What college should I attend for pre-med?

[rs02]

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I'm currently a Junior in high school. I have a high GPA and SAT score and decent extracurriculars.

Lots of people say that the college you choose isn't very important and that you're pretty open in terms of where you can go. Nonetheless, I want to go to the college whose resources I can best take advantage of to boost my resume but also have an enjoyable experience at. I've done a lot of research on other forum sites like Reddit and checked out college sites to see what programs they offer. Some experiences and information sometimes conflict I haven't been able to come to a consensus about where I want to go so I thought I'd enlist SDN's help.

There are a few things I want from the school I go to (not in any order):

• Opportunities for research/primary care
• Small class sizes
• Good med school in the state where the college is (this one doesn't matter as much)
• No classes that purposely reduce GPA (I'd like classes that give me an easy GPA but I also realize that a lot goes into constituting GPA not just how "easy" a class is)
• Not in the middle of nowhere

If anyone could direct me to some good places or give me advice that would be awesome.

 

[AllBleedingStops]

Opportunities for research

Anywhere but mostly big state schools or well funded private schools known for their research. This is difficult as an undergrad but depends on your interest and persistence.

Opportunities for primary care

What do you mean by this? If you mean opportunities to shadow primary care, again, literally anywhere.

Small class sizes

Class sizes vary a lot, even within a school. I went to a large state school and had a 400 person lecture. I also had a 12 person class and a one-on-one research course with a prof that I knew well.

Good med school in the state where the college is (this one doesn't matter as much)

Pretty much any state with a couple exceptions for low-population states. What state are you in? Because it would make the most sense for you to go to an in-state school for undergrad so you can save money.

No classes that purposely reduce GPA

Are you speaking about grade "deflation"? Because there is no school that wants your GPA to go down and every school has hard classes that could be considered "weed out" classes or other GPA landmines. That said, engineering majors are known to be full of classes like this. THAT said, many people still take this path into medicine and do just fine.

Not in the middle of nowhere

This depends what you mean. "Not in the middle of nowhere" means different things to different people. Most state schools are in a "college town" which are a lot of fun due to the number of students around but overall are usually not big cities or located super close to big cities. On the other hand, some schools, particularly private ones are located in big cities. That is a bit of a different vibe because you do not get as much of a campus feel sometimes due to the intermingling of campus and city.


Most places will give you the resources you need but just having the resources doesn't mean you automatically get a great resume or application. Yo have to take advantage of those things. It is all about what you make of the experience. For example, just because you have small class sizes doesn't mean you can sit there for a semester and then suddenly get a good letter of rec because you were present in a small class. You have to engage the professor outside of class (office hours), get good grades, and partake in class. This is the same with a large school so in that regard, it really doesn't matter.

It would help if there were more details or you had some general ideas about type of school you like.