<p>beard tax - i wish you hadn’t said i’d highly discourage you.</p>
<p>so piggles…</p>
<p>1) the engineering school has a lower avg. gpa, but med schools know this, adjust accordingly, you will in the end have a fuller math/sci background that usually translates to other advantages (research, higher mcat scores).</p>
<p>2) cp davis is a great program, i was a fellow scholar (though one of the college designations), it is first a community of students you can get close to and at the uni even with a relatively small student body it is really nice to have smaller groupings of people to meet and form relationships (especially those that veer across academic disciplines), it means some extra funding as a student you have access to - summer internships, school year internships, some better advising, access to faculty associated with the scholar’s program - and perhaps most superficially it is an honor to have the title, not every student does it means you are considered to be truly an exceptional candidate for columbia (maybe not the smartest person in the world, but someone that fits columbia’s interests very well).</p>
<p>2) i don’t know what beard tax is saying about only being able to complete premed if you do applied math. - i know many eng students that are now in med school and came from all kinds of majors though most were chemical or biomed eng. in fact some majors give you all the sciences you need, and the core fills in some of the other necessities like a writing class, etc.</p>
<p>3) columbia recently shifted its advising for engineers and so they actually make it so that you will be advised by someone specifically trained to handle engineering students, and who work with engineering faculty, this means you have someone that knows how to help you fit premed within a tightly packed eng curriculum. beard is right that this was once a complaint, but by student demand they have made the change to better help students.</p>
<p>4) i think beard makes a good point on duke being well known for bio and it is more of a traditional collegiate campus, but i think saying you have more to do is a bit of an overstatement. if you want to do research - there is no better place in the world than new york city. you can do cancer research and sloan kettering, rockefeller university on top of columbia, cornell and nyu’s medical centers; you have pharma across the river, billions of dollars pumped into the city on a daily basis. on top of that, columbia is a small and intimate engineering program, as a cp davis scholar you’ll get strong connection with faculty to begin work early in your career. so if research is something you care for, getting a head start on your career, then you’ll have that at cu. on top of having a beautiful and vibrant campus, a safe neighborhood and the greatest city on earth. (check out my other threads, i talk about these other advantages a lot, and they are huge advantages.)</p>
<p>i appreciate beard’s responses, i think many are very helpful and clear, but ultimately he gives columbia a bit of a short thrift. in the end pick what makes sense for you…but consider, columbia wouldn’t admit you if they didn’t think you were right for the school. they see your potential. go to days on campus if you can, enjoy the experience, and meet some current cp davis scholars - i believe a few are working in biomedical engineering labs.</p>