<p>It seemed to be a weird question, but I still undecided and would like to ask for your advise.</p>
<p>I got accepted to both UF and USF, and am planning to do pre-med. I know UF is the top one in the State, but it does not throw out generous merit scholarships as others do. For a NMF, UF offers only $2000 (or less?) while USF offers $48,000 (12,000 per year) plus some extra. Unluckily, I'm a NMF, and I am in a hard battle as where to go. If I choose UF, my family has to pay ~10,000 per year for food and board; or pay almost nothing if going to USF.
My question is, does it make a big difference if I do pre-med at USF? In real life, do people care about where a doctor graduated when choosing his/her family doctor/physician?
Thank you for your kind opinion!</p>
<p>To be honest, med schools care more about grades/scores. They want high gpa's (3.6>) and high mcat scores (aim for 30>, but people still get in with 27>). Unfortunately, doing an easy major (e.g psych, socio, nutrition, anthro, health education)(to those majors--please dont get offended, I personally think those majors are easy) might pay off more than doing a harder on you love because you have time to focus on get high grades in the premed reqs. However, I do know premed engineering people with 3.75> and chem/physic with 4.0's, so its possible. USF/UF will not matter as much if you have the stuff mentioned, experience (volunteering/shadowing), research (but not mandatory, but looks good), nice EC's, etc.</p>
<p>You really need to go to the "Pre-Med' topics board on this site. They have great info on anything you ever wanted to know about med school.</p>
<p>Also check out his link that I found some time ago. MDapplicants.com</a> - Home
You can pretty much search their database for acceptance information for not only the specific med schools but the stats of individuals applying / accepted to them.</p>
<p>This is a no brainer....for 50,000 cheaper total, go tu USF. If UF wanted you that bad, they'd shell out extra dough. Maybe you can use the USF award as leverage to negotiate with UF, too.</p>
<p>People sometimes care about where their doctor went to medical school, not undergraduate. If you like USF and the Tampa/St Pete area, take the money and run.</p>
<p>This information is more than twenty years old, but I wanted to weigh in on behalf of USF. My husband earned two graduate degrees from USF. He received a fantastic education for the money. At the time, he had to chose between UF and USF. There was very little job opportunity for me in Gainesville, while Tampa had much more to offer. He had fantastic professors, great assistantships, and wonderful experiences. And he made the most of it. GO BULLS.</p>
<p>I had a similar decision some 30 years ago on deciding where to go for med school. For me, there was no decision really. I chose USF, graduated with only undergrad loans in receiving my MD, and never looked back. And that was when USF's med school was only a few years old. Go Bulls.</p>