Premed at UTDallas or UPenn

[jtdallas]

UTD
plus, in 4 years you'll understand that going to Harvard or another med shcool won't really matter for your career as a physician

Absolutely!

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[sassykru]

Hands down UTD. Actually UTD Science program is suppose to be pretty good. The MCAT will ultimately be the great equalizer. You can get into a great medical school. I know someone from my school who went to UTD and is now in the MD/PHD program at UT Southwestern (which is not a shabby medical school). I know people who left Baylor U, when they were doing horribly in pre-med courses and transferred to UTD thinking that they would have an easy ride and they were proven wrong. In fact, doesn't UTD have 1 or 2 nobel prize winners in science. The point is on a general scale most people would agree that overall, Penn is perhaps a better school than UTD...but looking at schools sometimes, you have to look at whether the school is strong in a particular area. UTD might not be a big name school like Harvard and Penn, but does not mean that they don't have a strong science dept.

 

[wing14]

upenn if you want to keep options open outside texas. the gulf in class between the two schools is just too big. i know utd is young school, and is only getting better, but its nowhere near the level of an ivy, and not even near the top tier of state schools yet. that said, if you do everything right, you can get into any of the texas schools from there, and if you are truly exceptional, you can make it into anywhere. all i know is that coming from upenn, youre going to get more serious consideration right off the bat

edit: i took a couple summer classes at utd and i didnt like the atmosphere there at all. barely felt like a college

 

[scarletgirl777]

I think that this drumbeat of "MCAT as great equalizer" misses some crucial points. Namely, some schools may be better at preparing you for the MCAT then others, and some schools may make it easier to boost other parts of your application than others. And some med schools are still going to get excited about where you went to school because people are human and that's the way it is.

GO TO PENN! For everything but medicine, it will give you an enormous boost. For medicine, it will give you a boost that is not insignificant. And if you ever find out that you're seriously interested in research, then you may especially want to go to HMS or some other research focused school, and these small things that will influence your chances of getting in may become crucial.

 

[Drogba]

People are forgetting to calculate his 1100 per mo stipend in the cost of attending penn. The total cost, not including increased living expenses etc would be $60k (in accruing loans) plus the ~$48k foregone in stipend money. As great a school as Penn is, I'm not sure it's worth >$108k to someone not from a wealthy background.

 

[LibationBearer]

If your family is in a difficult financial situation that prohibits them from paying the family contribution that Penn has calculated, and having to take out loans is what is holding you back from going, I think you should talk to the financial aid office. At my college (one of Penn's peer institutions) they were very receptive to the fact that my family had a special circumstance, and thus our true financial need wasn't accurately reflected by the numbers on my financial aid application. One of the hottest new things in the ivy league et al. is making their educations financially possible for everyone, and they also really want to keep their yields high. They don't include loans in financial aid because they don't want students to rely on debt, so I bet the financial aid office will give you some more scholarship $$ if you have a good reason and explain that you would have to go deeply into debt to attend.

 

[MsJLewis]

If your family is in a difficult financial situation that prohibits them from paying the family contribution that Penn has calculated, and having to take out loans is what is holding you back from going, I think you should talk to the financial aid office. At my college (one of Penn's peer institutions) they were very receptive to the fact that my family had a special circumstance, and thus our true financial need wasn't accurately reflected by the numbers on my financial aid application. One of the hottest new things in the ivy league et al. is making their educations financially possible for everyone, and they also really want to keep their yields high. They don't include loans in financial aid because they don't want students to rely on debt, so I bet the financial aid office will give you some more scholarship $$ if you have a good reason and explain that you would have to go deeply into debt to attend.

I second this. Go to/call Penn's financial aid office with a sob story. I've had friends that did this and got more money when one undergrad offered them more money than another. It doesn't always work but it doesn't hurt to ask.

 

[bigDee]

I thought I was the reason why I don't feel like I was getting the college experience here. Guess it really is cause of UTD, or that's at least half the reason. I'm transfering out of here next spring. I was looking forward to the college experience. Not this nerd school.