Hi, I’m in the process of choosing which college to attend and its been really challenging. I’m generally interest in potentially pursuing med, but I’m also interested in bio-research. For UCI and UF I got in for biomedical engineering, and for UCB I’m in undeclared letters and science. I live near UCI and I can stay with my parents (saving a bunch of money) and I got the Regents scholarship. For UF I plan to defer a year and get residency if I chose this option + I got in the honors program at this school. To anyone who attended any of these schools, which do you think would be the best option for me + especially with the fact that I might want to pursue med or a grad degree and I know some of these school make getting a good GPA very challenging. Thank you so much!
You may need to rethink that UF plan. It’s not so easy to get in-stats residency.
Living at home will save money which is important but you will give up a college experience. College is about much more than classes.
Are you prepared to move to Florida b4 school starts in a few months, get a job and support yourself…your parents can’t. If not you can’t get in-state there.
Do you want bio engineering or something else? If you want bio engineering than UCB won’t work. I’m no pre med expert but others say don’t do it for pre-med, that there are easier ways than that major.
I would say of the three UCI but live on campus. It’s important for your personal growth. If not bioengineering than you can consider UCB
UF Honors is great but I’m not a fan of deferral unless you want IT and I want to ensure you know what it takes to gain residency. If you live there but your folks pay your rent, you don’t qualify.
Oh I’ll look into that then. My dad got a job offer there and we’d move in the summer + then I’d have a gap year (and I think if its a full year it counts as in-state - but if that’s not the case then I probably wont go to UF). Thanks for the info
UF is even reasonable full pay so if you did one year. As long as he starts b4 the school year (you must be there 12 full months), u can pay one year and then go in-state. Have you been to the school ?
I visited the campus and the energy of the students was really positive and it was a pretty campus.
Seems like UCI is the safest option in terms of costs, although you may want to live on campus for your frosh year.
I was thinking exactly what @ucbalumnus just stated: If you do not want to miss the “college experience” of living on-campus, you can live one year on campus at UCI and still save the dorming costs for three of your four years.
Any of these three universities will be very good for premed. Any will offer many good options if you change your mind about being premed. I personally might be just a tiny bit nervous about the alleged grade deflation at UCB, but grade deflation will be a bit of an issue in any premed program.
To me UCI looks like a very good option, but I am not sure that there is any bad option. Expect to need to work very hard in your premed classes, starting on day 1.