Choosing an undergrad

[prb345]

I am currently a sophomore in high school and I am hoping to become a doctor. I have been thinking about schools on the Northeast but out of my state. I work decently hard in school and I want to go to a good undergrad school but I am questioning if it is worth it. I am considering schools like Northeastern, BU, UWash, and maybe UNC. My dream schools would be Georgetown, Berkeley, and, Northwestern. So I have two questions...how realistic are my hopes and also is it worth getting into these schools just for undergrad or should I go to schools such as Rutger's, TCNJ, and UPitt if they will be cheaper bc of in state. I really don't want to stay in the same area as the rest of my high school peers and those are popular among my town. Also, this sounds a little egotistical, but I don't want to be working so hard in high school just to end up going somewhere where I could go by doing mediocre is school. So I guess my official question would be do you think it is better and more practical to go to those in-state schools, or the "better" ones? Please consider al factors such as chance of med school acceptance, how good the program is, research opportunities, social scene, and price?

BTW for my question on if my hopes are realistic here are my stats:

Freshman Year(did pretty mediocre)
Academic English
Honors Physics
Academic Government
Orchestra
Business
Advanced Algebra II
French
GPA W:3.8

Sophomore Year:
Business II
Honors Biology
Honors French
Honors Chemistry
Honors History
Academic English
Honors Pre-AP Calc
GPA:4.37

Junior Year(next year classes)
Honors Anatomy
AP Chemistry
Honors French
Honors World History
AP English
AP Calc AB

GPA:no idea hope for 4.6 or 4.7

Senior Year
no idea lol but similar


Extracurricular (planned to be)
3 years cultural club
3 years volunteer club
3 years marching band
4 years as red cross member
2 years as NHS member
1 summer research at college(Monmouth college program or something similar)
2 years job at tutoring place

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[efle]

If finances are a concern, you should try hard in high school because it can make college free. In fact you can have a handful of guaranteed full ride options on the table by Junior year just by scoring well on the PSAT and qualifying for National Merit. Get the best grades you can and the best ACT/SAT scores you can and worry about where exactly to apply in Senior year. It will 110% be worth having the best application you can.

 

[AllBleedingStops]

Any of those places can be within your reach if you work hard. You are a sophomore. You are in the thick of it in high school right now and it can be difficult to see past that. You may end up realizing you want to go to your state school - at least visit it so you can rule it out. But for now, work hard and try to enjoy some of it. Come back when you are choosing as a senior.

 

[ArteryStudyPainting]

Undergrad really has minimal impact in the work you'll put into your apps, MCAT, etc.

You can go to a better school, and be a dumpster-fire; conversely, you can go to a "worse" school and excel. Medical schools will want the student who excelled.

No matter what, if you excel anywhere you go, you can do it and get into any school you want, provided you take ownership and do what you have to do. I went to a state school not known for making more than a doctor a year (if that), graduated SCL, and am preparing for medical school after applying to minimal schools because I prepared myself adequately and only relied on the school and programs, etc. as guidance and a piece of my overall research into the MCAT, etc.

I think in-state is your best bet, as it's more convenient, cheaper, and if you do well in school it could be even cheaper in the end. Also, with regards to being away from your peers, college is great because if you don't want to see that complete tool jock from high school after seeing him on your college campus once, you probably won't! It's much more spread out if you go to a moderately sized campus. At my school, it seemed like everyone who I disliked went there, and I only saw them in passing a couple of times. Everyone's schedules change, different buildings, different halls, etc.; I loved it personally.

Hope this helped!

 

[Rolller96]

I think I would be able to give some good advice here. A little background on me, I have been to both a very prestigous school and a smaller state school. And will be starting medical school soon. I transfered for a reason I will get into later in the post. At the first school, I learned that the classes were created not only to weed out the kids who couldnt make it but they are made to keep your GPA low. There were many rules put in that made it difficult to get an A. I noticed many kids grades were starting to become to low to go to medical school, including my own. I learned at the smaller state school that you could actually work hard and earn the good grades needed to get into a medical school, they were not trying to lower your gpa, in order so they can keep their "prestigousness". I would say go to the school were you can earn the highest gpa possible as it will take you farther. That is the short answer I would have. SInce you have the advantage of time on your side and your grades are very high so far, I would suggest looking into early assurance/acceptance programs, there are tons of them. Some of them allow you to not take the MCAT, and they can allow you to go to the school of your choice like a smaller lesser known CHEAPER state school, while still getting the same outcome of gaining entry into a medical school. The programs have specific minimum requirements that if you meet them you go right into medical school. It can save time and money. They do lock you into a specific school, but at the end of the day the medical school you go to does not really make a difference as you learn the same thing at all of them Make sure you read into them and they exist for both MD and DO schools. Please look up both MD and DO it is something helpful to know at this stage of the game. I transfered into one of the early assurance programs and loved it, it let me not take the MCAT, and just focus on my course work and being prepared to do well in medical school. They normally require high ACT or SAT, I would recommend trying to do really well on the ACT but take both and try to do well on both. You should google search Early Assurance Medical school programs and Early Acceptance Medical school programs, and a whole list of them will come up. You could also search BS/MD programs and BS/DO programs you will get a lot of results. Try to apply to those, a lot of different undergrad schools have these and they are tough to find if you dont know what you are looking for. Some of them are extremely competitive and do not take many students but some of them are not as difficult to gain entry to. I am keeping this very vague because I am not sure what you are actually looking for I am just giving you the tools and knowledge to start the search early on in your educational career. I am giving you one option that not everyone knows about and I wish i knew about early on since it would have changed the path of my undergraduate career and saved me thousands of dollars because of I would have chosen a different school from the start had I known about these early assurance and acceptance programs. I hope that this helps sorry for the lengthy post and please do your research you have a big advantage most people dont and that is time. Please post again if you found this post helpful at all

 

[prb345]

Thank you so much! I really appreciate the time you took to write that, and I will definitely be looking into all those different programs you mentioned.

 

[Rolller96]

sounds good you can message if you have an further questions