Brown is the best place to be a pre-med

The issue with advising has been around for a while. I think Brown is one of the best places to be a premed despite the issues with advising, and will be even better once they get some of these problems sorted out. As a PLME I didn’t go through the premed advising, but many of my friends did, and I agree with many of the statements made in the article.

@what???!!
I stand by my statement made nearly 5 years ago:

DS waiting to hear both from Brown and/or PLME. He has many interests outside of medicine and he seems to think that at the Brown he has the best chance of being able to balance pre med school and the other things that make him tick.

So we are crossing our fingers, toes …

Hi, is it possible to do the Economics major and pre-med simultaneously? I apologize in advance if this is a stupid question.

Pre-med is not a concentration (major). It is a series of courses required to apply to med school. You can concentrate on anything you want - Economics, English, psycho-ceramics – and go to med school.

I hear Josiah Carberry’s lecture is not to be missed!

@iwannabe_Brown: darn, why do I keep on missing it? The guy never shows up!

@iwannabe_Brown Hi! Thank you for your very informative thread, but I have a bit of an inquiry that maybe you could help with.
I recently have been admitted to some undergraduate schools, but am torn between 4:

Brown, Upenn, Cornell, and Johns Hopkins

I want to become a surgeon, hopefully specialize in neuro (but anything can happen) but my main concern is that while I do want a great education in the sciences in preparation for the MCAT, I also want to feel like college isn’t just for focusing on pre-med, but a chance to learn a little bit about everything (like the humanities). I’d like to major in neuroscience, but I’m also open to majoring in bio (general) and minoring in Spanish Literature.

I understand a high GPA is a big aspect of applying to med school, and I’ve heard that accomplishing that at Hopkins is very hard (rumors about grade deflation there also make me rethink it)

I really like Hopkins and Brown, but I’d have to take out a total of 14,000$ in 4 years to attend Hopkins, while my Brown financial aid just asks me to give $1,300 in summer work and graduate debt free! I’m trying to be sensible, as I know med school is a very big (and expensive) investment.
What’s the best option for me, in your eyes, and do you think Brown can prepare me for the toughest med schools?

Think about what I’ve written. You’re now also telling me Brown is the cheaper option? What do you think I’m going to say?

Brown

First, the new 2015 MCAT test (https://www.wsj.com/articles/medical-college-entrance-exam-gets-an-overhaul-1429092002), the first major revision in 25 years, is longer (by 3 hours), broader (covering four more subjects), and more interdisciplinary than past versions.

Old >>> New
Total time (including breaks) 4 hr. 10 min. >>> 7 hr. 33 min.
Number of questions 144 >>> 230
Number of sections 3 >>> 4
Suggested prerequisite courses 8 >>> 11
scores range 3-45 >>> 472-528

It seems that Neurosciences is the way to go after 2015 new MCAT. Notice that even Yale created a new neuroscience major (https://news.yale.edu/2017/04/11/yale-college-creates-new-neuroscience-major). I would expect more applicants from Yale in four years considering its expansion of its science programs. The majority of JHU applicants are Neurosciences major also. I don’t think PLME is considered applicants in AAMC data. Including them, Brown has a petty healthy pre-med population. But they are not going to compete with us, so it is the best arrangement.

Ivy League school ___ number of applicants ,% of applicants from class of 2017

Cornell University, Ithaca, NY ---- 424 13.3%
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA ---- 296 12.2%
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA ---- 291 17.5%
Brown University, Providence, RI ---- 232 15%
Columbia University in the City of New York, New York, NY ---- 205 14.7%
Yale University, New Haven, CT ---- 199 14.7%
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ ---- 157 12.2%
Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH ---- 157 14%

Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD ---- 401
Duke University, Durham, NC ---- 346
Emory University, Atlanta, GA ---- 380
Stanford University, Stanford, CA ---- 213
Northwestern University-Evanston, Evanston, IL ---- 245
University of Chicago, Chicago, IL ---- 183
University of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA ---- 926
University of California-Berkeley, Berkeley, CA ---- 741

Brown has many students at top medical schools – https://www.brown.edu/academics/college/advising/health-careers/medical-admission-data-snapshot We calculate that someone on the top 30 list of the class can get in a top 20 medial school, not just “a” medical school.

as a Brown alum at a top 20 medical school (by USNWR’s list), I can vouch for Brown’s preparation to succeed at any program you want. in my experience, attendings/PIs see Brown on the CV and instantly expect a certain quality of hard work and skill, which helps get your foot in the door for many opportunities.

fwiw I doubt I was in the top 30 of the entire graduating class. way too many brilliant people at Brown for me to have been in that rarefied group.

I wasn’t even top 20% of the class (so outside the top 300) let alone top 30 - and as I said in the first post, I’m at a top 20 school’s MD/PhD program and this summer I’ll be starting residency at a hospital ranked higher on USNWR than my current school’s.

Wow, thank you so much for all your input! The only thing left to do is visit campus in two weeks but @iwannabe_Brown and @IC405AE , I think you’ve solidified my decision to be a part of Brown’s class of 2022! I’m excited for the opportunities ahead.

When I said at #70 “We calculate that someone on the top 30 list of the class can get in a top 20 medical school, not just “a” medical school.” I did not mean that people outside of the top 30 applicants (in terms of GPA/MCAT) to medical schools from Brown won’t get into a top 20 medical school. It is an “expectation management” so we intended to do well academically so have a higher chance of getting into a top 20 medical school. If you look at the sample data, a lot more than 30 applicants from Brown got into top 20 medical schools every year.

@iwannabe_Brown has a tread explaining what is like to be an Adcom on the the other side. Obviously it is not just academic. Just like college applications, it involves a lot more activities outside classroom. Sorry for the confusion.