CUNY Hunter over Rutgers University for pre-med?

[AHossain]

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I had to make this decision for financial reasons(im instate so my parents will be able to pay for my education with less stress and all) and since Hunter College is so close to my house. (10 min subway ride). But is this a good decision? I want to do a pre-med track and get into medical school in the near future. But my question is, will it be harder for me to get into medical schools like John Hopkins, Cornell, or NYU? Will going to Hunter affect the adcoms decisions from medical schools like the ones I mentioned in any way? Im enrolled in both btw, so I can still choose between the two. Please someone shed some light on this.

 

[Nichomachean]

I know this may sound foreign to you high schoolers that are trained to believe "you have to go to the best school to be the best" but that's not true. The ONLY thing that matters when you're applying to medical school is to have a high GPA and MCAT score which ALL DEPENDS ON YOU. You're going to have to work your ass off to get that GPA and study your ass off to get that 30+ on the MCAT... the school does jack **** for you on both counts. However, as unfair as it may sound, you may have to prove yourself more coming from a not so heard of school then say a bigger school. That just means you may have to take more challenging courses throughout your college career. Also, coming out of undergrad without loans is completely underrated as you'll be taking more than 200k+ for med school.

Also, just so you have this as a reference... you shouldn't be thinking about having to go to a specific medical school. Yes, Hopkins, Cornell etc are great names but you'll find out that the same holds true for med school as well as college. It doesn't matter where you go but how well you perform at those schools. Instead of choosing by name, you should choose by how well those schools prepare their students for their intern years, how much experience and responsibility do they let their students partake in patient management. At the end of the day, a degree from a name school is nice but if you can't manage your patients you still incompetent.

 

[Xelb]

I saw a user here who is will be attending Yale SOM in the fall and graduated from Hunter.

 

[Psychkaytic]

I had to make this decision for financial reasons(im instate so my parents will be able to pay for my education with less stress and all) and since Hunter College is so close to my house. (10 min subway ride). But is this a good decision? I want to do a pre-med track and get into medical school in the near future. But my question is, will it be harder for me to get into medical schools like John Hopkins, Cornell, or NYU? Will going to Hunter affect the adcoms decisions from medical schools like the ones I mentioned in any way? Im enrolled in both btw, so I can still choose between the two. Please someone shed some light on this.

Hunter is ranked in the top 50 regionally and Rutgers is in the top 100 nationally. Of course rankings aren't everything, but they're both clearly good schools. Coming from someone who decided to live at home for my first year with plans to transfer later: It's nice not having to drop such a large amount of money right off the bat. Honestly though? I think living away from home is such a valuable experience. You know how people say that high school is something you should enjoy/a period of time you'll want back? I think the first two years of college are like that too. If you feel like Hunter is a good fit, and you're willing to put in a little extra effort for that social life, then go for it.

I have a best friend and a former teammate that go to Rutgers though, and they absolutely love it. According to them, there are some pretty big classes and a lot of opportunities to go out and be a normal teenager (it's hard for some of us as pre-meds)

I'd say that if your family can afford Rutgers without accumulating a massive amount of debt by the time you graduate, then I'd suggest really weighing your options. Definitely put consideration into the student resources offered, research opportunities, and how you want to remember these next for years. Which school do you think will give you a chance to be the best student version of yourself, but also give you options when you need to decompress? You seem like the type of person that will be fine either way, provided you put in the work. Sorry for writing you a book!

Good luck

 

[Kahr]

I'd definitely go to Hunter, damn fine CUNY school. I've no need to repeat the points you yourself already made as to why. I'll just say that it's going to be what you do and how hard you do it that determines your competitiveness when applying to medical school, not which school you go to.

Friend of mine is attending Hopkins for medical school, she was a neurobio major at CUNY Queens.

 

[AHossain]

So I guess I made the right choice. Also, what should I be able to keep my gpa at for admission into medical school? Like 3.6, 3.7? Just need to get some sort of picture of this.


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[theWUbear]

So I guess I made the right choice. Also, what should I be able to keep my gpa at for admission into medical school? Like 3.6, 3.7? Just need to get some sort of picture of this.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN Mobile app

I got a smart phone 6 months ago. kids these days

to answer question, 3.7 would have you looking pretty good.