Hi everyone, I was recently accepted to Bates’ class of 2022 and have some assorted questions that I would love to get answered.
First, I am interested in taking a pre-med route in college and am curious where Bates stacks up to other schools. How is the support for pre-med students? Are there extensive opportunities for internships? How easy is it to participate in research with faculty?
Second, I am curious about the dorm situation. I generally dislike partying. What would be the best options that are relatively quiet?
Third, I would be interested in possibly joining the debate team. That being said, I have never done any formal debating before and am wondering as to how open they are to taking inexperienced kids and training them?
Lastly, how do college grading and academics stack up with high school? I found my AP classes to be quite easy and did well on the exams. Are AP classes similar to the actual college environment? Obviously, classes will vary, (I don’t expect organic chemistry to be easy), but generally what is the workload like?
Thanks for the help, and sorry for the mess of questions.
My '17 son was a philosophy and math major, so I can’t comment on the pre-med program, but I imagine it’s good. However, regarding your second question about dorms, I would recommend Clason House–it’s a no-chem first-year residence of about 30 students, known for “geeks, introverts, and internationals.” My son, who is not a partier, chose it and enjoyed it. After the first year, there are no-chem/low-chem houses for non-first-years who want a quieter environment. About the rigor: my son arrived from a pressure-cooker public residential STEM high school where the classes were typically harder than standard AP. He found Bates to be sufficiently challenging (especially after the first year) and still had time for extracurriculars and a part-time campus job.
Bates has an excellent premed placement record. Many Bates students do internships at Central Maine Medical Center, the 3rd largest hospital in the state, which is a short walk from the Bates campus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Maine_Medical_Center
Here’s a list of local medical professionals who have agreed to have Bates students intern with them. (Again, this is one of the advantages to being located very near a major hospital.) http://www.bates.edu/career/files/2011/12/Internships.pdf
Bates has an assortment of houses and dorms designated as quiet/study or healthy living (Bates’ term for no-chem). Clason House is an all-freshman healthy living house. I’ve never gotten the sense that there’s any stigma to choosing these options.
The Bates Quimby Debate Council is one of the oldest and most competitive debate societies in the country. In typical Bates spirit it also welcomes all comers.
Last year Bates won the North American Women’s Debating Championship, beating schools like Harvard and U of Toronto. Also,
From their FAQ’s:
I’ll leave current student to answer your last question about the difference between high school AP classes and college courses.
Bates’ grads have a fantastic acceptance rate to med school. There are two hospitals very close to the college. The bio department is strong. I believe the relatively new neuroscience major is excellent. I don’t know much about research opps during the summer, but there are students who stay on campus in the summer to do it. As all students are undergrads though, research is common, I believe.
My D joined the debate team her first year. She had absolutely no debate experieince. She went to tournaments at Tufts, Northeastern, and Brandeis. By the time the season ended, she and her partner beat Yale in a tournament. Bates has a renowned debate team. I doubt you find any LAC that has a better one.
I’ve heard of Clason, it’s a good dorm. You will not find much partying in Addams. It’s college though, so there is going to be some partying. My D doesn’t party and it’s never been a problem for her.
Re APs, I recommend you take the Intro level class, unless you are very motivated to study hard so that you can be prepared for the rigor. My D got a 5 on the AP psych test. She emailed the prof before choosing courses for her freshamn year and asked for her opinion. The prof said pretty much what I have said. D decided to take the Intro course. It was very difficult. She says there is no way she would have been able to slip right inot the next level without compromising her chance of getting a high grade. I do not think AP courses adequately prep a student for college level work at schools like Bates.
So I am the Old Batsie Doc, after all-accepted at Tufts, BU, Hopkins and UMass. I didn’t get into Harvard(sniff) orStanford . Those were the only schools I applied to. I aced my MCAT without any extra preparation, and I majored in Physics. I also took full advantage of the liberal arts-minimum physics courses for the major(tho I did a thesis and graduated with honors) plus 4 semesters of Chem and 4 of bio, but otherwise history, English, French, art and anything else I was interested in.
It was an awesome education, and I had great mentoring and all the help I needed.
I had no trouble doing well in all my med school classes, and was well prepared. I also got a job collecting patient data for a research study at Maine Medical Center while I was there…