Hi all,
I plan on heading down the pre-health path (majoring in History though) and was wondering which school would be a better option or environment for this? The costs to attend are mostly the same, though Williams is a bit cheaper than Carleton. I am a bit concerned about location and whether this would force me to take gap years after undergraduate since I would not be able to get appropriate volunteering / clinical experience due to the rural campuses.
Bump
Both great and Williams is less money. If you are location and vibe agnostic. It’s a clear cut choice.
@privatebanker What would your opinion be about the likelihood to take gap years prior to applying to med school? Both campuses are rural, so I worry this likelihood would be high. My other options are either UCLA or UC Berkeley (same prices as Williams/Carleton). However, I’m well aware of the flaws of these school and imo they don’t seem like the best environments
As a little something to go by, you can search for “25 Best Value Small College for a History Degee,” an online article in which Williams appears.
Regarding a potential gap year, Williams and Carleton have relationships with medical school early assurance programs. Even if you choose your own path, you can confidently apply to medical school without a gap year if everything is in place. Your medical related ECs and research can be performed on campus during the academic year, and during summer months elsewhere, without any compromises related to the locations if these schools.
I’m not sure I inserts d your question. Many students gather a few years of lab or peace Corps type experience before applying to med school. Becoming the norm. Can you do this after Carleton or Williams. Of course. He same as anywhere. Location has nothing to do with this process. Unless your talking g about access to research. No worries about that for Williams. I don’t know Carleton well enough to say. But it would seem odd at its level of reputation that it to be any different.
Now throwing in UCLA and UCB is another matter. There flaws as you mention are more differences of experience. Flaws isn’t the right word imho.
Both are research uni juggernauts. No shortage of opportunities or scholarship at either. Wow. What great choices.
Small school I would go to Williams. Bigger school I would go to UCLA. The level of premed competition at Cal would be more than I would want to endure.
Agree that any of these schools would be great for pre-med, but they’d all be very challenging. Keep in mind that you’ll be competing with the best of the best for a program that probably washes out more than half who go in thinking pre-med. So, on at least the possibility that you go in another direction, perhaps allow other factors to play a relatively larger role in your decision-making process? Williams is absolutely top tier. Carleton is probably the best liberal arts college in the Midwest. Both offer a rich and nourishing learning environment. You just can’t go wrong with either. And, as Merc81 says, you’ll have plenty of summer opportunities for internships at both colleges and will probably take a year or two off before med school anyway. That is increasingly the norm.
@Neurotic2027 Williams has strong medical school counseling and a high acceptance rate.
Spend some time with this website for more details on scheduling your undergraduate courses, access to internships and shadowing and application strategy. Or contact one of Williams’ health professions advisors to get direct answers to your questions.
https://careers.williams.edu/sciences-health-professions/
Williams students pursuing medical careers tend to hold internships during summer holidays and during Winter Study (Williams January term). It doesn’t appear that that arrangement has negatively impacted their chances of getting into medical school. As mentioned, it’s becoming increasingly common for prospective medical students to take a year or two off between undergraduate and med school.
@momrath Thanks for the link. I will check out their websites, but I am a bit skeptical about that acceptance rate as it could be manipulated or based upon a pre-selected group. Would you say that, even if you are attending a top ranked Undergrad, gap years are more common? Or, rather, would the prestige often supplement for this, provided enough research and clinical hours and a competitive GPA/MCAT?
You have to like isolation to go to Williams and its better to be athletic there, and love winter. While Carlton is also cold, its closer to major city, and most students find Carlton to be more fun loving student body. Williams has a LOT of boarding school kids who are used to very rural isolated campuses, so if that describes you, Williams may work well. For a public school educated student from a large city, my niece hated Williams and tried to transfer to Carlton in fact, but it did not work out. She got away from Williams campus every January and summer, and one semester abroad so she survived, but did not enjoy Williamstown at all.
To get to Boston from Williamstown is truly an agonizing bus ride. My niece did that several times to get
away, as the social life at Willams was stifling and the town just so small. If you can cross country ski, it will help to get through the long winter in Williamstown.
History department is absolutely excellent at Willlams. Also very good at Carlton. Carlton is tough, with the quarter calendar, very intense academics there. Williams offers the 4-1-4 calendar, which is fabulous to go travel in January and get away from the bitter cold and grey in Western Massachusetts.
Minnesota is much sunnier in the winter, but even colder, at times, depending on polar vortex swings. But Carlton , you can get on a bus and get up to Minneapolis to get away. Its about 35 minutes. ! And students regularly get
out of the college town to get to the city. You can do this even for a school evening, sometimes. Its really nice to have Minneapolis so close by to travel to and from your hometown as well, Its a great airport.
Be prepared to fly to Albany NY, and bus over, to Williamstown. Its pretty grim if your flight gets canceled, but should work out OK most of the time. More flights to Albany NY on many airlines lately so easier than even two years ago to get to Williams.
Lots of Carlton kids take a quarter and work in Chicago as well, and then go to school in Europe in the Summer!
Carlton has the London program and many others, so you can easily go abroad, from either college.
My nephew took one gap year after Williams to get more volunteering in and have time to focus more on his applications. It worked out, he’s an MD now.
@Neurotic2027, I’m not qualified to answer your questions about medical school. I’ve never heard of pre-selection for med school (or any graduate school) at Williams, and in fact the support of Williams professors for advising and writing references was overwhelmingly positive. I’d suggest you contact the college directly for more information. Anecdotally, all of my son’s friends who aspired to become doctors were accepted to medical school. That may or may not be the universal experience.
My observation is that the students that are the happiest at Williams, chose it because of its insular mountain village environment, not in spite of it. It’s certainly not for everyone, but for my son his four years at Williams (including all four Winter Studies) was a wonderful experience.
Have you visited? Do you intend to do an overnight?
Highly selective, private colleges do tend to report much higher med school admission rates than state universities do.
Some posters suggest that the difference may be attributable (at least in part) to varying policies/practices for the so-called “composite” letter (a.k.a. committee letter) sent by some colleges to med schools. The argument is that the composite letter represents a weeding-out (“pre-selection”) process. Weaker prospective applicants don’t get the letter, so they don’t even bother to apply, thereby inflating the reported med-school admission rates of colleges that use this process. It may be the case that smaller schools with more resources per student (like Williams) are more likely to use it.
Perhaps schools like Williams and Carleton would tend to get very high med school acceptance rates whether they used the committee letter process or not. As far as I can tell, we don’t really know for sure what the true, apples-to-apples admission rates are (after controlling for these or other confounding factors). It might be very challenging to define/identify/count all (and only) the prospective med school students who are “weeded out.”
So in choosing a college, my suggestion is: don’t over-think this. Choose the school that best meets your needs at a net price your family can afford.
Williams.
Full disclosure I have pre-med student at Carleton. We also visited Williams so I am familiar with its campus and location. Between the cities of Williamstown and Northfield, Northfield is definitely bigger at 20k and easier to get to. Academically, you cannot go wrong with either. My student has a lot of pre-med advising support on campus. I believe he has designated pre-med advisor as well as a couple “favorite professors” that continually provide answers to questions, scheduling/class advice, and opportunities. There is a hospital in Northfield that welcomes Carleton pre-meds for volunteering. However, you would need a car (or a roommate with a car) as it is too far to walk per my son. It is possible to go abroad and complete your pre-med requirements (as well as those needed for your major). Student currently abroad as I write this & has a medical internship over the summer in Paris. He was made aware of internship and applied thru Carleton. I am sure that Williams has similar opportunities.
Truly, I would base your decision on money & FIT. Have you visited both campuses and had opportunities to interact with the students? If so, you should have an inkling as to which school is best for YOU! Remember, it doesn’t matter what other people prefer, your the one who will be spending the next four years there & hopefully building life long friendships.
The reason many students (not all) don’t go straight to medical school from undergrad is because it is a 15 month long process. Thus, you need to apply in your junior year. Many students also (after 4 years of intense academics where you pretty much need a 4.0 to compete) rightfully feel like a break after undergrad. Generally they use this time to decide if they like the research or clinical side of medicine and gain further experience for their med school apps.
Good luck to you.
Williams for me.
@Neurotic2027 - Hi, I am confused because I thought you were now deciding between Williams and another small college where you have a “full ride,” not Carleton or the other universities you named here? Well, wherever you end up, lots of luck to you, and congratulations on having a bunch of amazing options!
Williams and Carleton are both amazing colleges, so you can choose between them simply by preference. I do not think you will have any problem getting into med school from either as to compared from any other college, whether rural, suburban or urban. Both will help advise you, line you up with internships during the summers, etc. Momrath and others gave some good stats and info above. Lots of medical school students come from rural colleges.
Definitely pick up the phone and call Williams with your questions, and/or follow Momrath’s link to get answers to your questions.
I just want to add a little anecdotal info, for you and for any other prospective students potentially reading this thread, since my son’s experience has been rather different from that of Coloradomama’s niece. Most of his friends at Williams went to public schools. At all socioeconomic levels from all across the nation! Some went to private schools, with private day schools more common than boarding schools. But I think it is noteworthy in light of Coloradomama’s comments both that:
S is going to be a history major and he loves the department so far.
Socially, Williams is a really friendly community. “Stifling” is not an adjective I would choose, at all! In fact, one challenge is that it is a hard decision whether to study abroad or not, since it is such a nice opportunity, but who wants to miss a semester with your friends on campus? A real conflict between two desirable things! AND, if you study abroad junior year, then you can’t be a Junior Adviser to the freshmen to help them have as wonderful an experience as you did. So some kids take advantage of the study abroad opportunities, and some are quite happy to be like momrath’s kid and stay on campus for all four years and all four winter studies. If you don’t want the cold winters or weekend events that mostly take place ON campus, then Williams would be a poor choice. But most Williams students are really happy there, which is also why they become loyal alumni who “pay it back” through providing internships, teaching winter study courses, and helping new alumni.
55% of Carleton College students qualified for need based financial aid versus 51% at Williams College.
Retention rates are 96% at Carleton College versus 98% at Williams College–both of which are outstanding retention rates.
What is your net cost of attendance (including loans) for the two privates vs. UC instate with Blue & Gold grant?
@bluebayou UCLA / UCB are roughly $19k each. Carleton is 17k. Williams is 16k.