Hello! I was recently admitted into both Brown and UChicago and I’m having a really hard time deciding where to go. I want to study something biology related and go on to medical school (hopefully to become a neurosurgeon). Considering this what would be the pros and cons of each school and just the overall best choice considering my career goals? Thank in advance (:
@cashmoney21 You might find the thread below helpful. Also messaged you privately. If you have any questions please feel free to let me know.
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/university-chicago/1436332-pre-medicine-at-uchicago.html
Neurosurgery is a long training program, I don’t think the choice of undergrad school matters. Your hand dexterity and whether your hands sweat in surgical gloves maybe bigger determinants of your future as a neurosurgeon than where you got your undergrad. Good luck!
Congrats on having such a hard decision to make! Sux to be you! 
=D> :D/ =D>
Chicago will slaughter your gpa
Do you want rigor or a relatively easy(-ier) ride? UChicago is very hard and will challenge you and educate you as well as any school in the country and maybe the world.
Brown is much more lenient academically. You can seek rigor, but you can also take a bunch of classes pass/fail and glide through (at least until your serious major course work starts).
There is also the Chicago vs. Providence angle, and differences in housing quality are worth researching, but really the biggest difference between these schools is Chicago’s core and very hard (and great) academics vs. Brown’s open curriculum, the ability to take courses P/F (especially advantageous if the class is difficult), and generally a less difficult/intense/serious academic vibe.
I really like the flexibility at Brown while at the same time I feel unsure about the Core at Chicago. Considering that med school is the goal, do you think Brown is still inclined academically enough to prepare me for it? Thank you so much in advance!
You should look up the med school entry stats for each school. If I’m remembering correctly, brown has a higher med school matriculation rate than Uchicago. I’m not even sure if that matters at all, but maybe someone else can speak to that.
My son got into both and opted for brown (and he’s now a phd student at UCSF with a NSF grant, and he thinks the latter was possible bc brown had terrific opportunities for lab research and for volunteering as a science educator in the providence high school system, two things highly valued by grad school committees and the NSF readers). Both schools appealed to him because both attract an intellectual student body and while he was a STEM kid, he loved the humanities too, so many of the Core classes were right up his alley, and he duplicated that coursework at Brown. Also, uchicago at the time (for the 2015 class) didn’t offer a neuroscience concentration and Brown has one of the leading undergrad neuro programs, which certainly influenced his decision. (I think Chicago may now offer that major, and Yale just announced that it, too, will offer the major, but clearly, brown has the advantage of having a well-established program.)
Certain courses at Brown are going to be back-breakers, like the 2 orgo courses, and my son took some graduate level applied math and neuro courses, and also took what’s considered the harder physics sequence, so it was plenty rigorous but brown is on the whole a collaborative environment. He was certainly stressed at times but really, truly loved his Brown experience.
His high school GF went to Uchicago as a bio major, placed into the honors sequence there because of her AP bio 5 score and her 800 in bio, and had such a hard time barely getting a B that she dropped out of the major by the end of her freshman year. It was clear to her that her GPA probably wouldn’t be enough for med school or a top rated phd program. I felt badly about that bc I knew she was highly intelligent and a kind, thoughtful person who would have made a wonderful doctor. Perhaps had she gone someplace else, she would have been able to stay on track but her confidence took a beating and she just didn’t want to struggle like that through the rest of college. She switched her major to poli sci.
Also, finally, I’d suggest you look up Brown’s med school advising page. I’m not sure that you’d be advised to take any of your med school courses pass/fail, or how many non-STEM courses even. I think the only courses my son took pass/fail were those that were mandatory pass/fail, like one of his grad level courses and his English writing courses.
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I don’t think that’s true any more. For the past few cycles, UChicago’s medical school placement rate is between 79% and 88%. It used to be quite low a decade or two ago but that has changed.
OP might find the link below helpful. It has the most up-to-date data:
https://careeradvancement.uchicago.edu/uchicago-careers-in/health-professions/pre-health-faqs
Thank you guys so much, I’ve received a lot of valuable information that I think will make my decision a much more clearer one! I’ll be visiting both schools in the following weeks to finalize my commitment choice, but I feel much more informed and prepared to make my decision.
If you haven’t already taken a look at this thread, perhaps you should:
I’d encourage Brown if you were my kid. It is a much tougher struggle to keep your GPA where it needs to be at Chicago. And you can certainly get good prep for the MCAT at Brown.
There’s a link provided in that brown thread I posted above that provided this medical school info for brown students who just applied to med school in fall 2017:
APPLICATION FACTORS Fall 2017
Admission Rate – Brown Applicants: 92%
Admission Rate – National: 43%
MCAT – Average Composite Score for Admitted Brown Applicants: 35/515
MCAT – Average Composite Score for Admitted Applicants Nationally: 31/511
BCPM (Science) GPA – Average for Admitted Brown Applicants: 3.69
BCPM (Science) GPA – Average for Admitted Applicants Nationally: 3.64
@writermom2018
“Chicago will slaughter your gpa”
That is totally wrong. We have done a statistical analysis about Chicago’s grade deflation and here is the thread:
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/university-chicago/1659610-garde-deflation-p1.html
Please read it carefully. College is what a student can make of, if you get admitted by college X, it means they think you can succeed in that college, if you work hard, you will be successful
The campus visits should decide it as they’re very different in terms of feel. One other thing is if you decide to switch majors, what school would be better for that, they’re both excellent in a variety of programs but each has its own strengths.