<p>DunninLA, yeah, i heard that premed courses are pretty hard. i am not a premed, and most of my classes aren't science-oriented, so i wouldn't know. but, aren't premed courses hard anywhere? After all, they are trying to weed people out. classes like organic chem and some others are notorious for harsh grading everywhere, not just at cornell. Norcalguy is a recent Cornell grad who was premed there. I am sure he knows much bettern than i do on this topic.</p>
<p>Premeds are in general just unpleasant neurotic people. I've been turned down for multiple tutoring and research jobs because I was premed (professors associate premed with "resume padder" and "not intellectual"). While there are no sabatoging and cutthroat activities in premed at Cornell, I've seen premeds write full-page explanations just to get 2 points back on a test. I usually walk around campus with a paper sack over my head to hide my shame of being a premed.</p>
<p>Norcalguy--</p>
<p>When not taking courses filled with premeds, how collaborative of an environment did you find at Cornell? </p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>I am in basically the same position except I'm premed instead of prelaw and I didn't apply to Berkeley. I made a thread but I'm not really getting any responce. Do you think Cornell is better in bio and the humanities than NU and would be more prestigious for premed? I kind of want to get away from MI even though it would be cheaper, although I'm still considering U of M honors.</p>
<p>" 6 to Yale, 45 to Harvard coming from Cornell
7, 20 Northwestern
5, 23 U Michigan
16, 48 UC Berkeley"</p>
<p>Those statistics are correct, and the discrepancy from the Berkeley site is due to Berkeley's page only having a fraction of total applicants. Note how it says there were 183 applicants in 2006, when there were actually 938 according to LSAC itself. The disclaimer at the bottom notes this: "The Top 20 Law Schools & California Law Schools report is based upon a subset of data and consists only of students who agreed to report their admissions data."</p>
<p>However, if one thing is clear, it is that choosing between these schools will not affect your law school chances. There is debate over whether UG matters at all (whether the difference in matriculation statistics is 95% due to pre-existing differences in student bodies, or 100%), but such possible slight differences wouldn't matter for near peer schools anyway.</p>
<p>As to what you should choose, I'd have a hard time going away from U Michigan due to cost.</p>
<p>goblue10nis, as most posters have been saying above, none of those schools will give you an edge over the others when the time comes to apply ro graduate school, whether it is Law School or Medical School. As evidenced by almost every university rating and ranking, all four of those universities are among the very best. One may have a slight advantage when applying to their own Law or Medical school, but that isn't definite. But since all 4 of those universities have top ranked Law schools and top ranked medical schools, I don't think it really matters anyway.</p>
<p>cherokeejew (interesting name BTW),
why do you assume Berkeley's numbers are the only ones that "only have a fraction of total applicants" reporting? I doubt the other schools have all their alumni law school applicant data correct as well.</p>
<p>Actually, I'm not sure what is up with Berkeley, but most of its professional school data is self-reported (ie ridiculously biased). Schools are able to obtain their data from official sources so I don't know why Berkeley relies on self-reported data.</p>
<p>For example, if you look at med school applicant data:
According to AAMC, Cornell had 470 applicants, Michigan had 660 applicants, and Berkeley had 730 applicants. </p>
<p>Michigan provides data for 603 applicants (albeit this is 2006 not 2007 data). Cornell provides data for 230 seniors (which given the 1:1 ratio of seniors:alumni applicants seen at most schools is reasonable). Berkeley provides data for 120 seniors and 144 alumni. While we see the 1:1 ratio of seniors to alumni, the numbers for both seniors and alumni are horribly incomplete. Clearly something is wrong when Cornell provides data for 230 seniors while Berkeley provides data for 120 seniors when in fact it is Berkeley that had nearly twice as many med school applicants.</p>
<p>Career</a> Center - Medical School Statistics
<a href="http://www.career.cornell.edu/downloads/Health/accapp06.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.career.cornell.edu/downloads/Health/accapp06.pdf</a>
U-M</a> :: The Career Center :: For Students :: Med School Application</p>
<p>Anyone who've taken statistics knows that self-reporting always leads to an optimistic bias so I don't understand why Berkeley replies on self-reporting when the other two don't.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Schools are able to obtain their data from official sources so I don't know why Berkeley relies on self-reported data.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>They are the same data...Cornell's and Michigan's charts clearly state it does not include info from alumni who did not release their info to their career center.</p>
<p>Obviously, Berkeley's Career Center needs to do a better job communicating with its alumni. </p>
<p>I don't think Berkeley is hiding anything intentionally to look better.</p>
<p>Except the data is not reported by the applicant. You actually have to fill out a form if you don't want Cornell to receive your data, which most students don't go through the trouble of. Notice in the Michigan link, it states the same thing, that their data only includes applicants who release their info but the actual source of that info is the AAMC. That's the fundamental difference b/w Berkeley and Cornell/Umich.</p>
<p>I didn't say that Berkeley was hiding anything, only that Cornell and Umich data is nearly complete while Berkeley's data is self-selected and reported by the applicants themselves apparently. That makes Berkeley's data look better than it should be, whether Berkeley wants it or not.</p>
<p>^ From Berkeley's description:
[quote]
The dataset includes UC Berkeley grads with graduation dates of December 2005, May 2006 and August 2006 who released their AMCAS information to UCB.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>
[quote]
Source: American Association of Medical Colleges. 2006.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>How is it different from Cornell and UMich?</p>
<p>Berkeley premeds are probably still notoriously paranoid and won't release their stats...</p>
<p>do you think you could find nw's stats b/c I am having trouble locating them on their website?</p>
<p>"why do you assume Berkeley's numbers are the only ones that "only have a fraction of total applicants" reporting? I doubt the other schools have all their alumni law school applicant data correct as well."</p>
<p>When did I assume that? All I said was that it explained why Berkeley's data apparently didn't match up with the complete data provided by Hawkette via Harvard Law School and Yale Law School themselves (which had been a point raised earlier).</p>
<p>goblue, NWs numbers should be similar to Cal's, Cornell's and Michigan's. Why would they be any different?</p>
<p>well as you can see cornell's are better than u of m's, i want to see the extent nw's are as well</p>
<p>Goblue, there is no difference. Look closely at the statistics. </p>
<p>Placement rate for applicants with 3.6+ GPA, 30+ MCAT:
Cornell: 107/111 (96%)
Michigan: 156/174 (90%)</p>
<p>Placement rate for applicants with 3.2-3.59 GPAs and 25-29 MCATs, applicants with 3.6+ GPAs and 25-29 MCATs and applicants with 3.2-3.59 GPAs and 30+ MCATs:
Cornell: 62/100 (62%)
Michigan: 166/265 (62%)</p>
<p>Placement rate for applicants with 3.2+ GPAs and 25+ MCAT:
Cornell: 169/211 (80%)
Michigan: 322/439 (74%)</p>
<p>There is virtually no difference between the two. The main difference is that only 7% of Cornell medical school applicants had sub 3.2 GPAs, compared to 19% of Michigan medical school applicants having sub 3.2 GPAs. Not a single (0%) Cornell medical school applicant had a sub 2.8 GPA. A whopping 25 (5%) of Michigan medical school applicants had sub 2.8 GPAs. </p>
<p>If you really want to understand why Cornell's overall Medical school placement rate is better than Michigan's, consider this:</p>
<p>Placement rate of Medical school applicants with sub 3.2 GPAs AND/OR sub 25 MACTs.</p>
<p>Cornell: 5/20 (25%)
Michigan: 53/163 (33%)</p>
<p>The percentage accepted is not the difference maker. The difference maker is the portion of the total number of students applying to medical school that have such low stats. Cornell's 20 out of 232 is 9%. Michigan's 163 out of 603 is 27%. That's a huge difference.</p>
<p>In short, Cornell and Michigan have very similar medical school placement rates. The only difference is that there are more dreamers at Michigan than at Cornell! hehe! Seriously, the percentage of underqualified medical school applicants who decide to apply to medical school at Michigan far exceeds their counterpart at Cornell. But if you compare apples to apples, Cornell and Michigan students have very similar placement rates into medical school. </p>
<p>And I seriously doubt that Cal and Northwestern have significantly better or worse placement stats. </p>
<p>Do yourself a favor guys, do not overanalyze this. Go with whichever school makes you happiest...and considering the fact that Law and Medical Schools cost as much as, if not more, than your undergraduate education, try to take it easy on your pockets whenever possible.</p>
<p>Regardless of GPA, for those who score well on the MCAT Cornell has higher percentages. After that, you're right in that it really doesn't matter that much (although I doubt this will personally concern me) and that U of M b/c of logistics has a lower achieving segment that Cornell doesn't admit. But it seems that for the same MCAT scores there would be similar percentages if the prestige of the school wasn't a factor, which it apparently is.</p>
<p>edit: I actually don't really want to get an argument about this, I'm just wondering if anyone can help differentiate NW and Cornell)</p>
<p>edit2: just wondering, why does the graph show 62% acceptance while it says 55% above, does this have to do about who reports back?</p>
<p>goblue...there aren't much differences btwn cornell and nu in grad school placement. if you're comparing between university of iowa and cornell, there would be noticeable differences.</p>