What would be on your visiting list?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I'm the parent of a homeschooled junior who is looking to go into medical research or pre-med. </p>

<p>He's got the possibility of being a NMF, but time will tell. Currently he has a 31 as a sophomore on his first ACT. I expect it will come up with October's test as science brought him down. He wasn't prepared for that and didn't finish 1/3rd of it getting a 25. Math was 34, English 33. I don't recall Reading - maybe 30?</p>

<p>We live in south central PA. Due to time restraints (two cc classes he can't miss - microbio esp) and his EMT Basic training, we can only visit places within 6 - 8 hours of home this fall. (Leave Thursday after class, visit Friday, return home Sat.) Money IS an issue. He has two brothers, one of whom is already in college in GA - different major - different future - different college, the other is two years behind him and isn't likely to be as academically talented, so will need money from us. Then there's grad school to think about for him.</p>

<p>What would be on your list of places for him to visit? He has the University of Rochester at the top of his list at the moment. We're going to visit that in the winter.</p>

<p>He visited colleges with his older brother and has said he prefers small to large, and suburban or rural to major city. Little interest in big name sports, but likes to play pick up games with the guys. Mostly would prefer a nice lab and chances to be in it with like-minded students and mentoring profs. He's not my partier. He's my "study for fun" guy. Also loves art and drawing and will do this when not in the books (academic or for pleasure).</p>

<p>Then, IF he gets NMSF, we hope to visit Baylor and perhaps U of Alabama (financial safeties at that point) in the spring once his EMT course is done. What would you add between here and there or, aside from Baylor, this side of the Mississippi? He considered Rice and is not interested in them (his choice - not mine).</p>

<p>As a parent, I will not pay for a super liberal college (no red lights on Choosing the Right College site). Anything else is his choice. If Christian, prefer protestant and not super legalistic rules types. Need not be Christian (secular alumni here).</p>

<p>Note: I am just looking at places to visit to give him choices to consider. I do the visit planning for the family. He'll be picking where he applies and where he goes (considering our finances). He has oodles of brochures from his sophomore PSAT and ACT, but has only really been attracted to U of R or perhaps Vanderbilt - maybe Yale or Princeton. I want him to consider more than those.</p>

2

<p>I would consider Duke and Wake Forest in North Carolina. Both are close to great hospitals where there are abundant research/volunteering opportunities, more suburban (Durham and Winston-Salem are not very big cities), and have great pre-med programs. Wake Forest also has a large Christian student body and is probably on the more conservative side as far as schools go. I think Wake is great, because you get a strong liberal arts foundation, but I digress (PM me if you have more questions).</p>

<p>Emory might be another school to consider, but that is in Atlanta (great pre-med program).</p>

<p>However, I think Wake Forest and Duke would be great options!</p>

3

<p>There are a lot of good schools in PA. You should look at those. Not sure if the more competitive schools will accept a home-school, but most should be fine with it.</p>

<p>Penn State
Temple
Villanova
Pitt
etc.</p>

4

<p>If the University of Rochester is at the top of his list, he may like Case Western. They are often compared.</p>

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<p>We haven’t encountered any problems at all with homeschooling and admissions, nor do I expect any in the future. He was in school until 6th grade - oldest till 8th. Then we had a discussion with the principal who informed us that, “Public schools are there to educate the ‘average’ child. Good students will do well no matter what they do or where they go, so it doesn’t matter what the school offers.” There are no AP classes offered at this school and a “really good” SAT score is 1100 (CR/M). The majority of students are encouraged to go through our local community college if they want to go on to college. After all, it’s cheaper to get remedial classes done there. (My views on that last sentence - they don’t actually say that, but it’s what happens many times.)</p>

<p>We’ll take our chances with homeschooling. In the crowd I associate with, homeschooled students with good stats have gone on to pretty much anywhere they want to go - exceptions being the UC’s and UGA - none of which appeal to us. My oldest won more in scholarship money (merit based) than all but one of his high school peers - and that one was going to a more expensive college. That peer was also the only one close to my son’s stats and he did a lot of independent learning (they were buddies).</p>

<p>To each our own, but I have no regrets pulling them when we did. My youngest is back in school for 9th grade, but he is more of an average academic student AND we’re supplementing math/science on our own. Plus, starting with this year’s freshmen, the school has made some changes that ought to be for the better, such as 9th grade talented students no longer being in Alg 2 with 12th grade “hope to pass, but don’t really care” students.</p>

<p>Incidentally, we offered to let this son return to school too. He took less than a second to tell us, “NO WAY!” He’s enjoying his community college classes though.</p>

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<p>Many thanks for this one. I just read a bit about it and it might indeed be a great fit for him. It’s definitely worth a visit.</p>

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<p>Emory looks worth a visit. As with Case, he might decide a city is fine once he sees the rest of the place. Time will tell. Wake is a possibility too. Thanks. Duke gets a red light. Not an option for my $$.</p>

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<p>Penn State is too big. Temple gets a red light. Villanova might interest him, but it didn’t seem to be as well known for Bio types as other types of majors with a quick glance. Pitt would be fairly easy to visit. Thanks.</p>

7

<p>Franklin & Marshall comes to mind. Very strong in the sciences, small and suburban, located in PA.</p>

<p>I don’t know how CRC rates it, but it doesn’t come across as a rabidly liberal place.</p>

8

<p>If med school is in the future, then undergrad cost becomes a top priority. Besides your home state schools, look at schools (including science and tech) that give extremely generous aid, both merit and need based. Consider RIT, which has generous aid and scholarships for top students. Also consider all of the Ivies, who collectively have the most generous aid of all (possibly full ride for you).</p>

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<p>I would steer clear of LACs if the goal is med school.</p>

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<p>^informative, is your advice based on cost?</p>

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<p>Sticking inside PA, your two best bets for bioscience/pre-med are Penn and Pitt. Although both have very urban campuses, and neither are nearly as big as PSU, and they are both in the top 5 of NIH funding and have their medical/bioscience centers right on their undergrad campuses. This is advantageous for having a wide-variety of higher profile labs to work in and get a feel for (finding one that suits your interests and personality is important) and that will also be easy, logistically, to do around an undergrad social and class schedule…as well as making it easy to shadow clinicians, volunteer, etc, on the medical side of things. Being able to do some substantial research as an undergrad, and explore different types of labs, etc., is important if he is thinking of going into research side of things (or MD/PhD), and a goal should be, if possible, getting some sort of authorship out of his time spent doing research. From personal experience, I’d have to say Pitt is probably a little better set up to facilitating more substantial undergrad research, particularly within its honors college, than Penn, but really at either it will still come down mostly to self-initiative. At Pitt, he would assuredly be in the honors college as a freshman and likely get substantial financial aid. It sounds like with some modest improvement in his ACT scores, he’d be likely to get full tuition based on other posters’ reports on here. Extracurricularly speaking, the art scenes are going to be better in those cities than anywhere else in the state, and the nice thing about Pitt, in particular, is that most of the city’s museums and transportation are free for students. Pitt also sits adjacent to a large wooded park so it is easier to escape the “urbaness” compared to Penn. Anyway, if you visit Pitt, make sure to visit the honors college in the Cathedral of Learning as it is where you’ll find the highest concentrations of students that like to study for fun. In state, another non-urban place I would also recommend looking at is Lehigh. I’m in neuroscience research, also from southwest-central PA, and have substantial experience at both Pitt and Penn, including working with undergrads at both, so feel free to PM me if you have any questions.</p>

12

<p>Is Boston too far away?</p>

<p>BC/Northeastern/BU/Tufts/Emerson…etc.</p>

<p>There are a significant number of schools in the Boston area you could check out.</p>

13

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Nonsense.</p>

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Quite aside from the dubious recommendation of Emerson for pre-med, the OP clearly stated a preference for rural and suburban schools. One can make a case for Tufts being suburban, I suppose, but a school like BU is about as urban as you can get.</p>

14

<p>Boston is too far away for a quick visit this fall. Perhaps in the spring we could visit that area if we don’t have enough choices more locally. Yes, BU is urban, but so are some of the other options. Once he sees a lab, he might decide location isn’t as important. Who knows? </p>

<p>Otherwise, I’ll check into Franklin and Marshall and Pitt. Neither have been on our radar before. Wgmcp101, I’ll probably take you up on the pm later today or tomorrow. Right now I have to get ready for work. You make Pitt sound very interesting. Case definitely met with approval when junior got home yesterday and read about them. Wake Forest not so much.</p>