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Re: OT: pre-med college selection Posted by Ari [Email]  (#2847) [Profile/Gallery]
(more from Ari) on Tue, 31 Jul 2007 05:54:47
In Reply to: OT: pre-med college selection, Aero'ed, Sat, 28 Jul 2007 07:23:57 Members do not see ads below this line. - Help Keep This Site Online - Signup |
Like many others, I recommend a school with a broad curricula, both the sciences and the arts. As others have said, it's a long way from the freshman year to the senior year, stuff happens - lots of it good.
Be careful of statistics about how many grads get into med school. As an example, I went to the University of Rochester (NY), which has an associated med school. Back when I was in school (just after the discovery of fire) UofR had a very good rep for the percentage of grads getting into med school. But statstics lie.
My freshman class was 1000, of which 500 were declared pre-med. My senior class was 500, of which about 90 were pre-med. A large percentage of the those 90 got into med school. But only about 1 in 8 or 1 in 10 of the freshman pre-med made it into med school. A lot of reasons:
Pre-med is very competitive. Cut-throat was the word. Absolutely no knock against your daughter, but in the pre-med path of a well-known pre-med school, it will be a meat-grinder. The winnowing starts early - the first semester of the freshman year.
A lot of kids found that they changed their minds. The great majority of kids that entered pre-med left as psych majors.
There were two ways into med school that I saw. One was the pre-med path. The other was the 'back way'. I knew some folks that made it in through bio-medical engineering, electrical engineering, and the like. They presented a different face to the medical schools. These were still very smart folks that got very good grades, and also took the required pre-med classes (e.g. organic chem, etc) needed for the MCATS. Most of them had many options when they left school - med school was just one.
Again, no knock, but there is a good chance your daughter won't apply to med school when she graduates. And not from lack of trying - it's a growth time, and she'll likely learn more about what she wants to do as she gets into serious learning. So pick a school where she can take courses and get a degree in a lot of areas where she has interest.
And here's a biggie - this really isn't a big decision. Yes, you can blow it completely, by say, picking a small, liberal arts school with 300 kids, expecting to get a top-flight science degree. Or picking a school with 35,000 kids if she isn't into big-school lifestyle. But if it comes down to two or three schools and you can't decide, that's great - chances are one is about as good as the other, so there is no bad decision, only good ones. And you can't control the unknowns - how your daughter will react to going away to school, her first roomate, and what courses will interest her. Just try and put her in a good environment with lots of options, and stand well back.
Good luck!
posted by 192.249....
, Tue, 31 Jul 2007 05:54:47 <-- Viewing This Message
, Mon, 30 Jul 2007 08:48:00
, Sat, 28 Jul 2007 19:58:22
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