What are the best colleges/universities for pre-med?
What major are you interested in pursing? Home state? What can you and your parents afford to pay each year for college? Geographical preferences?
Most likely biology. Pennsylvania. Basically anything. Anywhere on the east coast
“What are the best colleges/universities for pre-med?”
No one can answer that. The best premed college for any one student is one where the student fits in and can develop a competitive med school app. Most US colleges provide the opportunities and resources to develop a competitive med school app. Whether that happens is pretty much on the student, not the college. Also consider “ best premed college” should consider the cost of college as most med students borrow their way through med school and it’s expensive. Graduating from college with as little debt, if any, should be an important consideration in determining best premed college. (Typically a state’s flagship school is cheapest). Location, size, having Division 1 sports, Greek life, religious, etc, etc could all be factors in determining best premed college. Fit, although nebulous, is important because if one fits in and is happy, you’re more likely to do well GPA wise, something very important, in part, to med schools. There are probably many schools that could be defined as “best premed colleges” for any one student.
Understand premed is an intention. Premed reqs are not specialized courses to prep one for med school. They are for most part basic science courses open to anyone with an interest. Also college premed reqs do not prep one for MCAT. You’ll do that on your own or in a formal review course (eg Kaplan) Why biology? You should know med schools do not care what you major in. Art history, religion, psych, geography, etc are among the many fine majors for med school. Consider getting a copy of Fiske Guide to Colleges. Good luck
Thank you. My colleges list consists of state schools such as temple and penn state or private like Georgetown and John Hopkins. When I get acceptances, I will re-evaluate based on their financial plan and stuff like that. Yes I have debated over what to major in for awhile now. I’m a science guy but I also love math and business so I’m in a situation where I don’t know yet.
The “best” pre med school is the one the offer you the best combination of fit, opportunity and cost.
Fit because happier students earn better grades (and there’s empirical evidence to back that up)
Opportunities–like a the availability of pre-med ECs and variety of majors you’re interested in because over 75% of freshmen pre-meds never actually apply to med school
Cost because med school is expensive and there is precious little aid except for loans, loans and more loans. You want to minimize the amount of undergrad debt you take on if you think med school may be in your future.
So what is best for one person may not be the best for someone else.
Since you have Penn State and Temple on your in-state list, consider adding Pitt which is another excellent choice instate. Penn State is kind of out in the boonies and your opportunities for pre-med ECs may be limited in “Happy Valley” because State College is not a big town and there are thousands of students all vying for a limited number of clinical positions. Also the med school is in Hershey so no help there with clinical positions.
And if you like math and are good at it–both my Ds were math majors who went to med school. Math provides more Plan B options should you not get accepted to med school than biology does. (And every year over 60% of those who apply for med school don’t get a single acceptance. Every pre-med needs a Plan B.)
Pitt is also on my list. I do love math and have considered majoring in it. I also have a backup potentially in pharmacology. For penn state, I actually live fairly close to the Hershey campus. Thank you for the guidance!
In addition, I did get a 790 on the math part of the SAT
Wherever you can get the highest grades in the pre-reqs. A lot of big state schools use the pre-reqs as notoriously hard weeders.
Look at medical schools and their feeder schools. For example, Baylor College of Medicine always takes ~20 each from Rice and UT Austin each year.
@cmohler we were told very early on the process that the name of the undergrad plays a very minor role when considering all factors. If medical school is your DC’s goal, and BS/MD is not an option, look into colleges that have medical schools.
Is it better to attend a school that is not as known with a bs/md program (affiliated with an unprestigious med school) or attend a top med program w/o bs/md program? I like the guarantee of the bs/md program but I don’t wanna rob myself of the experience or opportunity at a more prestigious school. Also, if anyone has an idea of the pre med program in Illinois Wesleyan, Benedictine university or Bradley, I’d love to know what it’s like and how good/bad it is.