<p>Folks,
I am interested in pre-med under-graduate, and I got admissions:
- Washington Univ. in St. Louis, Missouri, with no financial aid or scholarships.
- Ursinus College in Pennsylvania with their Zacharias national scholarship of $30K/year, offered over for 4 years with good grades.</p>
<p>I like WashU because of its reputation for pre-med, but I am equally pulled towards Ursinus with the money they are offering. Which one should I go for?</p>
<p>I appreciate comments from all but especially from past and present Ursinus and WashU students. I very much appreciate your time and comments. Thanks.</p>
<p>This is a situation faced by many people - the “more prestigious” school versus a big scholarship. There is no “one size fits all” answer to this. In this case, you should consider the environment you want to be in for the next 4 years – a mid-size university in St. Louis versus a small LAC. But first and foremost, it is time to have that “money talk” with your family. If you can comfortably afford WashU, I would go there – for the faculty, facilities, and fellow students. But if you’d have to go into big debt for WashU, then look closely at Ursinus. Congratulations on having such nice choices.</p>
<p>Either way, your choice won’t make or break your chances of being admitted to med school.
However, it might make or break your ability to PAY for med school
(which is even more expensive than college and without the same opportunities for financial aid.)</p>
<p>See if you can find rates to compare admission to med schools (other than WUSTL’s own) for students from these two schools with the same MCAT scores and similar GPAs. I doubt you’d see much difference.</p>
<p>I would go with Ursinus because your scholarship marks you as one of the top 5% there and will almost ensure that you get noticed by faculty and administrators. This will likely result in GREAT references and opportunities. Also, at least in CTCL, Ursinus is noted as having a very good pre-med program with a 90% acceptance rate. (not a reflection on Wash U, which is an excellent school with a beautiful campus that I have visited many times; but at Wash U you will be one of many bright students while at Ursinus you will likely be a star).</p>
<p>Thank you for all the 6 candid replies so far. I appreciate it.</p>
<p>“happy1” does raise an important point for me: the location of the school.
I need to be near a city which has lots of music and art to offer, including the kind associated with India.</p>
<p>I had been into western classical music (learnt flute for 12 years etc.) and need to be linked with the local symphony and philharmonic scene.</p>
<p>My parents were posted in India for a few years, and I became familiar with their classical Carnatic vocal music. I learnt it for 10+ years and recently graduated in it. I am also intimately interested with their Bharatanatyam dance form, though I did not learn it. </p>
<p>It seems Philly being the bigger city (near Ursinus), should offer more of these things; just want to confirm.</p>
<p>Anyway, as always, I appreciate the inputs and advice. Thank you for your time.</p>
<p>Ursinus I believe is about 40 minutes outside of Phila. (I looked into the school for my D but we did not visit so confirm that is the case). You may want to check with the school and see what type of transportation is available into Phila., if people go in to Phila. etc.</p>
<p>Philadelphia has all of the music opportunities you could want. it also is home to the most selective institution of higher education in the US - the Curtis Institute of Music. There are tons of colleges in Philadelphia and its suburbs that offer many music programs. In addition there are concerts at locations closer to Collegeville, such as the Sellersville and Keswick Theaters. </p>
<p>And let’s not forget the Philadelphia Orchestra.</p>
<p>Google recommends taking a septa bus from Ursinus to the Norristown train station. From there, by train, you can reach Center City (where most of the cultural activities and museums are located), almost all of the colleges in the region, and the International Airport. From Norristown, you can also take the Norristown High Speed Line to reach all of the colleges on the Main Line (the historic western suburbs), such as Villanova, Bryn Mawr, Haverford, etc. - many of which have quality music programs. </p>
<p>There are lots of variables that go into this decision - the availability of Carnatic music is barely a blip in the face of these other much more important factors.</p>
<p>Key among them is your family’s financial situation. Medical school is very expensive. And most care very little where you did your undergraduate degee - it’s about GPA and MCAT scores (and your state of residence for the more affordable state schools). Wash U’s pre-med reputation is based on 1) undergrads who were academically outstanding to start with and 2) highly demanding pre-reqs (bio, inorganic chem, organic chem, physics) that cause many pre-meds to drop that goal within the first year. Those who survive with the necessary GPA are among the top applicants in the country - but many who dropped out, might still be pre-med if they attended Ursinus, where they’d have a better GPA and a comparable MCAT.</p>
<p>That said, what if you change your mind and decide not to be pre-med at Ursinus? Would you still be happy there? At a small school, fit matters. At a larger one, like Wash U, fit is less critical as you will always find people ‘like you.’</p>