Heh, I went to Wayne for undergrad back in the day… It was always known for psychology and medical.
Page 3 of this Class Profile from the University of Rochester lists the schools their successful applicants came from:
https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/MediaLibraries/URMCMedia/education/md/documents/2022-profile.pdf
One can change the year in the URL to see other years. I think they’re ranked in the 30s so might not be high enough for anyone super focused on stats I suppose, but the schools they choose successful applicants from don’t seem to be all that different. There’s a variety.
Having worked at school for the past 19 years, I can anecdotally say the future doctor wannabes who have been the most successful at getting into med school have gone to a school where they are in the Top 25% for stats, both SAT/ACT and GPA. Those who have picked schools where they are more “average” or even reach tend to get discouraged and drop pre-med telling me everyone in it is “too smart” for them. I’m not sure they’re right as I see students who seemed equally talented in high school do well if they had chosen a better fit. My guess is the SAT/ACT/GPA show a foundation reached. Classes tend to be designed for the average incoming student. If one is on the lower end, then the other students starting at the college have a better foundation already there and seem “smarter” causing the perception. When the classes are designed to start at the same foundation as the student, all seems to go ok if they have the work ethic, etc.
It’s just a theory (hypothesis technically), but definitely fits what I see. If one wants to be a doctor, aim for a school that’s a good fit for best odds. If one has tippy top stats, there’s nothing wrong with tippy top schools. If they don’t, going to one isn’t going to automatically make them a successful applicant.
The main point is that you need a college that you can afford. It is, obviously, much simpler to know which colleges you can afford and which would be appropriate for your daughter if she stays in your own state. However, if it is important to your daughter to test out another part of the country and if you and (especially) she are willing to put in the work, there are definitely plenty of possibilities. And don’t think about med school too hard right now, just about affordable, good quality undergrad. If she decides to go to med school, the main things that will get her in will be excellent grades and MCAT scores. Yes, it does matter where you go to undergrad with regard to individual med schools, but not in the aggregate. Your daughter could look into some of the programs that guarantee med school placement to undergrads who meet certain requirements.
We went all over visited 20+ schools Emory, Davidson, UR, Wake, Kenyon, Case, Colgate, etc etc etc etc.
We joke now as they were fun trips and all great schools. She picked a small barely top 500 school, no debt, very personal almost old school adcom, very genuine and honest.
She is pre pa or pre med the end game is acceptance to a professional school. With ample time to volunteer, shadow, and enjoy life…she feared jumping right back into a competitive college might hinder that.
32 ACT 3.91 UW.
I’d give her an application budget along with a school budget. Require she apply to a true safety she’s willing to go to and then let her choose where to apply to. It may be a more stressful process but it’s her process. Certainly help with research if she’s open to that. She may be dissapointed but as long as she has an affordable something, she will be ok.
@jazzymom finding the scholarships tend to be a hunt and peck mission – it was painful to say the least. I narrowed down 2 ways with my girls – 1 was a Lacrosse player so we figured out where she could fit from a team standpoint and then started literally looking at each website for merit criteria. Then for my nursing student we found those direct entry programs that seemed to fit her GPA/test scores and again looked at the merit criteria. It was a long process for sure.
Sometimes getting into reaches are actually about bragging and ego for some students and not serious options for those students. We see quite a few students in Colorado applying to one college, getting in and done. Their life in 12th grade is stress free and they can focus better on their 12th grade subjects, which is really key to doing well in the freshman year of college. Some colleges here are on rolling admission and students get admitted November of the 12th grade year or even late October ! . There is no reason to apply to out of state schools, if there is no ego involved and if your daughter does not want to attend them, and you don’t want to pay the application fees, although you can waive those fees perhaps.
Getting into medical school is taking a set of math, physics, chemistry and biology classes, and understanding the material, and also a lot about the exact clinical or medical research experiences that a student finds. Also there are many options today including doctor of osteopath that are much easier then MD programs for admission. the DO programs require a much lower MCAT score. PA programs require the GRE and seem more competitive these days.
Texas has amazing school options, but sometimes out of state options work out less expensive, but they are usually not very highly ranked colleges. Look at U of Oklahoma, and U of Tulsa, they may work out to be less than U of Texas in Austin for instance, if she can win merit. If she scores high on the PSAT, there will be totally free options. UT Dallas is one that offers high merit, although its somewhat of a commuter school, Coloradans can attend UT Dallas for less than in state at U of Colorado.
Be super wary of this option. DO and MD graduates aren’t viewed the same when it comes to residencies - a much needed part of becoming a doctor. Read post #199 and #120 of this thread posted by @WayOutWestMom and @artloversplus respectively.
I think that’s overstating the situation–
Median matriculating MD stats:
cGPA = 3.72 MCAT= 511
of applicants = 52,777 # of matriculants = 21,622
Acceptance rate = 41%
Median matriculating DO stats:
cGPA=3.56 MCAT=503
of applicants =20,836 # of matriculants = 6778
Acceptance rate = 32.5%
https://www.aamc.org/download/321494/data/factstablea16.pdf
https://www.aacom.org/docs/default-source/data-and-trends/gme-special-report-2017.pdf?sfvrsn=dfb22c97_6
DO applicants have, on average, slightly lower stats, but the competition for a seat is stronger.
There are clusters of well-known universities that give significant oos aid in the south (FSU, Alabama, Mississippi, Miss St., LSU, Kentucky, S. Carolina, etc), & in the plains states ( big public universities in Ok, Neb, Iowa, Kansas). The amount of aid at these schools is heavily dependent on grades & SAT/ACT scores, and extra-curriculars are usually irrelevant.
We are in TX too. S17 was determined to go OOS. We convinced him that Texas Tech was close to OOS so he did apply there. We have lots of pre-med friends there. He is pre-vet (and has never liked A&M). In the end he chose to go OOS in one of the plains states. He applied to 4 OOS schools where they had good pre-vet programs, merit aid that would get us to in-state tuition, and other factors that were important to him. He got in all the schools by November. He had merit scholarships at all of them, and got in the Honors college at all of them. For pre-professional programs the undergrad college is not a huge factor. We just had a friend from Mary Hardin Baylor accepted to multiple med schools.
For us there was no stress. We wanted a college where we knew he could get good experience, have no debt, get high grads and not go into vet school stressed out (same issues for med school - his gf is pre-med). He looked at early acceptance programs (similar to BS/MD programs) and eventually chose the school where he was accepted at one. This has taken the stress off totally. He has a 4.0, good work opportunities, is studying abroad this summer, and has a full social life as President of his fraternity. His gf has a 4.0, does cancer research and is totally happy.
So bottom line. It isn’t stressful to look around. Go where you can afford and if she can stay in TX that is great. Look at lots of schools. Our hs district college fair had lots of schools from OOS and we found our college from visiting there. It doesn’t have to be elite or hard to get into to give good scholarships. Look at Alabama. Go where she will thrive, you can afford and she will get good grades and experiences. Most important for med school!
When our kids were applying to college, I told them that the most important decision they had to make was to identify a SAFETY that they would be willing to attend. We weren’t concerned about a “financial safety.” Just a college they would like and could readily be admitted to.
For #1 this was easy – instate flagships – and he got into them with nice merit awards. His overall GPA and outstanding test scores did the trick. However, he preferred to attend college in a large city (“major league,” as he put it – with major league sports). And that’s where he ended up – out of state (UChicago). But having the in-state backups made this process a low-stress one (especially for his parents) and allowed him to continue to focus on his favorite EC’s more than on his college applications.
For #2 this wasn’t so easy because she didn’t want to apply to instate colleges even as backups. As she put it, “In college I don’t want to find myself sitting next to kids from my high school.” She wanted instead to attend a dedicated art school, preferably in a “real city in the East.” And that’s where she ended up (at RISD), though she had to convince herself that Providence was “enough of a real city.” However, although she was admitted to all the schools she applied to, she didn’t have a true safety in part because she didn’t know if her portfolio was good enough for highly ranked art schools. She had told us that if she wasn’t admitted to any of the art schools, she’d spent a year at a local community college and focus on improving her design skills. This alternative plan scared the cr*p out of her parents.
My DD didn’t want to go in-state…but when to a good value out of state…in the next state over.
How far out of state does she want to be?
Some issues:
- How is the weather compared to where you are?
- How easy is it to get home for holidays?
- Is home or college airport in a snowy zone which delays transit?
- How expensive is it to travel home?
- How often would they like to visit home? May not be able to go home for say, fall break if it is too $$
- How likely is it that your child will need to come home/need to you to visit? do they have anxiety, etc?
- OOS public schools will be more expensive than In state. Private schools will be the same
- Has your child had experience with being away from home? e.g, camps or band trips or the like?
What was so scary about starting at a community college? Seems like she had a true safety plan.
She was qualified to get into major 4-year colleges. (In fact she got into Carnegie Mellon.) At those she could also have obtained the skills and training that she would get at the community college, but she’d have a broader curriculum that would build her credentials even more.
Since graduating from RISD the “+” in the art-plus curriculum has formed an important component of her career in environmental design. After working in the economy in industrial design for several years, she even went on to earn an MBA to take the next career step.
@bopper. It’s amazing how many people I hear on CC & in person who agree with your #7 …that oos publics will necessarily be more expensive than your in-state options. Sometimes that is true, but not always. It depends on which state you are from, which oos colleges you are applying to, & what your grades & test scores are.
@bopper and if you throw getting a National Merit award in there - some OOS colleges are much cheaper than the instate options.
Also I think once you are getting on a plane a college that is in a major hub will be a lot easier to get to than one that on paper seems a lot closer.
I don’t think it’s important for every student to have OOS or reach colleges on their list. But each student should do their homework. For my CS guy Berkeley would have been a better choice than a SUNY. (But he didn’t apply because OOS it was more expensive than some of his private options.) Both my kids I think needed the challenge of a reach college and they thrived. But my older son’s best friend had a miserable time at Princeton where he felt like a dummy.
7 What I meant is that your average OOS Public will be more expensive than your In-state.
How many “I want to go to UCLA” posts have we seen from people not knowing they have to pay 60K for that.
If you can find a cheaper OOS, awesome!!!
I think the fact that you have 7 kids (if I am not mistaken from your post?), that changes my opinion quite a bit. One has to be realistic about what we can afford, so I completely understand your hesitation. There are so many good reasons to do OOS as many has stated. But at the end of the day, it shouldn’t be done at such high cost (punch intended). You have 5 other children to put through college! Unless your husband is making a ton of money, I can’t see spending more than 200-275K a year on 1 child.
We have 2 kids, our DD is a senior. DD loves to travel and meet new people. She has always known since a little girl that she wants to go far away for college. DH and I joked that whatever college she goes to, we have to “fly” to visit her. We live in the East coast now but Hubby and I graduated from UC Berkeley 22 years ago (PhD and BS respectively). So we have taken them to CA countless times and naturally she applied to a bunch of UCs, hoping to get into UCB or UCLA (She got into UMich which she also loves, and a few other safeties where we are). For the OOS we are looking at close to 275K to send her there. We put away $500/month for her 529 account, 17 years later and we are still a little shy of 275K. DD got the UCLA alumni scholarship invite, if awarded and it’s a big IF, she would have about 2-8K over 4 years, pocket change for what we to pay in the end. But at this point she is so very tired to all the essays she has to write (also writing 2 UMich Honors essay). I know I sound whiny but I do know that it’s a good problem to have.
I don’t know what’s the point of my second paragraph there, I guess I just wanted to share/vent, and that OOS can be so very expensive. I don’t even know how we would be doing it with 7 kids! Good luck to you and your family!
Honestly, I think it is infinitely more important to have a safety you like than reach or OOS options. There is a level of privilege on this board that most of the world just doesn’t have in terms of options for their kid’s higher education. I think it is perfectly fine to give your child a budget, let her know the federal loan limits she can take on, make sure she has one on the list that is affordable as is or with automatic merit and go from there.
We live in a major metro and our well regarded flagship has given my kid good merit and honors program. He applied to a bunch of schools. I can tell you as a full pay family approaching retirement with another kid coming behind, nothing is going to justify spending 2-3X that amount of money. We have some give on cost but not that much. We cannot actually do full pay private for both kids despite the fact the FAFSA thinks we can. And yes, my kid has the 99% ACT score and a 4.0 and a lengthy and pointed extracurricular resume.
People can wax poetic all day about giving your child an opportunity on another coast or “needing” additional challenge and I don’t deny that’s nice if you can do it. But kids can and do gain independence in their own back yard and there are many very strong affordable state and generous merit privates out there. I just talked to a mom this week whose kid is at college 45 minutes away and she’s seen him twice since August. Living and operating on a college campus can be an entirely different world if parents are willing to let go and a young person wants that independence. My flagship grad husband works along MIT grads out of a company in Boston. There are plenty of ways to reach academic and career goals.
It’s great to know what is going to work for your family and your budget. I also wouldn’t get too invested in what a freshman is saying right now. My senior changed a lot from freshman year and once we punched the numbers he understands our constraints. He did apply to some reachy schools with competitive merit but understands the numbers need to make sense at the end of the day. He has been accepted at 3 affordable options so far, and 2 more we’re waiting for the numbers. Also waiting for several more applications.