<p>What's Berkeley's premed like? Are all the premed people really cutthroat there? I heard that Berkeley lowers your GPA, so its not the best choice for someone who wants to get into med school. What do you think?</p>
<p>My brother is premed at Berkeley and he's graduating this year. I don't know about lowering the gpa, but he's got lan overall of about 3.7 something. He's done a lot of summer research programs and he was just in New York for a medical conference. He's also going to Africa this summer to do malaria research...then going back to study for his mcats. I don't think Berkeley inhibits you in any way when it comes to getting into med school. It's an amazing--and amazingly cheap-- school with awesome teachers and labs. It really comes down to what you make of it.</p>
<p>My friend is a premed at berkeley and hasn't found it to be too cutthroat.</p>
<p>it's chill... I'm premed</p>
<p>It's actually surprising how many awesome premed kids are here because I thought they would all be crazy and intense</p>
<p>haha, well yeah your gpa is lower, but since med schools know you’re from berkeley, they understand. i think competitive gpa from berkeley is like 3.5, from what many, many advisors have told me.</p>
<p>btw, being premed is pretty awesome.</p>
<p>pre-med is intense</p>
<p>Depends on the major. If you go with a humanities major, and fulfill your pre-reqs that way, I’m sure Med Schools will hold you up to a higher standard than say the student who decided to challenge himself with a more competitive major, such as Chemical Biology, which is known to have lower GPAs.</p>
<p>So since this thread is some months old, you guys still hold the same opinion about pre-med at Berkeley? For those of you who said intense, could you elaborate on why? And for those of you who said it’s not as competitive as people say, do you still think so? What do you have to do in order to not be runover by all the other pre-meds?</p>
<p>I’m a senior in high school currently making the decision between UCB, Rice, UCSD, and USC. I obviously don’t want to spend too much for undergrad if I can get to med school without going to an incredibly expensive school, but if I can’t, then maybe it’s worth it?</p>
<p>Could you guys list the pros and cons of pre-med at Berkeley so I have an idea? PLEASE AND THANKS!</p>
<p>The pros are almost nonexistent (at least in relation to actually getting into med school) and the cons are that the coursework is harder, the premed support/advising is abysmal, and there’s no associated hospital. There are numerous much better choices of University than Cal, UCSD and USC ranking high among them.</p>