UT vs TCU for Biology, Pre-Med

College Search & Selection
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Hello, I’m going to be a biology major on a pre-med track and I have narrowed down my decision to UT Austin and TCU, but I have to decide between one or the other soon. I have dreams of attending a Texas med school and one day working for a program such as Doctors Without Borders.

I’m the valedictorian of my class, but I’m coming from a small rural school. I also have some dual credits from a small community college. Being from small schools, the size of UT scares me a little bit because I do well in an environment where I have access to my teachers/professors, but I really like the diverse student body and overall vibe of Austin. It seems like a fun place to be a college student for sure, and it seems like it has good research opportunities such as the freshman research initiative (on a side note, does anyone know if that selective or is that available to most freshman who apply?) and that a high percentage of undergrads do research. I’m scared of being a number, but I’ve also heard UT is working to change that stereotype and offering more opportunities for undergrads to succeed.

I was originally in love with TCU because of the small class sizes and all of the opportunities offered by the pre-health department. I was also accepted into their honors college, which is a plus. They boast an 80% med school acceptance rate, while I’ve heard UT’s is only like 54%. However, UT seems to be higher ranked for pre-med programs, so this is a bit confusing to me. UT also sounds like it has much more competition for clinical and volunteer experience and not much help from advisors, whereas TCU advisors work closely with you to help find those kind of things.

For right now, I’d like to put money aside as a factor and just focus on the programs and the environments that each university offers. I’d like to hear thoughts on the programs and what will set me up to have a better GPA, MCAT score, and overall chance at medical school and achieving my dream of helping people. I’d also like to hear about the social aspects of each to know what environment I would thrive in… Or anything else if I there’s something I’m missing in my decision. Again, I’m aware of cost difference and that’s not what I want to compare here.

Please help- I’m running out of time and losing sleep! Which school should I attend? Any information is greatly appreciated!

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Not sure why this is a difficult decision - just take your own words - which I’ve listed below:

I was originally in love with TCU because of the small class sizes and all of the opportunities offered by the pre-health department. I was also accepted into their honors college, which is a plus. They boast an 80% med school acceptance rate, while I’ve heard UT’s is only like 54%.

UT also sounds like it has much more competition for clinical and volunteer experience and not much help from advisors, whereas TCU advisors work closely with you to help find those kind of things.

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I would bet that all of us who are healthcare providers would counsel you not to do this. You can if you have enough money to pay for undergrad AND medical school. Otherwise, debt service needs to be considered.

Multiple patients of mine who are also healthcare providers regularly rue the debt load they incurred. One, a second career physician, didn’t make his last payment until he was 62. Another didn’t save a dime for retirement until well into his 40s.

As I said, if you have it all covered, awesome. If not, I advise students to make budget a primary factor.

As for the rest, rankings mean nothing for getting into medical school. Placement success rates can be rigged to look more impressive than they are. You don’t want to know the success rate of those who got far enough to apply. You want to know the success rate of those who started in pre-med.

Congrats!

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