Hind sight is always 20/20 as they say, hoping students who have been here before might share some of their hindsight!
We are struggling with the decision of where my child should go for premed next year. We have some great choices at top schools and of course my child is excited to try something new, we are from Maryland and UMD feels like it is right around the corner. I want them to have the best combined undergraduate experience possible which I would think would come from a smaller school with a top premed program. Of course that comes at a huge cost, for us roughly $60,000 a year, which while we can afford it will leave nothing to support med school costs. I have read many posts on college confidential, save your money, go some place you can excel, undergraduate name doesn’t matter. Easy to calculate the save your money part but hard to know where any one child will excel until they try. If you excel at Hopkins you will likely do great when applying to med school, of course not all Hopkins students will be at the top of their class and they may have excelled elsewhere. The undergraduate name probably does matter but does it matter enough to pay for it, I am inclined to say no but that really depends on how well the student does at a state school. Thinking past just getting into med school and more about having options at that point. From what I can tell UMD students do very well when applying to UMD med school so not sure this is really an issue.
So here is my question: For students currently at the University of Maryland that are premed, or were premed when they started (why did you drop premed??), do you regret going to Maryland? Do you feel like you had all the opportunities (or at least the same level of opportunities) that you would have had at a smaller or more prestigious school. If not do you regret not having those opportunities? Does the cost balance this? Were you in the honors program, if so which one? Thoughts on ILS or Gems for premed students? If anyone is still reading that considered UMD and then went elsewhere for premed do you think that was a good choice, do you ever regret it?
Hi, I can’t really answer your questions, but I’ll offer some thoughts. Anyone who went to UMD and then on to Med school probably isn’t on CC anymore.
Premed is not a formal major at UMD and I’ve heard that the same is true at other colleges. It’s true that certain courses (biology/chemistry) are beneficial for those seeking to go to med school, but the real criteria for med school admission is a great GPA and MCAT scores.
On other CC forums, I’ve read that the actual undergraduate school doesn’t matter much in comparison to GPA and MCAT. I believe that UMD graduates can, and do, get into Top Medical schools (Ivy League) and do very well.
60K a year is a lot for an undergraduate school, especially since med school will probably cost another 60K a year. And then there are the costs of setting up a practice.
On top of that a lot of students change majors before they graduate. My D is a freshman at UMD and she is interested in going to grad school but not med school, but that could change. We live in MD about an hour away from UMD. My D does have friends from high school there, but she has also made many new friends from other places.
My advice would be to save your money for med school
We are having the same discussion in our Maryland household, Jeb. We are comparing the MD honors program (with some scholarship money, just to make that decision a little bit harder) to UVA; Villanova and Georgetown (if the answer is good this month). Also contemplating accepting a ROTC scholarship to Georgetown, but not sure that is the best answer if our son wants to go to medical school but not have a long term career in the Navy. It is good to have good choices, I know, but kind of stressful!
Would accepting the ROTC scholarship at Georgetown provide him with a better chance of being accepted into medical school at Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (Bethesda). After completing his medical degree at USUHS he would, of course, have a payback period with the military but a “free” education is nothing to brush aside
@maryversity is correct. If your plans are to attend graduate/professional school after undergrad, then keep your cost down now.
@jeb2015, I went to high school literally down the street from UMCP, but it’s big enough that I made mostly new friends and seldom saw the people I knew from high school. As for a “top premed program”, I don’t know what that is, but I do know that Maryland has very good pre-health advising ( http://www.prehealth.umd.edu/ ) with great results ( http://www.prehealth.umd.edu/facts-and-figures ) and this can be important.
BTW, I am a recent graduate and a current medical student.
I can’t add anything about premed, but I can suggest you don’t put all of your eggs in one basket. It’s a good thing to consider and plan for, but many kids change their mind in college, or they don’t study/do as well as they did in high school. So, consider what happens if the med school plans don’t work out when you are thinking about all of this, and especially if you will be happy paying for a very expensive school if your students decides on another path. Good luck with the very tough decision.