Which college should I attend?

<p>So come fall, I am stuck with the dilemma of choosing a college to apply early to. I was hoping those with more experience than me can give me advice or share any wisdom.
The problem is, for a student on a limited income, should one attend a well-known school such as Johns Hopkins? Perhaps, one should save tens of thousands of dollars by attending the state school, University of Maryland, for undergraduate?
But the problem lies in the fear that going to a lesser known school will hurt one's chances at a top medical school. What is a student who is able to get into both schools (preferably early decision to Hopkins because of the higher admittance rate) to do? Apply early to Hopkins and kiss the money goodbye, or kiss a renown pre-med school goodbye and keep the money?
Any help is much appreciated.</p>

<p>I’d advise you to choose the college that offers the combination of fit, affordability and opportunity. </p>

<p>I certainly wouldn’t choose a college just because you believe it will give a leg up on med schools applications. For 2 reasons:</p>

<p>1) 3/4th of all freshmen pre-meds never actually apply to medical school. Poor grades are only a small part of the reason. Most never apply because they discover a career they find more appealing during college. (IOW, pick a college because you want to go there, not just because of alleged strength of its pre-med program.)</p>

<p>2) The name of the school on your diploma (with very few exceptions–think HYPS) makes no difference to med school adcoms. Your GPA and MCAT are what gets your application considered.</p>

<p>I would strongly advise you to consider the amount of debt it will require to attend any specific college and try to minimize that debt. </p>

<p>Medical school is expensive (and if you don’t think so–take a look at these reports from AMCAS <a href=“https://services.aamc.org/tsfreports/select.cfm?year_of_study=2013[/url]”>https://services.aamc.org/tsfreports/select.cfm?year_of_study=2013&lt;/a&gt; ) and there is very little FA except for unsubsidized loans. Having significant debt from undergrad will only make paying for med school more difficult. It can also limit your ability to practice in medical specialty of your choice, start or buy a private medial practice, or even buy a house–for decades after med school graduation.</p>

<p>JHU does not guarantee to meet the full need of accepted students. If you apply ED, it’s possible that you will get accepted but not be able to make the finances work. Applying ED will prevent you from being able to compare FA packages. If money is a serious consideration, please do not apply ED anywhere.</p>

<p>May someone prioritize my list of potential colleges in order of difficulty to get into (premed)? I DO consider other factors such as setting and programs and not just prestige, but again prestige is one of the factors and I am researching on that right now. I obviously could do hard research on average GPAs and testing scores, but I am not asking you guys to do that either. Just a general idea of difficulty for admission.</p>

<p>In no particular order:
Cornell University, University of Pennsylvania, John Hopkins, Stanford, Notre Dame</p>

<p>I would also really appreciate it if you guys could also give a short 1 sentence description on any first-thoughts of the schools and their premed programs, such as difficulty or fame.</p>

<p>bump!!!</p>

<p>any more suggestions?</p>

<p>Start here:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/1122176-bluedevilmikes-ten-step-guide-picking-premed-school.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/1122176-bluedevilmikes-ten-step-guide-picking-premed-school.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>great link…thanks wayoutwestmom!!
I also wanted to get some responses from pre-med students attending Johns Hopkins or other top universities in order to find out the complications in the school’s education system (i.e. I have heard Hopkins has a curve tending towards grade deflation which causes a lower gpa to stand out for medical schools the student applies to)</p>

<p>I am not sure you listened carefully to WayOutWestMom’s post. All of the colleges you listed are going to be very expensive for undergrad. Pick a second tier or state college that you can attend at lower cost, get a great GPA and study hard for the MCAT, and save your money (or at least limit your undergrad debt). If you get good grades and do well on the MCAT, you will get into med school. Is there some reason you feel a need to go to a “renowned” medical school, by the way? It feels to me like you are way too invested in the “prestige” of your undergrad college and possible medical school – and don’t have the financial resources to support your Cadillac tastes.</p>

<p>D2 attended a JHU peer school. There’s poster here whose son is a JHU student.</p>

<p>Grade deflation, per se, isn’t so much the issue at schools like these, but rather that you have have lots** of smart, very motivated pre meds and only a limited of number of As available. (20% is typical). This means that the competition for those limited As tends to be fierce. </p>

<p>**At D2’s uni and at JHU, between 30-40% of all incoming freshmen are “pre-meds”. That’s a lot of pre meds that you’ll be competing against.</p>

<p>These schools have, needless to say, pretty big attrition rates among pre meds. 75-85% is pretty common.</p>

<p>The other issue is the committee letter. You need to look closely at the individual school’s policy for issuing a committee for health professions applicants. Some schools will limit committee letters to only those applicants whom they feel have the very best chances of gaining a med acceptance. (JHU has a reputation for being particularly harsh in this area, but, to be fair, there are plenty of upper tier colleges that do the same thing.) This means a good, but not excellent, candidate will be prevented from applying. No committee letter is a huge red flag on your application. It can prevent your app from getting serious consideration from adcomms. (Cynically speaking this is how X university can claim that 85% of its pre med applicants get accepted to medical school. Because they don’t allow weaker applicants to apply.)</p>

<p>BTW, except for a small handful of tippy top schools (HYPS), don’t expect to get any consideration from med school adcomms w/r/t your GPA. Even then the amount to consideration you’ll get is tiny–on the order of .1-.2 added to your GPA. Not really enough to redeem a mediocre GPA.</p>

<p>Applicants do not get their GPA “adjusted” because they attended an intense undergrad or had a “hard” major. (Math, engineering, physics, comp sci, or whatever you consider “hard”.) Fact of life in the med admissions process.</p>

<p>Very insightful—I did not want to let up the chance to attend a top school, but if Johns Hopkins pre-med is just a contest designed to improve the school’s reputation, then I believe I would be better off attending another school so that I can get into a medical school stress-free.</p>

<p>To add to WayOutWestMom’s post- the JHU preadvising info mentions that applicants to med school who want a committee letter (and I agree that not getting one is a real red flag), applicants need a 3.5 GPA and 3,5 science GPA. The decision to attend a very competitive school is an individual one. The general thinking is that the most important factors for getting into medical school are your GPA and MCAT score. You must be aware of published acceptance rates and how the information is obtained. If a school is not supporting a number of candidates for application to medical school, then you can see where the acceptance rates that they publish might be very high, in the 90% range, as only the most competitive students are supported, students that would’ve obtained admission to medical school anyway. I also agree that you must be aware of the dropout rate of premed students for various reasons. The best advice I can have (as a physician) is to have a very good backup plan in case you decide not to pursue a career in medicine.</p>

<p>OP–you’re not hearing what we’re saying. There is no stress-free path to medical school.</p>

<p>You will face stiff competition no matter what college you decided to attend. Even at so-called lesser schools, the strongest students cluster into the STEM majors (that category includes your pre-meds). </p>

<p>I only used JHU as an example because you mentioned that school specifically. What I said about JHU is also true of a good many “elite” schools. (Including the one D2 attended.)</p>

<p>What PsychoDad said is also right. You should never ever believe any numbers a school posts on its website about the number or percentage of students accepted into med school because you have no clue how this information was derived. Consider it all as marketing propaganda.</p>

<p>Here’s some numbers for you–</p>

<p>Nationally, only about 20-25% of all freshmen pre-meds persevere until the end of junior year (when most apply); last year ~100,000 unique individuals took the MCAT; last year ~46,000 unique individuals applied to US medical schools. Only ~19,000 were accepted.</p>

<p>The take-away----Have a back-up plan.</p>

<p>I know someone with the full ride at JHU. Go to your cheapest (free) option that you personally like. There is nothing else that matters. Get college GPA = 4.0 (close), decent MCAT, participate in ECs, but most importantly, ENJOY the most important 4 years of your life, enjoy while it lasts, it will get very pushy in Med. School and later. Here is you chance, do not choose the place where you personally would feel miserable.</p>

<p>Thanks MiamiDAP, that reaffirms what I have learned. The only question I had was how difficult it was to earn a good grade and enjoy college at a competitive school like JHU. I am interested in going there, but I do not want to be miserably studying away for naught.</p>