Undergrad: UCSD (OOS) or UNLV (IS)

[FutureVegasDoc]

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I live in Las Vegas and I'm planning on going to med school. I was just accepted as a transfer to UCSD. My fallback plan has always been UNLV. Now that I've been accepted to UCSD I have to decide whether the superior credentials of UCSD are worth the much higher cost. I will not receive any assistance from family, and will have to figure out a way to pay for it completely on my own (i.e. private as well as federal loans). What I need to know is whether the huge additional cost is justified in order to receive my BA from UCSD instead of UNLV and how a degree from UNLV would affect my chances of getting into a decent med school.

 

[elementals]

This is the allopathic med schools forums, dude. I know you're not a high schooler, but your question might get more attn there since you're comparing undergrad institutions!

 

[reddoc]

In general, unless you are looking at a really prestigious school like stanford it does not make that much difference when applying to med school. I would try to pick a school that has a premed advising office/pre med advising committee as they can be very helpful and will make sending in letters of Rec easier. One rule of thumb is to pick the best school that you think you can get great grades in. Also, pick a school that you like rather than just one that you think will help as a premed as the fact is about 2/3 of students who start as premeds end up doing something else. Money is an issue if you are on your own and I would use that as a major decision factor otherwise you are going to be in some serious debt which will affect your life in major ways.

 

[FutureVegasDoc]

Thanks for the tip elementals.

And thanks for the advice reddoc! Good points 🙂

 

[byurazorhog]

Save as much money as possible in undergrad by going to the cheapest option. Unless you're in the top Ivies or top west coast schools, I feel that where you get your bachelor's get very little weight by med school adcoms. I would know since I went to a little known college and still got accepted to where I wanted to go for med school. I would even go so far as to say that doing extremely well at a lower-ranked undergrad school will help you more in the admissions process than being mediocre at a more prestigious one.