I’m not interested in attending Ivies and my dream med school is UNC Chapel Hill. I’m looking at NC State, Chapel Hill, and ECU for my undergrad. However, I’m also a junior who’s graduating a year early, which (I’ve heard) can be extremely detrimental when applying to universities as it is, so I don’t really expect to be accepted anywhere.
I’ll only be 17 when I graduate too, so I thought about attending Wake Tech or Cape Fear first to A) Take care of General Ed courses B) Acclimate to a college environment on a smaller scale. However, I’ve also read that community college won’t reflect well when applying to med school. Like I said, I’m not interested in Ivies or even out-of-state for that matter. My parents are paying for my college and they can’t afford either (and they refuse to pay for it anyway). I’m not concerned with getting into UNC for my undergrad, but I am PINING to get into its medical school.
In case it wasn’t obvious, I am an in-state student. Will CC negatively affect my changes of getting into med school?
First, why are you graduating a year early?
Second, if your parents aren’t helping, you need to chase full tuition and full ride scholarships and thus need high test scores.
Third, meet-need colleges may be cheaper for you if your family’s lower income.
As for cc: if you got good stats, don’t do it, because you’d lose your freshman status and the scholarships that go with it.
(yes it’s looked down upon by Med schools to take your pre-reqs at community college, and delaying may mean spending more time at the 4-yezr college.)
Since you’re instate, apply to unc Wilmington (great bio), Uncle Asheville, and App State, which are the three top schools after Chapel Hill and ncsu.
What are your stats? Davidson meets full NEED AND has a no-loans policy!
If you took all classes offered at your high school, can’t you graduate with your classmates and simply dual enroll at your local community college?
Note that you’d need 4 years each of English, social science / history, and science (including one year each of biology, chemistry, and physics), plus math through pre-calculus or calculus and foreign language up to level 3 or 4.
I should’ve made it clearer: My parents ARE paying for my college, which is why they won’t pay for Ivies or out-of-state. It’s more than they can afford. (This is assuming I don’t get scholarships) My family also isn’t low-income, both of my parents work and my dad earns a pretty good paycheck.
I’m graduating early for personal reasons which I prefer not to disclose here, but either way it’s a done deal. In my school, we have to apply for early graduation during sophomore year, and once it’s done we can’t take back our decision. I finished all my math and science sophomore year, and I’ll be finishing all my junior and senior requirements this year.
I did consider dual enrollment, but then my parents said if I was going to do that I might as well go straight to college. I have no particular ties to my high school and anyone in it, so I didn’t care for staying senior year.
I do currently have a 3.875 UW/~4.45 W GPA and I’m in the top 10% of my class. Admittedly, I haven’t taken the SAT or the ACT yet since I originally planned to take them junior year, and early graduation was a last-minute decision. I do plan on taking them early this coming school year.
EDIT: I should also add that I spoke with my counselor extensively about early graduation and how it will affect me; she agreed that I was ready for it and supported my decision. By last minute, I meant it was made later in the school year–not that I made the decision on a whim.
I agree with MYOS. As a freshman applicant, you’ll be far more likely the get scholarships, especially from the schools you mentioned as an in-state person. Community college is far from a disadvantage in terms of ‘prestige’ or appearance. Colleges actively recruit transfer students from such an educational background, although normally those students attend because they are lower income and literally cannot afford anything else (which of course is a widespread misconception since the Ivies and the upper-tier schools have the best aid, but if you have a family income above $250k then you mightn’t get much aid). However, if you have a family income of 120k or less, the ivies and other top, let’s say 20, schools will be cheaper than your instate option potentially.
Your stats seem like you could easily get a 2150+ SAT and/or 33+ ACT, so do that and apply as a freshman to a variety of schools. Don’t cross out Ivies because of cost - I almost did the same thing with my school, but even though I’m middle class (mid 100k) I am paying less than $20k a year. My state school was my most expensive option at the end of the college process. Keep this in mind.