the $5,000/year scholarship, the two most notable perks are priority registration and UCSD’s research initiative.
Priority registration means that you are allowed to sign up for classes before other students. This means that you will be able to choose the better professors and take classes at more convenient times. Being allowed to take the classes that you want when you want to take them is a HUGE perk.
UCSD’s Research Initiative is a program that pairs freshmen Regents scholars with faculty mentors and research opportunities first quarter of their freshman year. By the time you graduate, you will have had the opportunity to do four years of research.
The Regents scholarship also places you in the honors program within your college. You’ll have to look up the honors program in the college to which you have been admitted. Amongst other things, most colleges seem to offer more personalized advising which can be very helpful.
Net price at each?
Remember, medical school is expensive.
Applying to medical school is also expensive, since it can involve short notice travel to medical school interviews (being closer to your in-state public medical schools and other medical schools you apply to can help).
It is also unlikely from the point of view of a frosh pre-med, since most frosh pre-meds eventually do not apply to medical school, and only 40% of those who do get admitted. So also consider which school is more suitable for you for the case where you do not go to medical school.
Thank you for the response!
Yes, I am in-state for UCSD. I got into the Revelle College. The 4 years of research are very nice. If you don’t mind me asking, what are the honors class sizes? Thank you again for the advice!
Thank you for the response!
I agree! I know that I will get in-state tuition after a certain amount of time at Chapel Hill. So it would be approximately the same cost for both. Thank you!
UCSD’s class schedule is at Student/Class Info ; you can find some class sizes there (be sure to select non-summer quarters to be more reflective of academic year class sizes).