<p>So, for those 100 or so students, how many do you think do Pre-Med?</p>
<p>Also, does having a good GPA and SAT score increase my chances of getting to research starting my freshman year? Or does research not work like that?</p>
<p>I would say that among those 100, maybe 20 of them are pre-med. But remember, GPA and SAT get you in the door, but hard work is what will get you to med school. I know a lot of people who made it to great medical schools who weren't stars in high school and had very pedestrian SAT scores.</p>
<p>I really don't think that your GPA and test scores would directly help you get research as a freshman. But if you are in the Honors Program and a Regents' Scholar, that will get attention from the Professors. So I guess indirectly your HS GPA and SAT scores will help. What also helps is initiative and persistence.</p>
<p>Tell you what - if UCI ends up being one of your final choices for college, let me know and I'll try to make some calls and see if we can find a current pre-med bio student to take your on a tour or their lab or to make themselves available for questions via e-mail...I still maintain ties to the university so this could be set up.</p>
<p>Wow, thanks for the help, alicantekid; I've never met anyone willing to help another person to such an extent. I'll definitely keep you posted if I do infact make UCI my school of choice.</p>
<p>No problem, Med. If you are invited to join the CHP, there is an "Honors Experience Day" scheduled for Saturday, March 12. With a GPA and SAT score like yours, and assuming your SAT II scores are similar, you will probably be among those invited. Keep that date open in case you do get the invite, and hopefully you'll be able to make it down to Irvine from the Bay Area. I remember attending that event when I was a high school senior, and it really swayed my decision a lot.</p>
<p>Hope to hear from you soon!</p>
<p>hey alicante...i was just curious as to why u chose UCI over LA and Berk...i live in irvine, and im seriously considering going there because of the convenience factor, but at the same time, i get the image that I is much less prestigious thant LA and B...is that true, or do u really get the same education in I as u wouldin B and LA? im indian so i guess my background has something to do with that image....</p>
<p>I chose UCI over the other schools I got in to for a number of reasons, but at the top of that list were the Regents' Scholarship (full tuition and fees) and the invitation to join the Campuswide Honors Program (CHP). I felt that I would be taken care of by the staff at Irvine, and I was right. Had I gone to Berkeley or UCLA, I would have just been another undergrad amongst 25,000 others. In terms of prestige, don't worry too much about what your friends and family think. The people who matter (grad school admissions and potential employers) will respect your degree. If the only people who got good jobs were people who went to those two schools, then there would be a ton of unemployed people in California. The reality is, even someone with a degree from a Cal State or a no-name school can still do well in life if they're smart and had the right experience.</p>
<p>My advice is always this - try to get the best possible education at a good price for your undergraduate, and then blow your money on the big-name school for grad/professional school. That's what I'm doing.</p>
<p>I am a current student at UCI. I would be happy to answer any questions about things, but seriously, alicantekid is the font of all knowledge on UCI, so listen to him.</p>
<p>Yeah, but I'm an old fart. Yackityack and I can BOTH answer your questions from two different perspectives.</p>
<p>I'm just trying to keep this thread fresh.</p>
<p>hi alicantekid, i have a few questions about UCI.</p>
<p>first off, are their biology courses curved like at UCLA? since many pre-meds are science majors, i'd assume that it'd be tough to get A's in those classes if only a few people can get A's with all that competition. if they do curve their bio courses, then I'd rather apply for psych... which leads me to my second question: Is their psych. program any good? Is it hard, easy, or moderately difficult?</p>
<p>Hi egg,</p>
<p>Glad to answer your questions.</p>
<p>Are biology courses curved? Yes, they are. Usually about 14% of the class will get an A or an A-, and 14% supposedly get an F. 20% get some kind of B, and 20% get some kind of D. The rest are supposed to get a C. Whether or not they stick to that, I'm not sure. Usually if you are at the mean, you'll get a C+. But keep in mind that NO ONE gets 90% on stuff in college (I shouldn't say no one does, but very few). So in most cases having a curve actually helps you. Many of the other science classes (chemistry, physics, math) will also have some kind of curve as well.</p>
<p>Is UCI's psych program any good? UCI actually has two different psychology majors that you can choose from. The first one, Cognitive Psychology, is a part of the School of Social Sciences. The second one, Psychology & Social Behavior, is part of the School of Social Ecology. I can't really explain the difference between the two except by saying that the former is a tad more scientific than the latter. Both programs are pretty good from what I hear. Not many colleges have a School of Social Ecology. One of the professors in the Psych & Social Behavior program is Elizabeth Loftus, who was named as one of the top 100 psychologists of the 20th century (I think she was #58) and she was the highest ranked woman on the list. She often serves as an expert witness for criminal trials and I heard that she charges several thousand an hour for her services.</p>
<p>I would say that neither of the two psychology majors are that difficult. As a matter of fact, psychology is where a lot of the people who couldn't cut it in bio end up. You obviously still need to go to class and stuff, but the material is pretty easy to grasp if you do what is asked of you. I got a minor in Cognitive Psychology and I loved it. Many of my favorite professors were in psychology. In my experience with psych classes, they don't curve them. This could work against you, since it is theoretically possible for no one in the class to earn an A on a straight 90-80-70-60-50 scale. In a curved class, there will be people earning A's, regardless of what they score.</p>
<p>If you are pre-med, I would say that majoring in biology is the better way to go, unless you truly have a strong interest in psych. To be eligible for medical school, you have to fulfill all of the pre-med requirements, which include two years of chemistry, a year of physics, a year of calculus, and two years of biology with lab. All of these requirements are fulfilled by the bio major, but none of them are fulfilled with either psych major. So basically you'd have to do your major classes AND the pre-med classes. And you're still going to be in class with all of the super-competitive bio people. They don't grade you on a different scale just because you're not a bio major.</p>
<p>I had a friend in college who was a psych major and wanted to go to medical school. She was a psych major because she loved the subject, but as time went on she realized that by doing all of the pre-med stuff, she was just a few more classes short of completing the entire bio major. She ended up adding the bio major as a double, since she felt that it would be a waste of time if she took all of those bio classes and didn't end up with a degree in the subject. She did fine (got a 3.95) and is now a medical student at USC.</p>
<p>Don't feel like you need to get a 3.9 GPA to make it to med school. One of the guys in my class got into medical school with a 3.18 GPA, and I know a handful of others who got in to schools with GPAs below 3.5. Of course, they're not getting into Harvard or Stanford, but they're still getting into U.S. schools and are getting good residencies.</p>
<p>Once you get to college, wherever you go, it's going to be hard to escape curves. Everything in life is curved. College admissions and med school admissions are based on the strength of the applicant pool, not just on hard numbers. Same with grades in biology classes. You kinda just learn to live with it.</p>
<p>wow, that helped me ALOT.</p>
<p>thanks!</p>
<p>You're welcome...</p>
<p>Bring on the UCI questions...I'm ready!</p>
<p>If you're admitted, do they send you an e-mail in advance or do you have to wait for the letter?</p>
<p>I checked my status online on March 1st and it said I was accepted. I don't think they post online for everyone right on March 1st, some people get notified a little later in the month. At least I think that's how it was last year. I got notified by mail a few days after I was accepted online.</p>
<p>so sad. my experience was far worse than what allicantekid had. especially after transfer, when i really had a chance to see what a better school had to offer, in all kinds of ways.</p>
<p>alicantekid:</p>
<p>Maybe this isn't specific to UCI, but you said that you wished you had been involved in more clubs, studied harder, and changed your major. What did you mean? Could you elaborate?</p>
<p>Clubs - which ones were you involved in? which ones do you wish you had been involved in? why?</p>
<p>Studying harder - how come you didn't study hard enough to be satisfied in hindsight? why do you now regret not having studied harder?</p>
<p>Changing your major - when did you find out that your major wasn't right for you? would you do a business major if you could do it all over again?</p>
<p>Sorry for asking so many questions. THANKS for taking the time to post on this thread. ;)</p>
<p>MrTrojanMan obviously didn't like UCI, while yackityack and I obviously enjoy(ed) ours. Like any school, there are tons of different views on everything. I'm glad he transferred, because now he seems happy. Good for him. I never once thought about transferring.</p>
<p>I was visiting the campus of the school that I am attending in the fall for my MBA, and I met up with a girl who will be one of my classmates. I asked her where she did her undergraduate degree, and she told me that she went to Harvard. That put a smile on my face, because the two of us ended up in the exact same place, except I went to college for free, and she probably paid over $120,000 to go to Harvard. </p>
<p>Snoozy, let me answer your questions.</p>
<p>About clubs, I don't know if there were any specific clubs I wished I belonged to, I just wished I got involved with more of them. The reason I wish I got involved with more clubs is that I would have met even more people than I know now. I had a lot of great friends, and we all still keep in touch to this day, but when your best friends all had 3.8-3.9 GPAs and all went off to the top graduate, medical, and law schools in the country, it kinda warps your sense of reality. It kinda made me feel like a slacker. But if I had joined more clubs and met more people closer to "average", it would have really brought my perception of academic reality a little closer to earth. I was involved in Kababayan (Filipino club), College Bowl Club, Honors Student Council, College Republicans, Ultimate Frisbee Club, I wrote for the School Newspaper, and I was also involved in housing.</p>
<p>Studying harder. I didn't study harder because college is different than high school. They don't collect homework, and that means that you have to be really self-disciplined to keep on track. Also, since I was on a full ride, I didn't really feel obligated to study as much as someone who was paying their own way through school or having their parents pay for them. I just figured that I'd keep my grades high enough to keep getting my scholarship renewed and spend the rest of the time drinking and killing time. I regret not studying because I had a relatively pedestrian GPA, and I realized that every class that I actually put in an honest effort yielded me an A or an A-minus. Unfortunately, there were also several classes that I just slacked off in and I could have gotten much better grades and maybe graduated with Latin Honors. </p>
<p>My major. I realized that my major wasn't right for me probably in the middle of my junior year (my third year out of five). The reason I didn't change it at that time was because I was nearly done with all of the hard classes, and I was at the point where I could pick the elective courses I wanted to take. I thought it would be silly to change at that point and have nothing to show for my previous two and a half years of work. I could not have done a business major because UCI doesn't have that major. And at that point, I still wasn't really focused on getting an MBA. I probably would have done a major in psychology with a minor in management if I could start over again. I did a minor in psychology, and I loved it. And there were waaaaaaaaaaaaay more hot girls in psych than in bio.</p>
<p>Thanks alicantekid. You've been a great help.</p>
<p>You're very welcome. Anything to help educate people about my alma mater.</p>