College Choices...

[premedfanatic]

I have been accepted into Mississippi State and Washington University in St. Louis!! WUSTL is my dream school; however, my mom wants me to attend MSState because it is closer and WUSTL is in a "dangerous" place. At State, I am receiving $6200 in scholarships and I should be receiving my financial aid package soon. I have been accepted in the Shackouls Honor College, and on April 7, I will be attending orientation. At WUSTL, I missed the deadline for the merit scholarship, but my need-based scholarship is $48030. I have asked around in the hospital and in my school about what I should do. A majority have told me to attend WUSTL because I should make my own choices and WUSTL is a good name. What should I do? If I do attend MSState, should I email WUSTL about my choice? Will this choice negatively affect my future application to WUSTL's medical school?

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[imymemine]

Congrats on the acceptance! Sounds like you are in a great situation. To me it looks like the cost of the two schools is about the same?

I don't know much about MSState but I imagine it is a very, VERY different environment than WashU. And I don't mean the crime rate or anything, I mean small private school in a big city vs. a large state school in a college town. Think about where you would be happier and where you would grow the most over the next 4 years - not just academically, but socially and professionally too.

Looking back on my own post-high school life, keeping parents happy can be a good thing if you are on the fence, particularly if they are contributing financially to your education. And being able to easily commute home if necessary is a plus. All really depends on how greatly you value being close to home. Some people will grow more farther away from home and being more on their own, others greatly benefit from having family close by. Try to picture what life in either scenario would be like for you.

There are threads on SDN almost every day about whether or not the prestige of your college matters for getting into medical school. There is no simple answer, but the general consensus is no, prestige is greatly overrated. You can make it to med school from either college - your personal qualities and talents will come through no matter where you go. Either way, you need a strong GPA/MCAT & some clinical experience to make it to med school. For careers outside of medicine I cannot make the same guarantee - prestige may matter more in finance or other tracks.

Turning down WashU for college will not affect a later application to it's medical school. I was accepted to WashU for undergrad, did not attend, and was accepted to their med school several years later. People choose colleges for all sorts of reasons and they will not hold your decision against you (nor will any other university).

 

[aspirantmed]

The research on undergraduate school choice suggests that, all else held equal, a student who attends a top-tier school and a student who is accepted to a top-tier school but instead attends a moderately well-ranked state school will both be comparably successful. I attend a top school, and it's given me great social/professional connections, plus funding support for research and student organizations. But at the same time, your state school (especially honors colleges within state schools) may offer such resources as well, and it's important to research those in detail. At the end of the day, go where (1) you'll be happier, and (2) you'll have the academic and co-curricular opportunities to discover your passion. Because it's well-accepted that you can pretty much go anywhere, do well, and end up at any medical school from there.

And to answer your other question, I'm near-certain the undergraduate and medical admissions processes are entirely separate. I was accepted to an elite undergraduate program, chose not to attend, and now will be going there for medical school. Nobody ever asked, "Hey, why didn't you come here for undergrad?"

 

[moop]

The research on undergraduate school choice suggests that, all else held equal, a student who attends a top-tier school and a student who is accepted to a top-tier school but instead attends a moderately well-ranked state school will both be comparably successful.

Citation needed (badly)…

Undergrads almost always get preference to their institution's med school. Accepted stats are mostly lower for a school's own undergrads than the general averages. With this in mind, what I've seen from even a grade deflating school (where our GPAs are quite low), is that there's still a lot of preference for those at top private institutions. Source? Internal stats by top private schools that aren't released, but I've seen many of them from premed friends.

Thus, since the cost is around the same, WUSTL is the obvious choice. MSState just cannot compare in terms of med school feeding pedigree, honestly…….. I mean, just compare the research opportunities at the two schools lol

 

[imymemine]

Citation needed (badly)…

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2...of-elite-colleges/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0
http://dataspace.princeton.edu/jspui/bitstream/88435/dsp01gf06g265z/1/563.pdf

perhaps there are others, but the most famous study compared students who were admitted to UPenn but decided to go to Penn State to students who actually went to Penn. they used future earnings as their metric for comparison, not admission to medical school. the study is also old - the people in the study graduated a long ago.

 

[moop]

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2...of-elite-colleges/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0
http://dataspace.princeton.edu/jspui/bitstream/88435/dsp01gf06g265z/1/563.pdf

perhaps there are others, but the most famous study compared students who were admitted to UPenn but decided to go to Penn State to students who actually went to Penn. they used future earnings as their metric for comparison, not admission to medical school. the study is also old - the people in the study graduated a long ago.

Ah, these are old. I thought there was something about med school admissions. Ok