UPitt or MIT/JHU/CalTech/UCSD/NWU for Biomed with Pre-Med

<p>My son got into UPitt with Full Scholarship, Engineering Scholarship and admission to Honors Program. He was invited to apply to the Guaranteed Admissions Program to Medical School, but got a regret letter. He also got into Biomed Programs at JHU, NWU, UCSD (Regents Scholar) and UC Berkeley (Regents Scholar) and admission to MIT and CalTech - where you choose the department at the end of freshman year. He wants to pursue a MD/PhD program at a top Med school after doing Biomedical Engineering as Undergrad. After visiting all the schools he is leaning towards MIT and UPitt and he has to make a final choice - he has got about 20K scholarship from MIT MIT has excellent Biomedical Research facilities on campus and also a lot more Biomed institutions in Boston. </p>

<p>Appreciate all of your inputs to decide between MIT and UPitt, the pros and cons. </p>

<p>Is there any published statistics /data of which Med Schools UPitt Pre-Med Undergrads are heading to - the data on UPitt PDF is very old.</p>

<p>I don’t know much about this particular field, sorry, but in general, can you afford MIT without taking out lots of loans or having your son take out more than the federal Stafford loan each year? If so, and considering he is getting scholarship money from MIT, I think I would vote for MIT over Pitt. And I am a big Pitt booster, as everyone here knows. (I’m assuming that the MIT scholarship is $20,000 a year for four years.)</p>

<p>I’m repeating my post from the other thread, since I feel strongly about it: I love Pitt, but in your case I would choose MIT. There are many school to school comparisons where the scholarship at Pitt is worth it. Pitt-MIT is not one of them. MIT can be considered the best in the world - you don’t want to regret this chance.</p>

<p>Thank you for the advice - it is 20K per year at MIT and as parents we will work hard to enable my child pursue his education and get into a top medical school _ I understand that 78% of all MIT Pre-Meds get into Medical school, most of them highly ranked ones, including UPitt.</p>

<p>Thank you Southeastmom.</p>

<p>While MIT is an incredible school, as far as biomed-engineering, Hopkins is ranked number one, MIT around 8, and Pitt around 14, though, on a purely observational level, Pitt appears to be near the front for biomed-engineering, some of the stuff coming out of the McGowan Institute is utterly incredible.</p>

<p>Though I don’t know you’re exact financial situation, paying <10,000 a year at Pitt versus >30,000 at MIT prior to any med school debt, seems like a pretty easy choice to me. Not to mention the criteria on which med school admission is based, even though an MIT student would have the edge over a Pitt student, GPA is extremely important in med school admissions, not suggesting your son couldn’t cut it at MIT, but MIT is an incredibly difficult school. Additionally, Pitt would offer a ridiculous amount of medical research/internship opportunities, another really important part of a med school application. </p>

<p>Hope this unorganized rant was helpful, and congrats to your son, seems like a brilliant kid.</p>

<p>Since med school is the goal, porschedude is also correct, I would have a difficult time making this decision, that’s for sure.</p>

<p>78% is high, but the fact that it isn’t 100% shows you that an MIT degree isn’t the most important thing. I’m from MA, and I love MIT, so i , personally would choose it. However, considering the amount of debt, along with it, doesn’t look too appealing.</p>

<p>My current school, Brandeis, is 75% into med school, so the 78% is starting to look less impressive. </p>

<p>Your son seems incredibly brilliant, so he will make the right choice for him. Good luck!</p>

<p>I got into uc berkeley and johns hopkins. However, I do not which ones to choose. I like johns hopkins campus but do not like baltimore. All my friends advice me to choose johns hopkins than uc berkeley if I want to do pre-med. I heard many horror stories outside johns hopkins like crime and there is no life in the campus during weekend. Anyone from johns hopkins can give me advice. I love california and thinking about studying in uc berkeley.</p>

<p>If you don’t like Baltimore (or surrounding areas like Towson) and like Berkeley better, than go to UC. You’ll get a great education at both. Crime is an issue around JHU. The other factor will be research opportunities for undergrads. Look into that as much as possible (with real students, not college marketing materials) before your decision. Sort of like choosing between a $500 bottle of wine and a $475 bottle of wine. Both taste great!</p>