<p>I'm trying to decide between Columbia and UPenn for Premed. Which one is better for med school placement? Is the core curriculum at Columbia a grade killer or a grade booster, for pre-meds? How are the research opportunities around each respective campus?</p>
<p>I would appreciate an answer to this, too.</p>
<p>Medschool - I believe you will find ample research opportunities at each university.</p>
<p>A few things. </p>
<p>The Core Curriculum at Columbia College is neither “a grade killer or a grade booster” unless you are particularly poor or good at close reading, critical thinking and academic writing. You should be clear though that the Core is something that you are interested in before deciding to go to Columbia as it is fairly rigorous and time consuming. It’s a fantastic general education program, especially for science majors as it will broaden you in ways that simply meeting distribution requirements at other colleges won’t, and it builds great camaraderie among the students, but you have to want to take it on.</p>
<p>Another point to take into consideration is this. It is generally accepted that Columbia has a somewhat more rigorous academic program than Penn. As an example, most students take 5 couses a semester to meet graduation requirements, at Penn they take 4. </p>
<p>The biggest issue for you has nothing to with the Core or the relative rigor of the undergraduate programs. It is this. Many students go to elite universities to study pre-med, a very small number (perhaps 10-20%) actually stick with it and go to medical school. The courses are very difficult, time consuming and not fun, the competition is intense and the schools actively weed people out (really). If you want to become a doctor, my advice is to go a decent liberal arts college where you will have a comparative advantage and where the professors will want you to do well and get through. </p>
<p>All this said, you should visit Columbia and Penn and make your decision based on the overall enviroment and the culture of each school. They are very different places.</p>
<p>Hey! I’m a current student at Columbia–I’m actually a sophomore studying Art History and following the Pre-Med track. I just want to echo some of the advice HockeyKid offers above, and offer some of my own. It’s vital that you understand the culture and environment at Columbia and Penn before you make any kind of decision. However, as a student at Columbia and someone who loves Columbia, I’d like to say a little more about the virtues of being a pre-med here:</p>
<ul>
<li>Deborah Mowshowitz’ Intro Bio Class will not only prepare you for the MCAT, it will teach you how to think like a doctor.</li>
<li>You’re literally next door to an ER with ample volunteering opportunities (St. Luke’s Hopsital) that already has many preestablished programs with Columbia.</li>
<li>The Core is not in any way a grade killer or a grade inflator–that’s not the point of it. It’s a strong addition to our education. Through reading all of these books (or portions of them), we learn how to communicate, write, and think in an evidence-based way that’s highly persuasive and very useful in medicine.</li>
<li>Our premed advising is some of the best in the country. Over the last four years, we’ve gotten 90% of applying students into medical school and 93% of applying students into MD/PhD programs. (Last year, the MD/PhD rate was 100%.)</li>
</ul>
<p>Let me know if you have any other questions!</p>
<p>This should be your last consideration in choosing between these two institutions. They are both excellent and with almost any effort you will get into medical school. Get a feel for each school and choose the one where you want to spend four years. That will be difficult enough without trying to tease out minute differences in their premed programs.</p>