<p>I'm currently a Junior and have been recently doing plenty of research about colleges. I'd like to get people's opinion on which LACs out there have really a good Pre-Med program.</p>
<p>Grinnell?
Oberlin?
Keyon?
Bates?
etc?</p>
<p>Thank you! :)</p>
<p>Hope College is a small LAC in michigan. its got a great reputation in my area for getting mediocre high school students (3.0s, 3.1s) into top MD programs</p>
<p>Bates has a great pre med program and is strong in the natural sciences overall.
BatesNow</a> | 12/2/2008 | Graduate health programs accept 81 percent of Bates applicants</p>
<p>Bowdoin has really strong science departments for a LAC
and has a very high acceptance rate to medical school</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>looking at acceptance rates is similarly misleading. At top 25 schools they have high rates -- but look at what they were starting with!! You get into a top school, you're smart enough to end up in the top 1/3 of med school applicants and hence get in somewhere. More disturbing are high rates at places you've never heard of. Are they turning lead into gold? Nope. Dig a little deeper and you'll find that med schools require a "committee letter" from any school that supplies it (generally most of them except large publics). To get the eye-catching rate, the schools simply tell weaker students the letter is going to say "recommended with reservations" or "not recommended". If you're smart enough to think of med school, you're smart enough to know that with those letters you are simply wasting time & money by applying.</p>
<p>In sum, the main thing that's going to get you into med school is you. Read the advice above from amherst, read thru their guide, and you'll be better prepared than 75% of the people out there.
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<p>All lacs will have great premed programs; it's all about which academic institution you "feel" connected to.</p>
<p>I tend to agree with nothingcompares... the pre-med program seems to be one of those things that most "top" LACs do well. There are exceptions, of course, but they're few and far between. For this reason, I would also recommend that you really focus on determining where you'd like to be location-wise, what you'd like to major in (if you want something more specific like neuroscience or biochemistry, you'll have fewer selections than a straight biology or chemistry major), what sort of environment you'd like (laid back/more competitive, liberal/conservative, alternative/mini-Ivy/preppy feel, artsy/sporty/activist-y, Greek life scene, etc.), how urban/suburban/rural you'd like your school to be, what type of weather you're looking for, and so on.</p>
<p>thanks you guys! all your answers have helped!</p>
<p>William & Mary has best acceptance rates for med school in Virginia.</p>
<p>And loads of premed students realize half way through they DONT want to become doctors and end up changing majors. College is about personal growth.</p>
<p>Mount Holyoke College is THE best for women's pre-med</p>
<p>Haverford is great for pre-med</p>
<p>Suggest find out if reputation of intro science courses at each school is that they are "weed-out" courses, with curved grading to a deflated median grade.</p>
<p>Some top schools are places where aspirations of many bright potential applicants go to die. Many would probably be better served at colleges that are less selective and/ or did not use their intro courses this way..</p>
<p>Not necessarily LACs, but just in general.</p>
<p>% acceptance rates do not account for all the people who started out interested, but hopes were dashed in such courses.</p>
<p>The weed-out is the key. Schools that claim 90%+ admissions often have about a 30% rate from pre-med interest expressed to med school admission. (And the published rates are often just for those whom the department/school wanted to recommend, or those who had a certain GPA or above.)</p>
<p>in that respect, it's really not much different than graduate school. professors know before hand how many seats are available at which med schools and what kind of stats they are looking for. The nice thing about LACs is that there are so many more resources deployed toward getting just the required results. If you can't get into med school from a NESCAC college or a Swarthmore or a Haverford, you're chances are just as slim trying to swing it from a state school.</p>
<p>If you are top student at a good state school, you will likely have better research opportunities, better internships, and better mentoring than if you are middling student at a prestige private. If you are a top student at either, you won't have any difficultiies in any case (but it will cost you a heck of a lot less at the public, which may help you pay for med school).</p>
<p>Holy Cross has a very good pre-med program and has just completed a new science building.</p>
<p>well, I think you have to factor in how much research is going to come an undergraduate's way when they're not only competing against graduate students but hundreds of other u/gs? At least, the LACs have the HHMI insuring that a certain amount of undergraduate scientific research is done in the country each year. Not sure if there's an equivalent resource for cash-trapped state universities.</p>
<p>F&M is supposed to have a great pre-med program. Ursinus is another smaller LAC that I hear nothing but excellent things about, especially for their pre-med students. But as previous posters have said, most LAC's and top universities have pretty good pre-med programs,etc.</p>
<p>what about Lafayette? bump</p>