<p>Any takers? I am so confused.</p>
<p>Wherever you will get the highest GPA.</p>
<p>Engineer - this is not entirely true. Medical schools aren’t so stupid that they don’t recognize the difference between a 3.0 at Harvard and a 3.8 at UCF. However, that is an extreme example.</p>
<p>I think it is fair to say that UF and UM have a higher national prestige than FSU or UCF and that this will be factored into GPA evaluations. But so will MCAT scores.</p>
<p>UM is a great school, but it is soooooo expensive compared to UF. Unless you are getting a scholarship to UM, you have to consider that especially since you will be paying for medical school, too.</p>
<p>My train of thought exactly Harriet… </p>
<p>I plan on doing premed too. If i get a good deal of merit money to go to Miami, I’ll go there, if not I’ll go to UF.</p>
<p>I am hoping to get the Singer scholarship from UM. This is a full tuition. Also, it appears that average SAT and GPA scores are little higher for UM than UF. I am leaning towards Miami now. Of course, I am still waiting for Harvard, Yale, Emory, and Rice to notify me.</p>
<p>UF pre-med, UM Direct med</p>
<p>Expanding on my basic post I do agree that UF would be the best choice in your case - excellent financial value, prestigious, and a beautiful campus.</p>
<p>I am going to pass UF over UM direct medical program or USF direct medical program. I am not risking any thing here.</p>
<p>It depends on whether you care for a school’s prestige. USF has a great 7 year medical program. As long as you maintain a set GPA, get shadowing/volunteer hours, and score enough on the MCAT, you’re set. It’s fairly easy for people that know that they want to go into medicine and don’t want to waste time. It’s more work in less time for the undergrad. You can do the undergrad portion at UCF as well and then go to USF’s med school. It’s a great program. My brother is in his second year and as long as you stay on track, you’re all set.</p>
<p>But if you feel that you don’t want to close your options of going to a prestigious medical school, then going to a more prestigious university for undergrad may help you get there. Although, from medical students, I’ve heard that there’s essentially no difference in quality of education at medical schools. A US medical school is the only goal because once you’re in, it’s all up to the student. The problem with prestigious schools is that they’re harder on grading. When applying to med school, GPA, MCAT score, volunteering/shadowing/research, and interviews are all considered. A higher GPA at a less prestigious school won’t hurt you.</p>
<p>UCF has a brand-new medicine program, with new facilities and technology. Supposed to get big soon</p>
<p>one of USF’s real strengths is their medical program. don’t necessarily count them out.</p>
<p>with that said, like 30%+ of new students at UF start pre-med and they start dropping like flies during the first/second semester.</p>
<p>
…and the school you like more. </p>
<p>I agree, esp if you plan to stay in FL.</p>
<p>UCF doesn’t have a 7 year program for UCF College of Medicine though. The 7 year program at UCF still linked to USF’s COM.</p>
<p>
This is nonsense. National universities like FSU have the same prestige outside Florida as UF or Miami. UCF is fairly new, so would be less recognized. Inside Florida, each university (with a med school) tends to favor its own graduates to a limited degree as med applicants.</p>
<p>I cannot say how many times I’ve heard comments about the “FSU Gators” or the “UF Seminoles”.</p>
<p>As someone who has had a child go through this process, much of this “prestige” nonsense is neutralized through AMCAS admissions procedures. Conceivably, if a Harvard applicant with a 3.6 GPA and 30 MCAT competes with a similarly credentialed Penn State student, there might be a difference, but probably virtually none, having endured with my daughter med schools crunching through these applications.</p>
<p>The best med applicants have a solid GPA, solid MCAT, write a series of excellent essays and interview well…in addition to being mature with credible life experience and a demonstrable and durable passion for medicine.</p>
<p>p2n- “This is nonsense. National universities like FSU have the same prestige outside Florida as UF or Miami.”</p>
<p>I have seen you post this sentiment in many different threads here and, as a fan of FSU, I disagree.</p>
<p>As academic institutions, both UF and Miami do indeed enjoy greater national reputations than FSU both in general perception and among employment recruiters. The same way that UNC does versus NC State and Michigan does versus Michigan State. This saddens me as I have a child who would choose FSU over UF if all things were equal. I am not a fan of the UF ‘attitude’ but appreciate that it is just a better academic institution.</p>
<p>Not sure that’s really a fair comparison ctauber. UNC and Michigan are both top five public universities. The difference in national prestige between those two universities and even UF is much greater than the national prestige between FSU and UF. </p>
<p>I do agree that many in the state of Florida perceive UF as being more prestigious. Hopefully that changes or at least begins to diminish soon.</p>
<p>Sorry, ctauber, but I don’t concede the point. </p>
<p>UF has some areas that are better than those at Florida State and recruiters do recognize this difference in those areas. Engineering is one area and agricultural science is the other. UF also has a more mature med school and an excellent med research program where FSU has a much newer med program. But which trains a better doctor? I don’t know how UF med students do on the USMLE exams and where they find medical residencies, but FSU med students are above the USMLE average nationally and land some very fine residency slots. Some 60% (as I recall) of UF’s research dollars come from medical research, where most of FSU’s research dollars come from the National Science Foundation. FSU total dollars in NSF exceed those of UF, mostly due to FSU being the principal operator of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory. Take away UF Med…and the resulting UF research dollars come quite close to FSU’s current burden.</p>
<p>So we have to wonder - do med research dollars mean much? I don’t know, maybe others will weigh in with an opinion. The primary purpose of a state-funded med school is to build good doctors to serve the citizens of the housing state. Only after that comes the job of garnering federal med research monies, which in today’s fiscal climate could very well evaporate or be greatly reduced. </p>
<p>Virtually all else is neck and neck competition, except in those strengths Florida State has such as political science, statistics, criminology, music, physics and so forth. I suspect UF’s recent surge in criminology is essentially a [halo</a> effect](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect]halo”>Halo effect - Wikipedia) where raters confuse FSU (which has one of the original, highly regarded criminology programs) with the UF program.</p>
<p>Frankly, the US News ratings so many UF fans rely on are, as UF President Machen agrees, a “rip”. They are based mostly on opinion that is tainted with bias, if not something much worse. I’ve posted many links to articles describing such twisting. Anyone who cites US News ratings as being a final arbiter of academic quality is, frankly and kindly, very uninformed about higher education. </p>
<p>UF has enjoyed a substantial marketing boost over the 2000s, in part due to sports success and also due to the deliberate actions of UF presidents starting with Lombardi, who specialized in creating rankings that tend to reward schools that employ him.</p>
<p>So I don’t buy for a second the UF uber alles position vis a vis Florida State University. Indeed, let’s watch together how FSU, like a mythical phoenix, rises from the ashes of supposed US News Purgatory to academic excellence when the Seminoles football team wins its next national championship. The [Flutie</a> Effect](<a href=“http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2007/01/flutie_effect]Flutie”>Flutie effect) wins again.</p>
How do you know this?
Please don’t bump old threads. 
Many, of these posters no longer regularly check the forums. If you have any questions, start a new thread (like you did!).