Daughter is deciding between Vandy, UCB and Tufts for premed as a transfer student. Any advice is appreciated in regards to rigorous, opportunities, prehealth advising supports…etc. Asian female, not a California resident. Thanks!
A few questions:
- What would she like to major in?
- Would she prefer the Bay Area, Boston or Nashville (Nashville is a cool city)?
- What are her thoughts on party/Greek life, campus size, and weather? Does she care if the school has big-time sports?
- Does she care about class sizes? This is more important if she's still taking intro-level courses than if she isn't.
- What would be the cost to attend each and can you afford it without taking out too much in loans?
I can’t speak for UCB or Tufts, but it is pretty difficult to keep a high GPA at Vanderbit. In addition, the percentage of Vandy students being accepted to medical school has been declining in recent years (perhaps due to lower GPAs relatively speaking).
D is a junior pre-med student at Vandy. Two of her friends are transfers from state schools. Both students entered Vandy with 4.0 GPAs, but are now not sure they will even be competitive for medical school (one hovering around 3.5 and another below 3.5).
Just something to think about.
Thanks, Prezbucky and Belle315!
- She would like to major in Public Health or Biology.
- She prefers Boston area but is open to the Bay Area and Nashville.
- no preference for Greek life and party scene but is concern about her social life being an Asian.
She doesn’t care much about sports and prefers smaller classes in a more supportive environment.
4)Her main concerns are rigorous of the classes ( needs good gpa for pre Med), research and volunteer
opportunities , ease of transportation, pre health advising, and being accepted socially as an Asian transfer
student.
5)We have decided money will not affect her decision. - thanks again for your advices!
In some other thread/post there was a mention that Tuft has some early assurance program or so. So it may be worth while for you to research and see if that is of interest. UCB does not have that. UCB may be better for Plan B (if plan to do another major or minor in areas where jobs can be secured). GL
There’s Asian students everywhere, so don’t worry about social life, especially in the Bay Area and Boston. I think it has to do with “fit” for her, because every school you listed will get her into a med school. And every school has serious weed out classes for premed. If you cannot pass those weed out classes, you will not be able to go to med school.
What is the home state? Have you visit all? and which school she likes the most after the visit? Any other options than the three listed?
The advantage of Tufts is their weed out classes are smaller and perhaps they are taught by the professors. If she likes Boston, go Tufts. Try not to take too many science classes, maybe just one bio to start and work her way in. Be sure to get an A in the first bio class and that will boost her confidence.
Not UCB for an OOS premed, particularly not for a transfer.
Vandy is a grind for premeds. Tufts isn’t a particularly friendly school.
Why is she transferring? Where is she now? At a CC? If not, then WHY is she transferring. THAT may be the biggest mistake ever.
Transfers have the hardest time for “opportunities,” since the other students have already lined those up, already know the profs, etc. It’s also harder to get LORs as a transfer student since profs won’t know her as well as they know the others.
Is your DD planning on taking a gap year or is she planning on going to med school right after graduating?
this sounds like a bad plan, unless she’s at a CC and needs to transfer. Are you operating under the impression that she needs to be attending a “better school” than the one she’s attending now???
Someone suggested Tuft’s early assurance, but I doubt Tufts has early assurance for transfer students, but look that up.
Thanks for the advices, Artloversplus and Mom2collegekids.
DD is attending a top 20 school and decided to transfer after her freshmen year due to personal
reasons and would like to keep them private. However, she is now deciding between Vanderbilt and
Tufts because UCB is too big for her. Since GPA is very important for premed students, she is willing
to work hard but would like to know if Vanderbilt is a lot harder than Tufts for getting good grades. Since
Vanderbilt is right in the city, is it easier for her to do research, internship and volunteer? Is it easier to get to
know the professors at Tufts because it’s smaller? Which school has better pre health advising?She has friends
in Boston area but not at Vanderbilt. She can not go visit because she has to decide before she’s done with finals.
Tufts is not a friendly school? The early assurance is not offered to transfer students.
Thanks again!
Thanks, GoldenRock !
OK, here’s some info:
- Vandy does have nearby Vanderbilt Hospital and Vanderbilt Children's Hospital. There are other hospitals in the Nashville area. Obviously there's no shortage of hospitals in the Boston area.
In terms of social life:
Greek Life:
- ~35% at Vanderbilt
- ~16% at Tufts
Percent of undergrads who live on campus:
- 90% at Vanderbilt
- 68% at Tufts
So more students at Vandy live on campus, which probably means more of the social life takes place on campus. And the Greek presence is about twice as big at Vandy as it is at Tufts.
So while fewer students at Tufts live on campus, more of them by proportion will be having their fun outside of the Greek environment.
- If she thinks she might like to be in a sorority, Vandy probably would have the edge in terms of social fit.
- If she is against the Greek scene, Tufts is probably better.
- If she isn't sure or is ambivalent, they're probably roughly even. Since more Vandy students live on campus, there are probably more parties on campus. But more of those parties, proportionally, are Greek, so she might not have access to the sorority parties if she isn't in a sorority. She will likely be welcome at fraternity parties, conversely. The party scene at Tufts probably isn't quite as confusing.
Note, of course, that there’s no shortage of things to do in the Nashville and Boston areas, if she wants to have some fun off-campus. Both cities have pro sports, plenty of music entertainment, good restaurants, etc. Boston is better for the visual arts; Nashville is Music City USA.
I’d say Tufts is the best of the 3 schools (Vandy being too hard, UCB is hard, too big, too many pre-med). Forget about Tufts’ early assurance program, it is only offered to sophomores and super-hard to get in (even with 3.9 GPA, which I heard at least 2 cases).
What state of residence is you?
Good point there. I heard UPenn uses fresh PhD to teach its orgo class, which makes things very unpredictable (a friend’s son had to retake orgo1 because of this).
This is a transfer student. What does that mean?
transferring after frosh year with only bio I and 2, and gen chem I and 2 complete?
transferring after soph year with orgo i and 2 complete as well?
What premed prereqs are still to be complete?
How long with the student be attending the new school?
On CC, ppl regularly discuss details of their problems, like why I have to transfer, what is my GPA… etc. So do not be embarrassed to discuss those issues. However, your user id made you expose yourselves to the public, perhaps that is why you do not want to discuss the issues about your daughter, which makes total strangers hard to diagnose the problems. Your user id is MommyLiu, in which your last name is given. So, lets say you transferring from Duke to Tufts. There is a risk to “second guessing” who is your daughter by giving the names of the schools.
I suggest the next time, you should re-register with a name that is without your last name in it to make the posting confidential. Its a common mistake, when I first started in 2010, I was so dumm that I put my first AND last name in the user id and soon discover that I cannot post anything personal so I re-register with this id right away. And I do not collect Art. 
Thanks for the advices! DD will do more research between the two schools and make her decision soon!
Hi ! I am an undergrad at Tufts, and I was premed for one semester (I have since switched to pre health). It’s really difficult to keep a decent GPA, and I think the average science test grade is a C. Average science class grade is B. If you work really hard, an A- or B+ might be possible. I have met two people here who have tried to take advantage of me to get a higher average in a science class, but overall most people are very helpful and kind. The science classes at first are a bit disheartening because they’re large lecture classes and not very intuitive (i.e., just memorize a bunch of stuff), but I know that as you get deeper into the major, it gets better. I am also deciding between a biology and a biochemistry major too Good luck! @Mommyliu
@Mommyliu There is no grade deflation/inflation, but Chem 1 and Chem 2 (if you have not taken it yet) have small curves for their exams. Tufts Early Assurance is pretty hard (top 1% of the premed group). Greek life is currently banned at Tufts except for a few sororities and frats. The atmosphere here is very, very liberal + echo chamber-y. Depending on personality, it is easy to feel lost here. Personally, I don’t like Tufts a lot, and am debating whether to leave, but the standard of teaching here is pretty good, especially for Bio 13. make sure to take it with koegel (she’s on sabbatical next year though). Kritzer for Organic Chem is very good. Kryatov and Campbell for Chem 1 and 2 are hit/miss, and Bio14 is generally terrible and gross.
I am also an Asian American too, and I would say the diversity here sucks. I had trouble during the first semester finding my “place” on campus (honestly I still don’t know where it is). The culture groups on campus (Korean Students Assoc, Chinese Students Assoc, Taiwanese etc) are very exclusive in my opinion and not very welcoming. Research at Tufts is SUPER EASY to get because the professors are always looking for students to do work.
Prehealth advising here sucks. Carol Baffi-Dugan is not the best. I mostly relied on upperclassmen for help, and even then it’s unreliable because everyone is different.
Do not come to tufts for Public Health/Community Health. I’ve heard Emory has a better department. Our Bio department is very large, and #4 most popular major after CompSci, International Relations, and Economics. Definitely not easy though. And some good professors are leaving soon, I think. Not sure about that though.
Definitely the good thing about Tufts is how accessible it is to Boston by the T. I go off campus a lot to hang out with friends from other schools.
Also (sorry just reading through the comments) - I agree. Tufts is not a friendly school. It’s pretty cliquey. And a weird mix of hypercompetitive/collaborative among the premeds.
I’ve met other transfer students (I’m a first year) and some common things I’ve heard are adjusting to the academics and making friends, since by this time many other students have formed their own groups.
I hope this helped!
Thank you so much mylifeisgone195!
UCB is full of Asians and so is the Bay Area (SF the biggest China Town in the US), but Cal is a big school where you pretty much need to navigate alone. If she has a lot of grit then she’ll do fine at Cal. I do know many Asians who attend Tufts or have graduated. All of them wanted to be doctors. (and all of them loved Tufts so I’m surprised to hear that it’s not a friendly school) Some are still trying to get into a med school, others have gone overseas. The Vandy kids are doing fine, some got into great med schools and some changed their major because it wasn’t what they wanted to do.