Berkeley or UBC for pre-med?

<p>Right now I am trying to decide between UC Berkeley and UBC. My dream is to get into medical school in the future.
Because I live in Vancouver, going to UBC would be very convenient for me. It is also way cheaper than going to Berkeley. But I really like Berkeley (its school, people, and environment), and it is a much more recognized school around the world. As a Canadian citizen and a US permanent resident, I would have to pay 30000 for first year in Berkeley. </p>

<p>If I want to take premed in undergrad and go into a med school, which school should I go to to have a higher chance? What are the chances of getting into a US medical school with a UBC degree? Berkeley degree?</p>

<p>I'm also worried about the grade deflation at Berkeley.</p>

<p>Thank you</p>

<p>Go where the money is. Med school is expensive and the last thing you want is more debt.</p>

<p>I don’t know a single thing about the Canadian college system and how it synchronizes with the US college and medical system, but I assume for them to be very close. I don’t know about UBC specific enough to offer a comparison, but I will give you a bit of my thoughts about UCBerkeley.</p>

<p>Be wary about UCB as pre-med, it is not always the best direction to go in, in terms of pre-med. Berkeley is notorious for their merciless grading, and furthermore, medical schools tend to be even stricter towards UCB in terms of acceptance. This causes UCB to be a lose-lose situation for a pre-med. Getting grades is much harder, and then in applying to medical school, they also expect you to get higher grades as well. For example, say the average GPA for a medical school was 3.7 and therefore from any undergraduate school, the average GPA from any school is about 3.7. However, from UCB, the average would probably be like 3.8. Very absurd, but the statistics prove this, so be wary.</p>

<p>Same is true for MIT. No one will deny that MIT is one of the most rigorous universities to attend, and one of the scariest for a pre-med student, yet medical schools are generally stricter on MIT students than any other school. Even though medical schools know that a typical MIT student is likely to be better equipped for handling medical school than a student at another school, the med school is ironically stricter to MIT applicants.</p>

<p>Totally ridiculous. What do you know about either school? What I know is that there is no way to suggest Berkeley has advantages worth an extra $100k to get your degree.</p>

<p>Starbright, EH was supporting going with the money…</p>