UT Austin Honors vs Emory (and Macalester & UTD lowkey) for pre-med

I’m currently deciding between UT Austin Health Science Honors and Emory (and lowkey UT Dallas and Macalester) for premed. UT, Emory, and Macalester will fortunately cost about the same because of merit scholarships from the latter two.

My parents think that UT Austin is the best choice because I already have in-state residency, and Texas has a lot of medical schools, most of which love residents. Also, there’s a scholarship I have about an 80% chance of getting which will give me around 5k a year for 8 years (thus medical school) if and only if I attend an instate undergrad and medical school (it’s 4 years if I don’t do instate med school)–they also give us “mentors” who we can shadow right off the bat. Also, honors will keep me from drowning in the huge student population…maybe. Here’s my pros/cons list:

PROS

  • close to home, but far away enough to get the college life
  • austin is an amazing city
  • safest for medical school??? (idk)
  • will be an eensy bit cheaper than Emory/Mac if I get scholarship
  • FRI program basically guarantees I’ll do research
  • easier to get higher GPA
  • 80% chance of getting that mentor to shadow
  • I’m already doing clinical volunteering at hospital next to UT (200+ hours)
  • actually I have a side question about this...if I take a break during the summer and start again freshman year, can I count my hs hours? And if I can't, does that matter?

CONS

  • huge class sizes, professors don’t care about you, no committee/active UT body that care about premeds (would honors help for this?) * this is huge, huge, huge for me
  • I guess it’ll be harder to get into a T20 medical school. However, I don’t think I’m smart enough to get into those places even if I go to Emory, so that’s a consideration as well
  • not really known for natural sciences

As for environment/feel, I think I could fit in at both UT and Emory? I do have some concerns about Emory atmosphere-wise, but it’s not really fit as it is more unhealthy. I don’t have a dream school–which luckily saved me from being crushed by all my waitlists–since I believe college is such a large institution, that I could probably be at least okay in the majority of them. For Emory, I don’t care about prestige, but I have heard the top medical schools do. Like I said though, I doubt I’m good enough to get in there lol. Here’s my Emory pros/cons list: (also a mid-way thank you to everybody for helping me!!!)

PROS:

  • gorgeous campus (ok, this shouldn’t matter but wow it’s so pretty)
  • professors actually care about you? * again, huge for me
  • I’ve heard pre-med advising is pretty good, is this true?
  • huge research institution for natural sciences
  • T20 school
  • atlanta seems like an amazing city!
  • not much greek life
  • very diverse

CONS:

  • I’ve heard it’s cutthroat, premed is filled with gunners
  • It’s a huge research institution, but I’ve heard it’s hard to do research as an undergrad
  • not much school spirit, students diss Emory for fun???
  • not safe for medical school, acceptance rate into med school pretty low. UT Honors=90%
  • it’s diverse, but people usually put themselves in bubbles of the same race=hard to branch out?
  • high GPA is HARD. I am a slacker in high school and I’m worried I won’t be able to get my study stuff together. Does getting the Liberal Arts merit scholarship mean I can have hope I’d survive?
  • If I do learn how to study a lot, I won’t really go out into Atlanta that much. The tour guide said she visited like once a month.
  • the Emory village that’s right outside Emory seems to suck

I would really, really love if an Emory student/alum could clear up potential misconceptions I have about the school! I know it sounds pretty negative, but I’m mostly just nervous that I’ll die in the competitiveness and won’t have friends.

Both schools also don’t seem to have that many study abroad opportunities for sciences. Again, cost is not an issue, although UTD’s full ride will definitely stress my parents out a lot less. I’m also considering Macalester a little because it’s an LAC, although it’s definitely not safe for medical school and not known for the sciences.

I’m definitely nottt expecting to get into my waitlists but they include Brown, JHU, Georgetown, Case Western, Vandy. Basically all the “good” premed schools lololol ugh now I’m sad again.

So there’s that I guess…TLDR Emory’s prestige & quality vs UT’s convenience & safety?

Thank you all in advance for at least reading my post! I’d really love it if anyone could give me some insight. I’ll definitely respond as soon as I get notifications!

That “90%” for UT is “after all the freshmen and sophomores were weeded out”. So, it’s 90%of the 20% that survived the premed gauntlet.

A high GPA at UT is as hard as at Emory.

The one school that doesn’t deliberately weed is Macalester.

It sounds like Austin is the best choice since you have shadowing opportunities and that scholarship that carries over to med school.
Check to see if graduating from a college out of Texas but with parents who live in Texas counts as residency for Texas med schools.
However yes the classes will be huge and no professor will know you outside of your research lab for the first two years.
Classes will be smaller at Emory and smaller still at Macalester.

Regarding the tour guide who went to Atlanta about once a month - that’s pretty typical or above average. College students spend most of their time on campus, where there are so many things to do. High school students always overestimate how much they’ll want to go off campus - in most cases it’ll be a couple times a semester. In most cases they’ll hang out in the area around campus that’s it. Here Austin and Macalester win over Emory.

@culaccino
Most of the negatives you have about Emory aren’t really true. You should visit, instead of relying on “red-dit” users whom are possibly jaded due to rejection. However, if you aren’t willing to work hard, maybe pre-med is not for you at any school.

@MYOS1634 Holy crappp thank you for the helpful advice! I looked it up and I could still be a Texas resident!! You’re amazing!!!

@VANDEMORY1342 thanks for letting me know!

Er it’s not that I’m not willing to work hard…I’m sorry if I came off like that. I meant that I’m not smart enough to be in medicine, and that I might be too far behind others when it comes to studying efficiently…but people seem to be taking it in the wrong way so please disregard, I don’t want to cause further misunderstandings. I have two friends at Emory who told me these negatives, but I’ll ignore them then (it’s probably because they’re expecting everything available as freshmen).