I have recently been looking into Wesleyan University. I was wondering how strong their Chemistry department is and also how their pre med advising is. I have heard that over 90% of students get accepted into med school. If you have gone to Wes please let me know if their curriculum did a good job of preparing you for med school. Also I would like to know the overall feel of the campus and the surrounding area. I am planning on scheduling a visit in February, but just want to learn more about it before going.
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I did pre-med at Wesleyan (though majored in a science that wasn’t chemistry) and was very happy with the preparation. I have friends who majored in chemistry and I don’t remember hearing anything negative (there was more camaraderie in the chemistry department than probably any other science department). There are many opportunities for joining labs if research is your thing, but because there is a sprinkling of graduate students, the research is arguably higher-level than at other LACs. The grad students don’t take away spots from undergrads, though so no worries there. Also available is the opportunity to stay on for a 5th year and do the BA/MA program. Since “pre-med” isn’t its own major, people who are trying to get into medical school aren’t separated from everyone else, so classes are absolutely NOT cutthroat. There are plenty of humanities majors applying to medical school, people take time off, etc, so it’s really about working with the pre-med advisor and forging your own path. Very laid-back, and with excellent results.
From a post of mine a few years ago: “The national average is ~40-45%, while Wesleyan and peer schools are usually in the 70’s-80’s%. Wesleyan is also a member of the Northeast Consortium on Medical Education (NECOME). This group has pre-med advisors from Amherst, Bowdoin, Hamilton, Haverford, Holy Cross, Middlebury, Swarthmore, Wesleyan, and Williams, along with medical school admission officers from Albany, Dartmouth, Einstein, Harvard, Jefferson, Tufts, UConn, UPenn, and URochester medical schools. In other words, the advisors at those colleges keep in touch with those med school admission officers so they know what’s going on in the world of [medical school] admissions.”