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For a doctor, I am not sure what school they go to actually matters much unless she wants to be a brain surgeon or a high level researcher or something like that. For every day doctors, who ever looks at where they went to school?
Even for those folks, USMLE scores and grades in med school matter most. No one cares much about their undergraduate degree. That's ancient history.
And if you stop to think about it, what are you left with if you throw out the bottom 95-98% of a big state university's freshman class? You're left with the students who could have done well at Harvard or Stanford or MIT. There are a lot of extremely bright students who either didn't apply to or couldn't afford to attend one of the highly selective top-tier private universities who wind up at state universities or lower-tier private colleges. Those students tend to do just as well later in life as the ones who did go to Harvard. It's the ability and drive of the student that matters in the end.
But high school kids often don't know this. I certainly didn't. Back in the 1980s when I was a top high school student, I applied to a number of excellent private universities as well as a safety school I knew I'd be admitted to if the worst happened. Being a midwesterner I didn't think to apply to any of the Ivies, but I did apply and was accepted to Northwestern University (the school I really wanted to attend), Oberlin, and Colgate (to name just three i clearly remember). Then my parents had to sit me down and tell me they couldn't afford to send me to any of those schools. I pitched a fit, but in the end I grudgingly went off to my safety school, lowly Iowa State University.
And am I happy things worked out that way! I got just as rigorous an education at ISU as I'd have received at Northwestern, but I graduated with only $2,000 worth of student loan debt because (unlike Northwestern or Oberlin) my parents could afford the tuition at Iowa State. And as a practicing physician, no one cares where I did my undergraduate degree. All that attending Northwestern or Oberlin would have given me that ISU did not was a five-figure debt load - and since I had to go $200,000 in debt to pay for medical school, I hardly needed that.
As long as you avoid really small and obscure schools that no one has heard of, where you go for your undergraduate degree doesn't matter too much when it's time to apply to medical school. Overall GPA, steller grades in the required prerequisite classes, and MCAT scores are what count most.
So just concentrate on finding a school that's a decent fit for your daughter, OP. That's what matters most in the end.
One tip - if your daughter wishes to pursue medicine or graduate school, that means her Bachelor's won't be her terminal degree. So don't overpay for a fancy diploma! No one cares where you did your Bachelor's after you have an M.D. or Ph.D. That doesn't mean that private schools are entirely ruled out, but it does mean that an expensive private school had better come through with a good financial aid package in order to be worth considering.
The admissions committee at the medical school will.
I can't believe how many people are saying where you go to undergrad does not matter. How long ago did they go to medical school?
My wife and I are both physicians, and if your son/daughter is applying to medical school and went to a local community college and a competing applicant went to Stanford, your son/daughter is not getting a spot.
^^^Acceptance rate for qualified applicants to medical school has hovered between 1 in 3 and 1 in 2 for decades. It's no harder (or easier) to get accepted into medical school today than it was when I applied back in 1991. Stellar students with excellent MCAT scores stand a decent chance of receiving an acceptance letter regardless of where they matriculated, as long as they didn't attend something like Podunk Bible College and School of Cosmetology. Students coming out of an Ivy with mediocre grades and/or MCAT scores will discover that having attended a prestigious school doesn't help.
And in any case, the OP's daughter may think she wants to go to medical school now, but a good many would-be premeds wash out well before it's time to even take the MCAT, much less apply to medical schools. The OP will know their daughter's serious only after she survives Organic Chemistry with her GPA and her desire both intact.
^^^Acceptance rate for qualified applicants to medical school has hovered between 1 in 3 and 1 in 2 for decades. It's no harder (or easier) to get accepted into medical school today than it was when I applied back in 1991. Stellar students with excellent MCAT scores stand a decent chance of receiving an acceptance letter regardless of where they matriculated, as long as they didn't attend something like Podunk Bible College and School of Cosmetology. Students coming out of an Ivy with mediocre grades and/or MCAT scores will discover that having attended a prestigious school doesn't help.
And in any case, the OP's daughter may think she wants to go to medical school now, but a good many would-be premeds wash out well before it's time to even take the MCAT, much less apply to medical schools. The OP will know their daughter's serious only after she survives Organic Chemistry with her GPA and her desire both intact.
Respectfully disagree, unless she doesn't care where she goes to medical school either. And if that's the case, hopefully she doesn't care what specialty she ends up in. If she wants to end up at Podunk Medical College and do a residency in family practice at some community hospital, then I agree.
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Originally Posted by SunFlower33
In all honesty - I'm hoping she changes her mind and goes for Nursing or PA...
She can get her EDU FREE by working at a VA facility. My sis just finished her 4th FREE degree / medical program from VA... She only worked PT much of her 20 yrs with VA, and received high income using contract Medical assignments at high paying specialty medical centers.
The VA paid full wages + housing and EDU expenses for her 4 yr RNA program.
She served her 4 yrs 'repayment / work obligation' at very high wages.
Her retirement plan is sweet (every month of PT VA work counted as FT VA eligibility), but she is not planning on retiring anytime soon, as she just started another degree program.
Just a thought... My employer paid 100% for all of my degrees too (5 since age 17). I finished a grad program post age 50 that they covered as well. They allowed PT employment when I was over-tasked (19+ credit hours / term).
One tip - if your daughter wishes to pursue medicine or graduate school, that means her Bachelor's won't be her terminal degree. So don't overpay for a fancy diploma! No one cares where you did your Bachelor's after you have an M.D. or Ph.D. That doesn't mean that private schools are entirely ruled out, but it does mean that an expensive private school had better come through with a good financial aid package in order to be worth considering.
Absolutely this. For cost considerations, she might even consider community college for some of the general education courses that are needed for a bachelor's degree, as community colleges are almost always less expensive than a four-year university. Just make sure that the credits she is taking will transfer to the target school. General education courses are normally no problem. In the end, it really won't matter where she took English composition or American history.
Not sure why you prefer she become an RN or PA, but it would be extremely helpful for her to to find out if she can "shadow" a medical professional, perhaps during her free time after school, or during vacation time. This can be priceless for her to experience the hours, atmosphere, real work she would be doing. It's so easy to fantasize about your future profession, especially for a teen. You don't want to scare her off, just be realistic about what life in that career path might be like.
It's easy to idealize life as a physician, too! Let her have a taste of it, a good, strong taste with lots of opportunities to ask questions, before she gets to school.
Does anyone have any tips of where/how to start deciding what colleges to explore with your high schooler?
My daughter is a 4.0 student/AP student and desires to go into medicine, currently neurobiology and we live in CT - so ideally she'd like to stay in New England/New York. She does like RI and Boston...
Thank you!
Yale recently announced it offers 100% paid tuition.
Our youngest worked in the Neuro-Biology Labs at Yale for three years before going to Med School. Most students in the labs were Grad Students but not all.
You probably already know this but New Haven is not a nice town. Our son said he was the only Lab Student during the three year period who was not mugged. His lab had maybe a dozen students each year. 1 out of 30-36 are not good odds.
FWIW, his undergrad degree is in Computer Science.
And then there are Combined Degree Programs. My Alma Mater, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, offers a combined degree program with the Albany Medical College/Albany School of Medicine (two names) which results in both a BS and a MD in only seven years rather than eight. From personal experience (niece and daughter-in-law), highly proficient female students receive significant financial aid from RPI as an enticement to enroll there. Not exactly City Life but it is common for students to ride the train together to visit NYC on weekends. From a studying distraction point of view, having the City be 4 hours away by train is better than 4 minutes away by foot!
Lots of schools offer combined degree programs. Help your daughter seek these out. One or more may interest her.
Full disclosure... I am the former director of a pre med program.
The quality of the college does matter. It doesn’t mean that kids from non-elite colleges don’t go to med school. It means some schools do a better job of producing kids with strong MCAT scores, high BPCM gpas, quality research experience, and a good amount of shadowing/clinical hours than others. It roughly correlates with Barons ratings but not always.
You want to ask perspective colleges what their track record is for sending aspiring pre meds to med school. She needs a place with strong science departments, solid academic support/study skills help especially for STEM students, *and* effective, involved pre med advising (sometimes there are really strong student run pre med clubs that fill the void). I would ask to visit those types of offices when checking out each campus.
That said, most kids who enter college wanting to become doctors change their minds for a variety of reasons. I would ask about advising in general, and what kinds of supports are there to help kids who need to figure out a new major and/or career path.
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