<p>We live in FL and my S wants to save some money and go to either UF or FSU for undergrad. My question is...is it harder to get accepted to a Med School in the Northeast if you do pre-med in the South? Or should he really concentrate on applying to schools in the Northeast from the get-go? He is currently a junior in high school. I want to make sure to give him the best options that will make him happy. Thanks.</p>
<p>His best bet is to go to UF or FSU and then med school in FL. His best chance of getting in to med school is at an instate school, and if it’s a public med school, he will have lower costs for med school. </p>
<p>He will be a lot happier if he gets out of med school without owing $200,000 for private school med tuition loans.</p>
<p>is there a reason why there’s an interest in going to med school in the NE? All US MD schools are very good. None are just “so so”. They’re all very good and to get accepted to ANY one is an achievement. </p>
<p>Either way, you have to understand that the chances of getting into any particular med school is low so you have to apply broadly and hope for at least one acceptance, even if it’s in your own state or another part of the country. </p>
<p>If you read the other premed forum, you’ll see kids who’ll apply to twenty schools and only have one or no acceptances.</p>
<p>That said, it won’t matter where your son goes to undergrad. Students from the South get accepted to med schools everywhere. The NE doesn’t have anything against those who go to school in the South. </p>
<p>Med school is very expensive, so having minimal debt as an undergrad or to have some college fund money to go towards med school is a good idea. </p>
<p>How do you plan on paying for undergrad if he goes instate and how would you apy for it if he went in the NE?</p>
<p>Will your child qualify for Bright Futures? What are his test scores and GPA?</p>
<p>Any school has its share of successful applicants. The question is: whether YOU are one of the successful applicants from your school.</p>
<p>It seems I have just stated the obvious. But IMHO, it is better to concentrate on being one of the top applicants no matter what school you are at, rather than spending efforts on finding a school that would increase your odds (this is because, in general, it would not.)</p>
<p>A poster here once posted that, for two of the top students from a high school, one went to Harvard and then came back to attend UTSW after 4 years, and the other went to UT-Austin and then attended UTSW as well.</p>
<p>Maybe a difference is that, in the class of about 220-230 atudents at UTSW, there may be only, say, 3 or 4 students from Harvard, there may be more than 60 (my wildquess here, but you get the idea) students from UT-Austin. (Another “risk” may be that some who attended Harvard may choose to head to the Wall Street instead in the end.)</p>
<p>It seems I have just stated the obvious. But IMHO, it is better to concentrate on being one of the top applicants no matter what school you are at, **rather than spending efforts on finding a school that would increase your odds <a href=“this%20is%20because,%20in%20general,%20it%20would%20not.”>/B</a></p>
<p>Right…because a so-called top school isn’t going to increase your chances, and in fact, can actually hurt your chances if you’re not a top student at such a school. </p>
<p>If med school is the goal, then IMO, it’s better to go where your stats are well within the top 25% of the school. If you’re in the top 25% and you study and are dedicated, you’ll more likely emerge with a med-school-worth BCMP GPA and sGPA, then if you go to a Top school where you were lucky to get accepted from the middle quartiles and your classmates are largely a bunch of Vals/Sals with 2280+ SATs.</p>
<p>
3 out of 6 suitmates in DS’s suite freshman year are like this.</p>
<p>The competition game is then turned into: Whose high school is more competitive. Usually, the Vals/Sals from either a magnet high school (if there is one in your state or in your large city), or those from a relatively wealthy school district, tend to win when everything is said and done. The title of the Vals/Sals does not matter much. What matters is whether you are a top student from a competitive high school.</p>
<p>Haha what about those of us who were bottom students in high school? :)</p>
<p>^ There is a term for that: the late bloomer 
Or, they rebel against their parents sooner than other students.</p>
<p>I think there is a downside to go to an insanely competitive public high school also (like some of those in the bay area.) The top students are expected to work a lot on something that may not add much education value (e.g., becoming teacher’s pet.) When the difference in GPAs between Val and Sal is only in the order of 0.0001, these students may work for something they really should not work on - they should have something else better to do.</p>
<p>I do not know nothing about the prep school. Maybe the lawn on that side of fence is greener.</p>
<p>BDM…if you were near the bottom of your high school class, then your successes are very much the exception.</p>
<p>I was more towards the middle. But this talk of vals/sals is very foreign to me. :)</p>
<p>same here, I wasn’t even in the top 20% of my high school class</p>
<p>I was in the top 10-20%, but where within that I don’t know. Gotta love schools that don’t rank! And BDM, I have a feeling your prep school was far from a run of the mill one.</p>
<p>* And BDM, I have a feeling your prep school was far from a run of the mill one.*</p>
<p>lol…yes. Big difference between the run-of-the-mill public high ranking and a prep school ranking. Prep schools might send 15+ kids a year to top schools.</p>
<p>It does not matter HS ranks or not, college still calculates the rank. I have asked this question on one of the info sessions way back when D. was applying to UG and requirement of Honors college was top 2%. Not only D’s school did not rank, top 2% was not possible because they had only 33 kids (which makes it impossible to send 50% - 15+ kids to Ivy either). I was told that college recalculates rank no matter what based on student GPA and class profile and they take into consideration the rigor and specific rigor of the specific HS (as D’s HS is not ranked either as it did not believe much in AP classes, but instead teaching regular classes at higher level than other HS were teaching AP). Yes, there is a big diff. between private prep. HS with 33 kids in the class and big highly ranked public school. they end up in classes of 15 or less kids and close relationships with teachers which makes all the difference.</p>
<p>50% is unlikely but my high school usually averaged in the 35-45% range.</p>
<p>
One kid (ranked around 16 or so) in DS’s year had the EQ to make the counselor bat for him personally. (peronally called the college on behalf of him.) This is a college which routinely rejects the top 5 kids from this high school. He did not get in; but it demonstrated the prowness of his EQ.</p>
<p>A large high school is all about the rank. The rank is highly influenced by the number of AP or honor classes you take as they are weighted higher. In one year, one kid coming in from a middle school with enough non-honor class credits such that (s)he could avoid taking any non-weighted, non-honor/non-AP class; nobody can possibly beat him/her in the ranking game unless (s)he screws up in some classes. It was joked that the top ranked student is already decided before the freshman year starts.</p>
<p>A trick to boost your rank that I heard of is to take a small class (e.g., French language instead of Spanish language) so that in the last year, only a couple of students are in the class and sometimes all of them get As as they are very close to the teacher in such a small class for a year. (Some may be turned into a "self-study class, as the school wants to “save money.”)</p>
<p>What classes you take or from which teacher you take the same class could determine your rank – purely non-sense.</p>
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<p>How big is your definition of top? :)</p>
<p>"50% is unlikely but my high school usually averaged in the 35-45% range. "
-Well, they have applied to Ivy’s, nobody can get accepted without applying. Very few apply to Ivy at D’s HS. Not that many here are aspired to go to Ivy’s. None of those around my D. who eventually ended up in Med. Schools (from her HS class and the one after) have applied to Ivy’s. Most of them had MD parents who knew what it takes and they ended up going to in-state publics. People here are not that big on Ivy’s. Keep in mind that D’s school was the most expansive in the area with great percentage of kids having MD parents who had negative experiences paying student loans. At least, this was my perception based on talking to several MD parents. Their goal for kids was Medical School. Ivy was not in a picture.</p>
<p>when 75% of my high school class was footing the $29000 annual tuition in full, I don’t think debt was really a concern for them.</p>
<p>You’re from the midwest, correct? We simply come from different worlds.</p>
<p>My (Catholic, private, all-girls) prep school topped out at around $14k while I was there. My family spent more on HS tuition than college tuition! (even without factoring in college scholarships)</p>