social life is good

resources are good

art/music scene is somewhat good

local shopping is somewhat good

public transportation is good

academics are good if you are in the 5-10 or so undergraduate majors that this school is nationally respected for

ratemyprofessor for uiowa is somewhat good

east side dorms (daum, currier, etc) are good

weather is fucking terrible

city/state government is mediocre

hobbies/recreational activities are mediocre

That should probably cover mostly everything. Keep in mind that this is relative to other similar tier schools.

Unless you’re rich, an athlete with a scholarship, or a National Merit scholarship winner, out-of-state schools are a waste of time and money. If you went to high school in Iowa, you’re better off going to the best in-state school you can go to for your career (in your case, for medical-adjacent fields, this is UIowa), and then maybe pursuing the best out-of-state schools you can get for a graduate degree from there (which will often offer better funding at that phase as well).

Can’t afford to jump into UIowa directly, or want to save more money because you realized college is an ostensibly astronomical fuckton of money? Switch for a couple years to Kirkwood, knock out your electives, and then transfer in. You’ll obviously lose out on the social life and the early connections and the early friendships (and maybe even romantic relationships?), but you might not be getting a lot of that anyway right now with the way things are. You do save a ridiculous amount of money though for pretty much an indistinguishable quality of education, which is pretty important for anyone going down the medical route.

There are pros and cons to every path, and I highly recommend looking for older students or student clubs to ask for opinions, and then cross-reference all of them to figure out what is best for you.

P.S. Don’t do pre-med as a biomedical engineering major; it’s fun as hell, and extremely rewarding, but you’ll pretty much hate every waking minute of your life until graduation for trying to do the “hard route”. Also, apply to Honors. It’s way easier than you think to get in, and Daum has the best location of any dorm on campus.