My daughter got in to all the above school, financial aside what would be the best nurturing school that provides the best chance to get accepted at medical school?
Thanks.
They are all fine schools for possible pre-Med.
ETA…I know you said to leave finances out of this…but unless you are independently wealthy, the school that leaves you with the least amount of debt…and cost…is the best choice. Medical school is extremely expensive, and you might want to save your financial resources to help pay for that…easily upwards of $250,000…
Which UM? Miami? Michigan? Minnesota? Maryland? Missouri?
Which UR? Rochester? Richmond? Redlands? Rhode Island?
“Nurturing” and “pre-med” are pretty much incompatible goals.
Pre-med is going to be competitive at all these schools simply every one of them attracts a large number of pre-med hopefuls, all of whom are high achieving students. There will be weeding going on at all of these schools and a significant portion of freshman pre-meds (typically around 2/3rds) will drop out of the pre-med path before they graduate from college.
This is not to say any of these schools will be actively malignant; only that none of them are going to hold the hands of hopeful pre-meds and guide them lovingly through the undergrad classes needed for med school or personally arrange research placements or arrange clinical volunteering positions for them. The opportunities will be there at every school and so will the basic information about what is expected of pre-meds, but the student is the one who will have to make the effort to find the opportunities and seek out the information…
Success as pre-med requires a student to be pro-active and self-directed.
I will note that some of the schools you list offer a committee LOR for pre-meds (Rochester Richmond, Case, Miami, Missouri); while others don’t (Florida, Michigan, Minnesota). Undergrads that offer a health profession committee letter screen which students will be allowed to apply to medical school and which won’t, by refusing to write a LOR for any student who the committee feels has less than an excellent chance to gain a med school school admission.
I advise pre-meds and their parents to choose a school that offers the best combination of
–fit (it’s 4 years of their life, they should be able to enjoy it, plus happier students = better grades)
–opportunity (for research, for mentoring, for involvement in student life & activities, plus the opportunity to explore other interests and career paths since 2/3 of fresh pre-med won’t ever apply to med school and of those that DO apply, 60% won’t receive any acceptances.)
–cost (Med school is tremendously expensive. --Up to $120K/year at some schools. Pre-meds need to minimize undergrad debt as much as possible.)
P.S. One of my Ds (who is now a young physician in residency) did her undergrad at URochester. University of Miami , University of Rochester
Thanks for your response. How was the experience at UR.
D2 had great success at UR, but she was a high achieving, super-charged student before she ever got there. She would have risen to the top at any college she chose to attend. The main reason she chose UR for undergrad–UR offered her huge merit money (full tuition plus an unrestricted research grant to do a project of her own choice). IOW, UR recruited her.
In general, she found UR had a ton of pre-meds–35-40% of her freshman class declared themselves pre-meds, most of whom dropped out of pre-med long before senior year. There are plentiful research opportunities and she found her professors to be approachable–even those who had reputation for being “difficult.” (But that’s D2. She’s both very, very charming and very persistent.) Students tended to be cooperative among themselves, not cut-throat. There were many student-organized study groups. However, UR curves all intro level science & math classes (up to and including Ochem 2 and Calc 3), with the class median centered at C+ for most classes and B- for the rest of them. This means at least half the students are going get grades of B- or below each semester. Only the strongest survive. UR requires all pre-meds to take Calc 1 (either MTH 141-142, or MTH 161 or MTH 171) and a year of calc-based physics if they want a health profession committee LOR. Because of the high number of pre-meds, finding clinical volunteering positions at Strong Hospital (that is across the street from the River campus) can be difficult.
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Thank you for the very detailed response. I’m a physicians but it’s been a while and the college (premed) scene have change quite a lot since.