They do give OOS merit, but not a lot. UDel, UMASS Amherst and UCONN offered considerably more than the others. My daughter chose UDel for the cost, plus they have one of the top DPT programs in the country (but my child decided to go elsewhere). She graduated from the honors college with a 3.9 and was accepted into every dpt program she applied to (and UD at BU, another top program).
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Yes agreeâbut for well known schools like MIT that grade significantly harder, the med admissions know this and still tend tolook for kids in the top group relative to their classmates, which is where premed advising letters come in handy: those contextualize the gpa at that undergrad institution.
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Yup we know all of those schools. Had a UConn a Pitt grad and UDel is front and center for #3. Pitt likes high scores - as high as you can go - and you need 1490 for the GAP medical program anyway. UConn gave my older son $5k more but also cost $5k more than Pitt so it was a wash.
Definitely agree that keeping UG cost low is smart for people heading to med school but a guaranteed admit program like Pitt GAP might tip the scales if the difference is small.
And if you want to save money UG there are options. You can be an RA to cut out a year of R&B cost. Also, we found that Pitt accepted enough APs and had enough flexibility that my S18 could realistically have graduated UG in 7 semesters.
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Pitt GAP had a section on HS research. Not sure if it is still there (my daughter was invited to apply). Also keep in mind that it isnât always easy to secure an RA position.
You should really figure out a budget and come back to ask your question when you have that. Your preference for the Northeast AND merit scholarships is a tough combo. And maybe include some info about how strong a student your child is. âPretty goodâ student can mean a lot of things.
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As an earlier post suggested, itâs much better to get an 4.0 from state U than a 3.0 from MIT.
Med school do know that some schools are more difficult than others and they profess it isnât a significant consideration. How would they even do it if they could? Does MIT engineering get more of a boost than MIT humanities? What about Rutgers engineering vs Rutgers humanities or Rutgers engineering vs MIT humanities? Should they scale Brown down because âeveryoneâ gets an A at Brown?
Who wants to take the chance that medical schools will let a 3.0 at MIT slide when 3.7 is what everyone else strives for?
I know someone who attends a top school that is known to be extremely rigorous and the pre-med science classes are not easy. Itâs very hard to stand out in a class filled with top academic students (SAT 1500 range), especially when the final grades are based on a curve.
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Your child can take the required courses for medical school applicants at just about any four year college in this country, arts conservatories excluded.
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Your child can major in ANYTHING as an undergrad as long as they take the required courses for medical school applicants. Any major!
Your child should probably choose a major where there are some job prospects in case he doesnât get accepted to medical school. The majority of students applying to medical school receive NO acceptances. So every medical school aspirant needs a Plan B.
Biology isnât a particularly good plan B as there are limited jobs in the field.
As I said aboveâŠyour student can take the required courses at any college. TCNJ is actually well regarded where I live (a New England state).
Well thenâŠwe need to KNOW your budget. And your kidâs GPA and SAT or CT score.
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Thank you for the info on Pitt
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Do you feel comfortable providing information on budget, grades, and course rigor? It is hard to make recommendations without.
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There are a lot of BS/MD programs out there. For obvious reasons, they are insanely competitive to get in. Pitt might be one of the most competitive.
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I am going to recommend SUNY again. They will match the cost of Rutgers for many of the schools (not all), and SUNY Geneseo is on the list which is an excellent school. There are also other SUNY schools listed that are less competitive.
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This is a common question on CC.
I know a couple of doctors. They have both said that other students in their MD program came from âall over the placeâ (this is an exact quote from one of them). I have a daughter currently studying for a DVM (not quite the same, but similar). We got to listen to the opening ceremony on Zoom. They said where each student had gotten their bachelorâs degree. The same thing was true. The various students in the program had gotten their bachelorâs at a very wide range of universities. It was rare to hear the same university mentioned twice.
There are a very large number of universities with very good premed programs. You happen to have a few as in-state public universities for you.
Medical school is expensive. You need to budget for a full 8 years, where the last 4 will be expensive. It would be a very good idea, if you can do it, for your daughter to graduate from university with no debt. It would be even better if she can graduate with some money left in a college fund.
Biology research is similar but not quite the same. My other daughter (the one who is not getting a DVM) is working in biotech research (cancer research this month). Again the people she works with graduated from a wide range of universities. There is also some variation in terms of how much education they have. Some have bachelorâs degrees. Some have a bachelorâs and a masterâs. Some have a PhD. Generally the ones leading the research have PhDâs. However, the ones who are last to be laid off (biotech funding can be variable) are likely to have a bachelorâs, and be very happy and very good and very flexible in doing lab work.
And the people who I have known who got graduate degrees at highly ranked universities also got their bachelorâs degrees at a very wide range of universities, and report that other students in their program got bachelorâs degrees âall over the placeâ.
One thing that I might add regarding biotech research: I have consistently heard that there are a lot of biology majors who graduate with a bachelorâs, who had intended to be premed, but who have not (at least yet) gotten accepted to any medical school. I have consistently heard that this implies that salaries and job opportunities for people with just a bachelorâs degree in biology are limited. Our experience is almost exactly the opposite, but I think that there is a good reason. Our youngest when in school discovered that she loved lab work and was very good at it. Therefore as a biology major she essentially took every lab class that she could (starting in her sophomore year of university). While other biology majors were getting medical clinical experience, she was in a lab helping with cancer research. Then she graduated and got a job that at least to me sounded a lot like what she had already being doing for the last two years of university. Her interview happened to be during the COVID pandemic and therefore were mostly on-line, which means that I got to hear some of them. They went into a lot of detail regarding what she had already done in the lab (most of which meant very little to me).
From this I would suggest that not all biology bachelorâs degrees are the same. What a student does while they are an undergraduate student (such as research) will matter. However, there are opportunities at a very wide range of universities so I do not think that this will help you and your daughter choose a school. Unfortunately for a premed student they pretty much have to spend a lot of time getting clinical medical experience, which to me seems to be incompatible with spending many hours in a lab growing human cancer cells or bone marrow cells and running experiments on them.
Putting this all togetherâŠ
This is what I am thinking also. To me Rutgers looks like a very good option. I do not know TCNJ much at all, but it is also most likely a good option. I have heard good things about the SUNYâs and apparently they have decent aid for out of state students. I know or have known a number of Rutgers graduates and they have all made the school look very good. Perhaps I was meeting the better Rutgers graduates, but they certainly made the point that it is possible to do very well with a degree from Rutgers.
We know the Boston area somewhat better (I went to university across the river in Cambridge). However, at least the schools where a daughter got accepted (NEU and BU) were too expensive and at least based on what we would have needed to pay were probably not worth the price for undergrad (graduate school is a different issue, but not one that you need to worry about yet).
It is probably worth mentioning that the very famous big name schools (MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, WUSTL, âŠ) in most cases get a higher percentage of their graduates into medical school. However, a lot of this, and possibly all of this, comes from the quality of freshmen students who start off at each of these schools in the first place. The student who was so strong in high school that they got accepted to Harvard and Johns Hopkins, but who went to Rutgers instead, probably has just a good of a chance to get into a top medical school compared to the student who went to Harvard. Of course the student who got accepted to Harvard and went to Rutgers is probably arriving at Rutgers in the top 1/3 of their class, which would likely not be the case if they had attended Harvard (and âtop 1/3 of their classâ and âpremed classesâ both suggest that they will still meet a lot of other strong students at Rutgers). Also, most of these very famous big name schools do not give merit based scholarships.
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I dont mind giving info about budget ,only thing is I am not 100% sure about my budget yet, Grades I have to find out from my daughter, do you like to now grades on current school ? an don which subject? Rigor, how do I find that out?
My daughter was also a biology major who took time off before returning to school. I have to say that she had very good employment opportunities with her BS in biology. I recognize that this was her experience and it might not be the norm for most.
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What is her approximate gpa? What courses has she taken/is currently taking? Right now it is hard to recommend schools.
My daughter graduated UD after 3 years with 9 AP accepted scores, definitely saving more money.
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I served as a student on admissions and school and rigor of program was a factor. Not THE main factor, but a considered piece. Science gpa and overall gpa were out in context. 4.0 though is better than 3.0 almost anywhereâ-but 4.0 easy program with a good mcat versus 3.6 known-name engineering or chem major program known to be filled with with a high percentage of smart kids, plus same mcat? Theyd both do similarly. If the 3.6 had a sky high mcat theyd beat the 4.0 weak program.
Back on topicâfor the OP they want to save money, so I think Rutgers or other state schools make the most sense given that!
I have a Rutgers business school graduate (accounting) and a TCNJ graduate (finance). Iâve seen Rutgers and TCNJ flip flop for rankings of NJ universities, but both are well regarded. https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/the-college-of-new-jersey-2642#:~:text=The%20College%20of%20New%20Jersey's,TCNJ%2C%20is%20located%20near%20Trenton.
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I agree with what you are saying, but It also depends on the medical school. Some medical schools (top end) have cut lists where they wonât consider an applicant with a GPA or MCAT score below a certain threshold, unless the candidate has a unique quality that is desirable. Competitive residency programs used to do the same for USMLE board scores.
A 3.6 at MIT might be the same as a 4.0 at Rutgers for a lot of medical schools. But my point is why take that chance and put yourself in that position when you donât have to by getting a 4.0 somewhere else? Or worse, get a 3.0 and possibly put yourself out of the running to apply to medical school altogether.