<p>Hey. So I am interested in Premed, and yes, i know that Johns Hopkins is very competitive and intensive when it comes to premed. But when it comes to my choice... I take a few things into consideration and it makes it hard for me to decide. </p>
<p>(this is assuming the impossible happened i got into both schools and had to decide)
My brother goes to university of maryland for mechanical engineering. He has his own apartment and he is a pretty good student there. If I went to UMD, I would be able to live with him, and the transition would be easier for me. I would also be able to stay away from peer pressure until i figured things out.
UMD is definitely cheaper compared to JHU, so that makes it hard for me to just turn it down when I know I would have to pay a lot if I went to JHU.
When it comes to the academic side of things, which is probably the biggest factor for me, do you think I would get a good enough education at UMD, to be able to take the MCAT and hopefully get into a medical school like JHU? Or is it better to go to JHU from the start?
Like I thought if I went to UMD, and did well and hopefully did well on the MCAT as well, it may not be so unrealistic for me to try to get into JHU for med school. Am I right about this? </p>
<p>I guess what I'm asking is... Do you think it would be foolish to go to UMD and hope to get into JHU in the future for med school? Should I just go to JHU now and deal with how expensive it is?</p>
<p>This isn’t a direct answer to your question, but I’m not sure I agree that going to Hopkins (or Harvard or Stanford or…) for medical school is really important for most doctors. If you want to be a medical school professor and do research, going to a name-brand medical school may matter more, but for doctors in practice, I don’t think so. The liver is the liver, and whether you study it at Hopkins or Maryland, it functions pretty much the same way.</p>
<p>Unless you have a good reason to do otherwise, I think medical school is the time to go to your state’s medical school and save tuition money. If you want prestige so you can have a career in academic medicine and research, what really matters most is where you do your residency. So my advice would be, get an excellent undergraduate education (which you can do at either UMCP or JHU) so you’ll be as competitive an applicant for medical school as possible. Take the in-state tuition for medical school and graduate near the top of your class. Then do your residency at Hopkins or Mass General or someplace very fancy.</p>
<p>To answer your question: do I think it would be foolish to go to UMCP? No. But I am kind of a college snob, with a brand-name college education, so if you were to ask, “Would it be worth paying more to go to Hopkins undergrad instead of UMCP?” I’d have to say, “Possibly, but that’s really a question only you and your family can answer.”</p>
<p>I personally think University of Maryland is better.</p>