<p>I'm curious about this track and can't find much feedback/opinions from current members on the web. Does the program offer any advantage that's otherwise unavailable to Caltech students? With the 2 campuses so far apart, what kind of interactions do students get from the UCSD faculty? As I understand, there's a 3.5 GPA requirement, and I 'd venture to say that a Caltech grad with this GPA pretty much can get into any med school, so why limit yourself to one school? Also, I assume it's probably a challenge to have this GPA, so what would happen if someone fell below this magic number(!) at the end of the four years? And lstly, how selective is this program, i.e. how many applied this year and how many acceptances?</p>
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<p>This is not true. Med Schools typically tend to be very GPA competitive, and the Caltech GPA is often not “weighted” as strongly as it maybe should be compared to other schools when it comes to med school admissions. (Grad school admissions are totally different). My assumption is that if you fall below 3.5, you don’t get admitted to UCSD, but it’s impossible for me to know as the first class to have that program is the current junior class. My class (seniors) don’t have that option.</p>
<p>Thanks, lizzarfire.<br>
Do you know if these lower classmates like the program?</p>
<p>As far as I can tell, it’s not a separate program. They take the same classes as everyone else. It just means that they get to go to UCSD for med school if they graduate with a 3.5. The one person in it who I know really well does not currently have the 3.5 required.</p>
<p>That would complicate thing quite a bit for your friend, wouldn’t it?
The assumption is for anyone to make it into this program, he/she ought to have been a very strong student, and yet the person can’t make the requirement. Not sure if this’d be a positive pr for the program to have people drop out like that. On the other hand, UCSD can potentially put on a spin that it’s the student who’s not up to it, or Caltech is too rigorous.</p>
<p>Being a strong student in high school is in no way predictive of success at Caltech. Every student that is admitted was an extremely strong student in high school. </p>
<p>Again, I don’t think that there is a “program” to drop out of, I’m just guessing it would mean admission to UCSD is not guaranteed. I don’t think there’s really a PR issue here at all–the medical scholars program is tiny. That being said, I don’t know the full details of the situation.</p>
<p>I will say that getting into med school from a school as rigorous as Caltech is very difficult. As I mention in the letter stickied at the top of the forum, I think Caltech is not the right place for people dead set on going to medical school. There is a very real possibility that you as a pre-med are not good enough to maintain a 3.8+ GPA at Caltech (somewhere around 20% do). Is it worth it to you to receive an awesome and diverse education at the price of maybe not being admitted to med school? If not, don’t come here.</p>
<p>I concur with your line reasoning. Nevethereless, I must say that from what I’ve heard about your school, it’s too bad that the basic medical research community at large can’t benefit from the talent pool there simply because of some arbitrary evaluative schema.</p>
<p>A couple of years has passed since this post so I was hoping there might be more info on the success of Caltech students in the UCSD med scholars program making it onto med school. </p>
<p>For students accepted into the program is it realistic to keep the 3.5 GPA.
A guaranteed acceptance to med school sounds awesome but keeping a 3.5 GPA at Caltech sounds like it may be too hard.</p>
<p>Are any students in the program out there willing to comment if they are happy with their choice or do you now think they would have been better off at Stanford, Duke, MIT etc.</p>
<p>bluebird, I was also worried about the GPA requirement too. However, I believe at least a third of all Techers have a GPA of over 3.5, possibly more. It’s not that hard to keep a 3.5, especially with certain majors. </p>
<p>When I was making my decision, I also called UCSD about this requirement. They said in one case they were lenient (I think the GPA was really close to a 3.5), and in other cases it hasn’t been a problem at all. As long as you do your work and don’t slack off, keeping a 3.5 is very doable. </p>
<p>Being in the guaranteed acceptance program really relieves a lot of stress/concern. I don’t regret my decision to attend Caltech over a lot of other schools. I have friends who are premeds that are constantly stressed. Hope that helps.</p>
<p>Thanks chocolatestars, I really appreciate your input. My son is trying to decide between Harvard, Stanford, Yale, MIT, and Caltech-UCSD medscholars. Concerns about Caltech-UCSD is keeping up the necessary GPA and having so much work their is no time for fun. He is very social/athletic and wants to have a fun undergraduate experience. The whole point of the a med scholars program is to relieve stress of getting accepted to med school but will this just be replaced with the stress of being a caltech student?</p>
<p>bluebird, congrats on your son’s choices. 3.5 is in fact the median gpa according to their flyer. being division 3 athletics, any student can participate in the athletics without fear, especially during the first two terms when it is on P/F. Even in the 3rd term and beyond, they can stay on the team as they can easily choose not to travel for the away games. my son enjoys the ultimate frisbee there and he plans to stay on in the team as there is no added pressure from it on his academics.their house system, and kids working together and helping others with ps and academics in general are just great (thanks to their strong honor code). but it doesn’t mean that the workload is light because it is not. another consideration for your son is, from any of the top colleges that your son can select from, it is no trivial matter to get in top 20 med school. They will really have to exert themselves throughout college to get admitted to any top 20 med schools. Congrats again to you and your son.</p>
<p>CONGRATULATIONS bsmd1216!!!</p>
<p>My son has not decided, he is going to attend the admit events for his top choices and hopefully one school will stand out as the best fit for him.</p>