just go to UH man...you will save a lot of money and if your high school GPA and your SAT scores are really good then you will get a lot of scholarship money based on your SAT/GPA...hell, you might even get a reimbursement like me and get to spend it on anything you want...
Seriously. Going on your own right out of school is not a good idea unless you are forced to. Even if you think you want to go out on your own, make sure to go work at a small (one attorney and a couple of associates). The benefits are: 1. You learn how to attract clients (advertising methods, etc). 2. You hone your craft. You learn how to proactice your area of law while doing it under somebody else's bar number. This allows you to make the occasional mistake without worrying about your license. 3. You end up logging a lot of court time. That's what I did, and now I am building a nice little bankruptcy practice. For me, this was a good decision.
I think it depends on the person and the situation. Most of the guys I know that went out on their own are doing quite well....
like i said before... do your first 2 years (all the necessary premed classes are offered) at HCC and pump up your undergrad gpa take the mcat transfer to a 4 year university and major in engineering apply for med school your junior year senior year you find out if you got accepted or not. if yes, good for you. if no, you have a solid degree to fall back on.
exactly what an attorney acquaintance of mine told me when i said i was considering law school, even though i'd only be using to improve my position in taking over the family business one day. well that, and "dont go to south texas."
I did the same thing. Graduated college with no debt, helped found a fraternity and other groups on campus and make the most of my college experience, entered the entrepreneurship program, and now am a successful entreprenuer traveling all over and running my own stuff. UH was honestly the greatest thing to ever happen too me.
Dude...just wondering, but are you speaking from experience? Engineering may be the least practical and worst major a pre-med student can choose. Medical school, while very difficult to get in to, is pretty simple to get in to. Get as close to a 3.8-4.0 as possible(Coming from UT) and make around a 29-31 on your MCAT. That will get you into at least a medical school. Choosing engineering isn't the best way to go about getting a 4.0.
A&M's alright. It wasn't my first choice, but they gave me a full ride so yeah. I like money. I'm not completely into the spirit and all that... but I go to the basketball games and such. Everything is really close in college station too... but traffic down texas is horrible... so much construction I'm in sports management so I wouldn't know much about the pre-med. I do know that the aggies have a big network that takes care of its own. so yeah.
I agree... Or, you could just go to a regular 4 year undergrad program and take your science classes during summer courses at a community college if need be. In any case, I think choosing a major as far away as engineering would be the best approach. I chose economics which is still practical.
yes i am speaking from experience but i did it backwards. i graduated from ut w/ an engineering degree a couple years ago. then i decided engineering wasnt for me. i went to HCC for 2 years, kicked azz on the MCAT, and will be applying to med school next summer. the reason i STRONGLY recommend not majoring in biology or chemistry is... i work with researchers who have phDs in these fields and now they make less than 40k a year. all that schooling for 40k/yr. now theyre sweating on how theyre going to put their kids through college. they even tell me they arent going to let their kids major in biology or chemistry... yes engineering is a hard major and most likely you wont get a 4.0. but thats why im saying do your first 2 years at hcc. that way youll be able to float your gpa. taking a easy minor in something else will also help out. another reason to do engineering is youll have a leg up on the physics portion of the mcat. i can tell you honestly that it doesnt really matter where you go to school bc you will learn the same stuff. and even if your profs dumb down the material, if you are self motivated, youll learn it on your own. i took the princeton review for the mcat and i can tell you i was just as prepared as kids who took their pre-reqs from UT, A&M, UH, Rice, Baylor, Tech, OU, HBU, LSU, Emory, McGill (canada).... if you really wanna save money, dont care about school atmosphere... id say HCC is the ticket.
True, I would also recommend taking science classes at a community college, but I'd also be careful with that. When I was applying to dental schools, some of them started not allowing the pre-reqs to be from community colleges. My school (Boston University) strongly recommends science courses from a 4 year insititution...and if you dont have that, then you pretty much have to hit 95th percentile and up on the DAT. The school nearby, Tufts, does not give any credit for C.C. courses. Im not sure if medical schools are starting to follow this trend...If they are fine with it, then my recommendation would be to enter a 4 year undergrad program and during the summers, take your science pre-req classes. During the Fall and Spring semesters, take easy, interesting classes that will give you a good chance of obtaining a 3.7+ GPA.
no man, that's pulling the bar waaay down.. first considering Rice, then A&M, now all the way down to HCC? I want to have a really good education.. call me r****ded, but I'm really into all that "prestigious" stuff, graduating from Rice is not like graduating from A&M.. and starting at HCC isn't the right move IMO because it's not challenging at all, and Medical School is all about being challenging.. so I gotta get used to that.. and by the way guys, from all the replies, I am seriously considering Rice now.. I read a scary stat from rice though: the admit 780 students each year, OUT OF 8900 !!!!!! so my odds aren't that good, but a miracle can still happen, especially if I told them that 9th grade was my very first year in the U.S (I've lived my whole life oversees) and I had to overcome the language barrier and still get all A's in college-level classes in high school, in addition to me graduating when I'm still 17 (I will turn 17 in January) ... boy, would Rice be just perfect for me!! I would get to stay home, my parents taking care of my everyday needs (no worries about housing/eating/everyday necessities) , and all I have to do is go to school and study well.. it's 28 grand a year though, without the room and board, which I dont have to pay for, but it's still 28 grand, so if I finished my chemical engineering degree/premed in 4 years, that would be about 120 grand.. so I still have 80 grand to reach the student loan max, but I would be working part time with my degree, and then, after medical school, BOOM, after 2 year, Loan is paid for, and I can finally relax and get me my Bently, my house on River Oaks,and first-row seats for the Rockets and the Texans.. and of course, I would offer full financial support of clutchfans... heck, I would do anything, JUST GET ME TO RICE
if youre ok w/ dropping 28k a year in tuition as opposed to 4k a year, thats all you man... but speaking from my experience, it doesnt matter about the "prestige" of the institution (unless of course youre talking about harvard, yale, princeton, cornell, columbia, upenn, stanford, johns hopkins...). youre still learning the same material. in some cases youre using the same text book! i believe its all about individual drive. i took my pre-reqs at hcc and scored 30+ on my mcat. as far as colleges not accepting classes from hcc. i believe UT and A&M still accept all courses from HCC. UH accepts all courses too. however, if you are majoring in bio/chem they want you to take organic at UH. BUT they will still accept the course from HCC. also im close to 100% sure that all texas med school accept courses from HCC. but even if they dont, if you score sufficently high enough on the mcat im sure the admissions board would make special considerations. i heard this from somewhere but a formula that med schools use is gpa + 10 x mcat = if the sum is greater than 70 then you have a pretty good chance. if you want prestige, go for rice. but it doesnt guarantee you a ticket into med school (unless of course you make it into the rice/baylor med program).
if you make it into the rice/baylor med program youre golden. then you just have to grad w/ a C avg. no mcat necessary. but thats a very very very small percentage...
Where are you getting this idea that there is a maximum student loan limit? I believe there is only a limit on government student loans ( special loans that you don't have to pay interest on while your in school ) If you run out of the max during med school, you can easily go to any bank or other financial institution and get a loan for school, heck even I would loan you money. You really shouldnt let a government student loan limit determine where you go to school
@stormsurge - yes, you can get in with that. it'll definitely be competitive for business and engineering. @rocketsmac - austin really isn't that far. it's a 2.5 hour drive that doesn't feel like anything once you make the drive once or twice. you get used to it. once you stay in austin for an extended amount of time, i think you'll appreciate the hill country women, weather, food, and atmosphere more.
That limit is based on the level of loans that most people will have the ability to repay once they graduate. A HUGE mistake that many young people make today is that they way overload themselves with a level of student debt that they have little chance of servicing once they graduate. Then they put loans into forebearance, and the interest continues to mount. If you don't have to overload yourself with student debt, you shouldn't.
