What are the major differences between state undergrads and private undergrads

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I'm transferring next year, because, I don't want to be homeless by the time I graduate med school. Just wondering if anyone knows, I'd rather adjust quickly.
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You answered the biggest difference yourself. The next biggest difference would be size.

Most of it's the same though. College kids drink, party and have sex. Some professors are good, some aren't. Some classes are hard, some aren't. There will be lots of events on campus. It also depends on the city you move to and from.
 
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There might be some exceptions to the rule but for the most part, public schools have larger classes and fewer opportunities for faculty members to get to know your work in any meaningful way. This means that letters of recommendation are often just written from the grade book and are of little value in making the case for why you should be admitted to medical school.

The private schools that send a large number of its grads on to medical schools tend to have a pre-med advisor letter, or a committee letter, that is informative and usually very supportive (it toots your horn for you) of why you will be a great medical student and a good physician. Even if the school only provides a letter collecting service, or no special services at all, the likelihood that you've been in small discussion based classes or those that required a significant number of written assignments makes it more likely that you will get a letter that is more about your personal characteristics as well as your academic prowess including your ability to make cogent points in a discussion or your ability to read and write critically.

As far as the cost goes, don't consider "list price". Not everyone pays retail for private colleges and that includes some students from high net worth families who get merit scholarships.
 
LizzyM said:
There might be some exceptions to the rule but for the most part, public schools have larger classes and fewer opportunities for faculty members to get to know your work in any meaningful way. This means that letters of recommendation are often just written from the grade book and are of little value in making the case for why you should be admitted to medical school.

The private schools that send a large number of its grads on to medical schools tend to have a pre-med advisor letter, or a committee letter, that is informative and usually very supportive (it toots your horn for you) of why you will be a great medical student and a good physician. Even if the school only provides a letter collecting service, or no special services at all, the likelihood that you've been in small discussion based classes or those that required a significant number of written assignments makes it more likely that you will get a letter that is more about your personal characteristics as well as your academic prowess including your ability to make cogent points in a discussion or your ability to read and write critically.
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That's probably true for most well known public schools, which makes me thankful I attended an average-sized Tier 2 state school with a small science program. The average classes had 15-35 students. The bio/chem departments organized weekly meetings where either students, faculty, or a guest would give presentations to the rest of the students and faculty. The topics ranged from planned/completed student research, international work, and a few physicians explaining their respective paths in medicine. I gave more than a few 3-5 minute PowerPoint presentations at these informal gatherings. By the time I graduated, I had more than enough professors that could go up to bat for me on LoR's and the committee letter.

I scored a 37 on the MCAT, so I wouldn't say I received an inferior education, despite going to a college most people have never heard of. The main issue with my school was that because there were so few professors, there weren't many research topics to choose from.
 
LizzyM said:
There might be some exceptions to the rule but for the most part, public schools have larger classes and fewer opportunities for faculty members to get to know your work in any meaningful way. This means that letters of recommendation are often just written from the grade book and are of little value in making the case for why you should be admitted to medical school.

The private schools that send a large number of its grads on to medical schools tend to have a pre-med advisor letter, or a committee letter, that is informative and usually very supportive (it toots your horn for you) of why you will be a great medical student and a good physician. Even if the school only provides a letter collecting service, or no special services at all, the likelihood that you've been in small discussion based classes or those that required a significant number of written assignments makes it more likely that you will get a letter that is more about your personal characteristics as well as your academic prowess including your ability to make cogent points in a discussion or your ability to read and write critically.

As far as the cost goes, don't consider "list price". Not everyone pays retail for private colleges and that includes some students from high net worth families who get merit scholarships.
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I don't even think my school has a committee letter :(
 
LizzyM said:
There might be some exceptions to the rule but for the most part, public schools have larger classes and fewer opportunities for faculty members to get to know your work in any meaningful way. This means that letters of recommendation are often just written from the grade book and are of little value in making the case for why you should be admitted to medical school.

The private schools that send a large number of its grads on to medical schools tend to have a pre-med advisor letter, or a committee letter, that is informative and usually very supportive (it toots your horn for you) of why you will be a great medical student and a good physician. Even if the school only provides a letter collecting service, or no special services at all, the likelihood that you've been in small discussion based classes or those that required a significant number of written assignments makes it more likely that you will get a letter that is more about your personal characteristics as well as your academic prowess including your ability to make cogent points in a discussion or your ability to read and write critically.

As far as the cost goes, don't consider "list price". Not everyone pays retail for private colleges and that includes some students from high net worth families who get merit scholarships.
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You should also add for the benefit of OP that if he or she takes some initiative to participate in class and chat with professors during office hours, good letters of rec can be had in large classes.
 
Josh7 said:
I don't even think my school has a committee letter :(
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You should find out because basically every school asks for a committee letter. And if your undergrad doesn't have a committee, then they have specific requirements about which types of professors to get recs from - and they always vary! Whereas if you have a committee letter, you have more leniency when it comes to the three or so letters you need. This was my experience, others please feel free to chime in.
 
The fear of "big state college" is BS in my opinion. Your med school will probably be big. Why get used to class sizes of 20 starting as a college freshman. Go sit in a massive intro class. Meet people. Figure out how to succeed on your own. Then you will win. Because Professor Liberal Arts School won't be there to drag you along through med school.

I go to a reasonably sized state college with ~20-25k undergrads. My intro bio class was 3 sections of 175+ people (people stood the first day of class in the lecture hall). There are now about 25 people in my upper div. physiology class, and most of the upper div. bio classes are in this 25-50 people range. There are plenty of opportunities to build relationships with profs, especially if you go hunting for them. In fact, that will probably make you look better than if the prof simply had to know you because you are one of 25 bio majors in your graduating class at a small private school.

And there are more research opportunities.
And there are more clubs and things to get involved with.
 
LizzyM said:
As far as the cost goes, don't consider "list price". Not everyone pays retail for private colleges and that includes some students from high net worth families who get merit scholarships.
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Very much this.

I know people are intimidated at going to private undergrads because list prices can be $40,000 to $60,000 a year. No one pays that. At my school, the minimum scholarship is between $10,000 and $15,000 a year and is awarded to nearly everyone. The merit scholarship goes all the way up to full tuition (with several tiers between), if you meet the standards for it. There is also an additional, quite large amount of tuition subsidy that goes in from endowment donations. These subsidies to my education made my education only slightly more expensive than a large state school without any of the 'special treatments' that LizzyM mentioned, whereas the private undergrad provided all that and more for a price that will be negligible in my future.

Obviously, OP is in a situation where this has already been decided. If he cannot afford the education, or is at risk of not making it to medical school, the debt incurred may be a larger factor in the decision.
 
I attend one of the largest state institutions in the country and have built plenty of more personal relationships with professors in multiple departments. Is it harder? A little bit. But if you try, you can definitely make it happen.
 
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I think public schools get stigmatized for all the wrong reasons. At the end of the day, you learn the same thing and the MCAT shows (if you do well) that you can keep up with those Harvard guys who like to "talk down" on public institutions. There's nothing in the pre-med curriculum which requires you to go to a top rank school to learn the material; even so, all the private/MIT schools post their lectures online for free, so we can all get the same ivory tower version of intro biology if pre-meds so choose.

As for letters of recommendation: extra effort during office hours at publics, or extra 30k tuition at private schools.... hmmm.
 
With merit and competitive scholarships I pay the same amount for my 30k+ private university as I would have if I were in the public school across the street.
 
Its not that hard to build personal relationships with the professor at Big State U. Sit in the front row and go to office hours. Offer to TA/preceptor for them. Done deal.
 
It depends on the state school. Without naming mine I could categorically say that it was better then some of the mid tier ivies.
 
Midifelder10 said:
It depends on the state school. Without naming mine I could categorically say that it was better then some of the mid tier ivies.
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What's a mid tier ivy?

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MedPR said:
What's a mid tier ivy?

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Come on now, we all know Cornell and Dartmouth can't compete with Harvard, Yale and Princeton.

And if this guy is talking about certain state California universities, he might have a point.
 
Bangersandmash said:
Come on now, we all know Cornell and Dartmouth can't compete with Harvard, Yale and Princeton.

And if this guy is talking about certain state California universities, he might have a point.
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Depends on what measures you're looking at, I suppose. I don't know much about Cornell, but in spite of being small Dartmouth produces a very high number of wealthy, successful, and connected alumni. Either way, I think you're playing pretty fast and loose with the term "mid-tier."

It also comes down to how you're defining better. If you want a fantastic research faculty with limitless resources then yes, Cal or UWashington or any number of big state schools will be better. If you want a big name on your resume and want to make connections that will help land you a consulting sinecure in the Northeast after you graduate, go to Dartmouth.
 
Bangersandmash said:
Come on now, we all know Cornell and Dartmouth can't compete with Harvard, Yale and Princeton.

And if this guy is talking about certain state California universities, he might have a point.
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Yeah, it basically just leaves california and michigan
 
State school- no debt.
Private school-5000 a semster debt.
 
Going to a large public university means you really need to grow up fast and develop fierce initiative if you want an excellent medical school application. You need to be very proactive in finding great clinical opportunities, research, and developing very good relationships with professors who will be good candidates for providing great LOR's. There will be a lot of competition for all these things and you are pretty anonymous with no one to spoon feed you or hold your hand during the process. You have to start very early and plan for all these things. There will need to be a lot of time spent on SDN with authorities like LizzyM or Catalystik, and students who have been through it and are good advisors, to be able to fill the place of counselors who give only fair to poor advice and have no time for personal guidance. However, it can be done very successfully depending on your resolve. I go to a huge state school and my sister went to an elite private school. She had all the help she needed at her beck and call for a very successful application cycle with little effort. Profs bent over backwards to provide LOR's, experiences, etc. that were very cool. I did the same thing on my own at my school as described above. We both have done equally well. I have lots more leadership experience which I feel I developed by being forced to have initiative, she has more writing finesse. We both have had a generous number of acceptances to equally awesome places and will end up in similar places. We both have had scholarship offers. It can be done just as well at a public school, but requires a lot more work if you are at a huge school with a huge number of competitors for some key things. Both of us went to the same high school with almost exactly equal academic and SAT/ACT stats, and varied but equally compelling EC's. In college I did slightly better that she did academically, but probably not significantly. We both had great college experiences, I just worked harder to get everything I needed.
 
State schools tend to have exponentially larger class sizes. This hurts the chances of building rapport with professors but it's totally avoidable. I made friends with some of my professors just by going to their office hours for some help and finding out that they were really, really cool people.

Smaller, private schools also usually mean you'll know a lot of the people you go to school with (if you go out frequently) which can be either really great or not so great. I had a friend who went to sacred heart and he loved the fact that he knew most of his class.

There might be more things to do at a state school and more parties. Every school is different though.

This is a total generalization, but you might see more 'self-entitled' people at a private school, because they're parents are more likely to have money (or at least be upper middle class). I went to a state school (but not my state) and A LOT of my friends were from less-wealthy families. They were way more humble and had a much better work ethic. A lot of them worked 2 jobs while taking a full schedule because they had to pay their entire tuition.

I'm told that grade inflation is just as bad if not worse at private schools. At my university there was one class that had cheat sheets and a take-home exam to be averaged into the final exam grade. That was about the 'best' of grade inflation. At the neighboring college however they had classes that allowed the students to do the ENTIRE exam out of class. Private schools have to keep those statistics I suppose.

At a state school you'll obviously have more people from that particular state, so you might feel a bit like an outsider. It actually made me feel pretty cool and unique though.
 
plumhill said:
I attend one of the largest state institutions in the country and have built plenty of more personal relationships with professors in multiple departments. Is it harder? A little bit. But if you try, you can definitely make it happen.
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Yep. In fact it might be easier because if you're the know-it-all type who raises your hand all the time in a small class, they won't pick up on that (at least right away).

All you have to do is go to their office hours and be your personable self. Let them talk about something they're interested in. If they talk about their kids (which they usually do) then you have an open door to ask them about their kid in another conversation! This is how you build rapport.

And yes do well in the class. But even that's not necessarily the most important part. If they like you as a person, they'll say whatever they want in a letter.
 
As others have said, you have to create your own opportunities at a state school more than a private school. Many people got lost along the way at mine.

It can be easy to get good LORs. The intro classes are large, but almost no one goes to office hours, so you can establish a relationship. As well, the classes tend to get smaller as you progress and there are electives that are smaller.

Many state schools offer a TON of opportunities, that I think only the Ivies can match. There tends to be a lot of research going on that are hard to find at almost any private school. There are also many clubs, service opportunities, etc. This means working to find the opportunities, but they are out there and they can really add to your app.
 
MedPR said:
What about schools like WashU and JHU?
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U of Washington is good, though I wouldn't put it above any of the ivies like I would UMich. I could see someone making that argument though, so I guess it's possible. JHU isn't public.
 
Sephiroth said:
U of Washington is good, though I wouldn't put it above any of the ivies like I would UMich. I could see someone making that argument though, so I guess it's possible. JHU isn't public.
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WashU stands for Washington University in St. Louis (a private school), not University of Washington (a public school, also known as U Washington).
 
MedPR said:
What about schools like WashU and JHU?
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JHU isn't all that highly regarded, even in Maryland. Admittedly the only thing I would consider good is their music school.... ( Ok, Biomeds good too).
 
mcloaf said:
Depends on what measures you're looking at, I suppose. I don't know much about Cornell, but in spite of being small Dartmouth produces a very high number of wealthy, successful, and connected alumni. Either way, I think you're playing pretty fast and loose with the term "mid-tier."

It also comes down to how you're defining better. If you want a fantastic research faculty with limitless resources then yes, Cal or UWashington or any number of big state schools will be better. If you want a big name on your resume and want to make connections that will help land you a consulting sinecure in the Northeast after you graduate, go to Dartmouth.
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Haha, I was kind of being facetious. Guess I should have put an emoticon. Mid-tier ivy is ridiculous terminology and most ivies will give you a better overall education if some of the cost is subsidized. However, there are a few public universities that give ivies a run for their money and I'd say some specific individual programs at some state universities could blow away similar programs at ivies.
 
Sephiroth said:
U of Washington is good, though I wouldn't put it above any of the ivies like I would UMich. I could see someone making that argument though, so I guess it's possible. JHU isn't public.
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1. WashU =/= UWash
2. Aren't we talking about what a "mid-tier ivy" is?

serenade said:
JHU isn't all that highly regarded, even in Maryland. Admittedly the only thing I would consider good is their music school.... ( Ok, Biomeds good too).
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I thought we were talking about med schools..?
 
JHU isn't impressive? Damn, I'm behind then.
 
MedPR said:
1. WashU =/= UWash
2. Aren't we talking about what a "mid-tier ivy" is?



I thought we were talking about med schools..?
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Thread title is State v.s Private Undergraduate.
You tell me what it is more likely to be?
 
MedPR said:
1. WashU =/= UWash
2. Aren't we talking about what a "mid-tier ivy" is?



I thought we were talking about med schools..?
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If you were talking about WUSTL, and JHU then you missed the whole point about comparisons to public schools.
 
Sephiroth said:
If you were talking about WUSTL, and JHU then you missed the whole point about comparisons to public schools.
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I did. My reply was more along the lines of "What is a mid-tier ivy?". I thought the conversation had shifted to what schools were similar in prestige to Ivy schools without being an Ivy school.
 
MedPR said:
I didn't know Michigan had a highly regarded UG.
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Umich is probably in the top 3 public undergraduates next to UCB and UCLA. They pretty much right under the Ivys.
 
serenade said:
Umich is probably in the top 3 public undergraduates next to UCB and UCLA. They pretty much right under the Ivys.
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Wow I had no clue.
 
Just got back, applied to UCB, UCLA, and Umich
 
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