Deciding Between Programs

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
1

I am currently applying after taking a gap year and I am a Pre-Medicine Prospect.
Recently I had an interview with the UIC GPPA Medicine program that went phenomenally well - my end goal is to become an MD Physician.

UChicago has been my dream school and I applied through Questbridge, did not match, was then deferred EA, and then I updated my application to ED2. I applied here last year ED1 but was rejected.

However, with the very high possibility of obtaining admissions to the UIC GPPA Medicine program which guarantees acceptance to the University of Illinois College of Medicine (with a minimum GPA and MCAT requirement, of course), the decision has become much harder: on one hand, UChicago is my absolute dream school and I hope to study Psychology or Anthropology for Pre-Med, but on another, UChicago is well-known for its extremely brutal STEM Pre-Med grade deflation, which, for a Pre-Meds, makes the school one to tread carefully in.

Yes, I understand, “College is what you make of it”, but it is undeniably harder to obtain a higher GPA at UChicago than at UIC while following through courses.

Academically, I feel it is a challenge I am up for, but then again, the “Guaranteed” admission to the U of I College of Medicine isn’t something to pass upon - and it’s even more of a dilemma since my application to UChicago is Early Decision II.

Medicine is something I have thought long and hard about and I am going to pursue it no matter what - but I do not want this decision of going to my dream school completely jeopardize the possibility of pursuing medical school just as I do not want to regret NOT experiencing a truly immersive college experience that is second to none in terms of uniqueness and its academic focus.

Of course, as I said earlier, I will be majoring in Psychology or Anthropology, but humanities and liberal arts classes I am “thinking” will soothe the impact. Even then, I’m just not sure; whether it be mere fear-mongering or truth.

Guaranteed admission to a top medical school in Illinois and the Nation versus my dream school with a great health-advising program but an infamously rigorous Pre-Med curriculum.

I know I can contact UChicago to change my application from ED2 back to Regular Decision, but I know that is essentially an automatic rejection/waitlist - and what better way to tell UChicago that they aren’t my absolute #1, by backing out of an ED agreement? I have many regular decision schools to wait on, including the Brown PLME program, but there are no guarantees of course.

2

Have you received acceptance from the UIC program yet? Getting into medical school is not easy. So having a guarantee in place sounds like an incredible opportunity.

But if you don’t have an offer yet, I’m a little confused on why you would want to back out of ED2?

3

OP also has a full ride at UIUC (thru the Illinois Promise program).

Posters may have a range of opinions, but…UIUC may offer a higher probability path to med school than UChicago. UC is tough on premeds with the core curriculum.

I would lean toward switching UC from ED2 to RD for either UIUC, or UIC GPPA (should that come to pass). I am however, concerned that UIC GPPA will not meet OP’s financial need during the undergrad years should he be accepted.

OP has also been invited to compete for Washington & Lee’s Johnson scholarship. So he will be admitted there, and even if he doesn’t become a Johnson scholar, he will receive a full ride…as OP has an EFC of zero, and W&L meets full need.

@wayoutwestmom Do you have any advice for OP?

4

I don’t know a ton about med school but I am familiar with the Illinois schools and it sounds like you might have some great options. If accepted and the fiances work out, the UIC program is very tempting. I watched my nephew go through the med school application process last year and it was stressful and crazy. He was finally accepted at UIC literally a month before classes started and is there now. Knowing you had a guaranteed admission to med school would sure take the pressure off as an undergrad and allow you to focus on your classes and do the activities you enjoy rather than focusing how on that would look on your med school application. Hopefully some with more knowledge will chime in and offer you advice. I can’t wait to hear how it works out for you.

Good luck!

5

I remember reading some statistics a while back that getting into medical school nowadays is harder than getting into Harvard. The selectivity has only increased over the last few decades.

The primary driver of med school acceptance is MCAT and GPA. Although there is some holistic elements, most of med school admissions is focused on the stats. So although the GPA trend at UChicago has been increasing, there is no doubt that you’ll have an easier time racking up a good GPA at UIC or UIUC. But the top students at UChicago go onto the best medical schools in the country.

The UIC medical campus is right near the center of Chicago. The area itself is in a process of revitalization. The only thing is that UIC is seen as more of a commuter school. But if you keep your head in the books, I’m sure you’d do fine at UIC. Especially if they offer you a guaranteed admission to their med school.

6

OP, assuming that your question is something along the lines of “if you were me what would you do?” - only you can answer that. However, here are some stats and information from UChicago’s pre-health program to help guide your decision:

https://careeradvancement.uchicago.edu/uchicago-careers-in/health-professions/pre-health-faqs

7

If your EFC is zero and your top choice schools meet your full need, go to the school you love. What if you go to UIC and still doesn’t get high GPA?

If your state school is full ride and offers guaranteed medical school entry, take that. One in the hand is better than two in the air.

If state school doesn’t offer guaranteed medical entry, don’t fall for just possible high GPA chance . Go to school you want to attend and work hard there.

8

If, as you say, med school is your dream, I would highly discourage UC and recommend you switch your application to RD. Even if accepted RD, I would recommend declining. The odds of getting into med school from UC are not in your favor. If you read their pre-med FAQs, you’ll see quite a bit of wordsmithing. Look at the average UC GPA, reflect on your high school performance and consider your preparation in relation to other UC students. Why take that risk?

9

"The odds of getting into med school from UC are not in your favor. "

  • what data do you have to back that statement up, @itsgettingreal21?
10

@JBStillFlying Take a look at OP’s high school GPA, consider UC’s average GPA, the average GPA of UC students accepted to med school, and what they aren’t saying about the number of students who aren’t competitive for med school (from their own FAQs). I’d say that’s a significant risk that I would not recommend a low income student who wants to be a doctor and won’t be able to afford post-bac GPA repair programs take.

11

@itsgettingreal21 - If you are suggesting that OP’s HS grades predict a struggle on the pre-med track, steering clear of UChicago won’t solve that problem. But the fact is that OP has qualified for some pretty selective scholarship rounds with those grades so he’s at least competitive with other top applicants at other schools. It’s not a perfect signal that pre-med at UChicago could be manageable, but it is a signal nonetheless (conditional on admission, of course - and the UC adcom will be the best judge there). It is prudent to expect a UChi GPA to be lower, but unless someone has evidence of UCIHP posting misleading information, then a lower GPA due to “lack of grade inflation” shouldn’t tank someone’s chances for Med School. A lot depends on the exact differential - ie how much reflects grade deflation vs. struggling academic performance relative to other classmates doing pre-med. Simply put, does OP think he can pull off those mean GPA/science GPA’s that UCIHP posted. Also those MCAT scores.

OP can always look up what sorts of stats he would need to be guaranteed admission to UIC Medical School and compare that to the UCIHP data. This sort of research won’t answer the question “what should I do?” for OP, but it will provide decent context and perhaps help with a final decision.

12

OP doesn’t have enough context, or data, that would allow him to make this judgment.

Next, a few points on UC’s pre-health FAQs (where much of the wording has not been changed for a number of years). And, some important info is missing (as is common with most school’s pre-med numbers).

-150 freshman entering with a “premed” intent seems low for a highly selective school…150/1700 is less than 9%. How was this number determined…was it how many freshman signed up for pre-health advising? Or those who checked pre-med on some admission or orientation document? Etc. There are probably more than 150 students at the beginning of freshman year walking around saying “I’m premed”.

-Of the students who are supported, what are the criteria (I assume for a committee letter/packet)? What are cGPA, sGPA and MCAT cut-offs? What are other requirements? For example, some schools require going thru their pre-health advising programs, etc.

-This does not suggest that UC applicants are enjoying a rigor bump. In fact, we know from many sources (former admissions personnel, med school communications, etc.) that med schools tend to not give value to perceived prestige or perceived rigor of undergrad.

-We don’t know the breakdown of major in these numbers, or what proportion of applicants went thru the Advanced Biology Fundamental Sequence vs. non science major sequence for example. It makes a difference.

-We don’t know the time frame, or numerator, or denominator.

-We don’t know if this is MD only, or includes DO. If both, what is the detail breakdown? It makes a difference.

-Do these percentages/numerators/denominators include students applying right out of undergrad? After a few years working? After completing an SMP? After completing a post-bacc? The details matter.

-What proportion of these are URMs or other hooked applicants?

I want to reiterate that UC is not the only school that doesn’t provide enough details to really understand what is going on with med school admissions. There are typically gaps in the information given, and it takes savvy and knowledge to do this homework when applying to schools, and then navigate the gauntlet once one has matriculated.

13

I’ve been on cc a long time and in my non-scientific observations, approx. 20-25% of many incoming college Frosh classes are premed/pre-health (Dent/Vet). (At a school like Hopkins its closer to 30%.) So, yeah, 150 looks low (or just an old number when UoC had smaller classes).

Sure, but GPA cannot be evaluated separately from the MCAT score. As a highly selective College, (which means highly selective test scores for undergrad admission), on average students at UoC will score higher on the MCAT than the national pool, which includes plenty of students from Directional State Unis.

Or, foreign/off shore med schools. Caribbean? Guadalajara?

14

It appears that the 2018-19 acceptance rate at MD-medical schools was around 41% per Princeton Review, so that’s consistent with the baseline percentage provided by UCIHP. UCIHP is saying that their placement is 92-114% better than the baseline. This isn’t a complicated statistic, folks. Now, that says nothing about quality, offshore, etc. UChicago also lists a set of schools where they “typically see a large number of acceptances” but they don’t provide yearly detail, unfortunately.

The “Rigor Bump” should not be taken out of context. First of all, UChicago qualifies the differential as needing to be “within reason.” Second, they didn’t indicate that the differential was due to higher rigor but to lack of grade inflation on rigorous coursework. UChicago College students accepted to med school, according to UCIHP, have a lower average GPA than the national average, so obviously UChicago is given some slack relative to that average. There is no other way to interpret either the GPA or the Science GPA differential.

Very likely, there are a good number of first year students who walk around campus saying they are thinking of pre-med. (They existed in my day on my campus as well). However, as I know from my own kids, your career advisor is assigned based on what you complete for pre-professional interests prior to showing up on campus. Not everyone fills out that material, for a variety of reasons (they don’t want to commit to anything just yet, they forgot, or put it off till after the start of the year, etc.). The career advancement office can only go off of recorded numbers, not what 1st years are sharing with their new friends prior to everyone taking Gen’l Chem. And it’s obviously possible to begin the curricular aspects of the Pre-Med track before officially declaring yourself “Pre Med” and meeting with your preprofessional advisor.

For questions regarding the details of the preprofessional program including criteria (GPA, MCAT, etc.), OP can start here for beginning research and contact the advising office with any follow up questions: https://careeradvancement.uchicago.edu/uchicago-careers-in/health-professions

It would be highly recommended if not required that pre-meds begin to read up on and follow the curricular and preprofessional tracks the summer prior to entering. First order of business, of course, would be to start the curricular portion immediately, ie Autumn Quarter. Summer advising, and then your regular year academic advisor will be able to provide registration advice. I’ve noticed that UChicago has a ton of Pre-Med information on the orientation website during summer pre-registration! Most pre-med hopefuls, whether they be on the pre-professional radar right away or no, seem to come in understanding what they need to take.

Guessing the URM/hooked applicant information is as vague for Med School as it is for Law School!

OP, hope this helps!

@Mwfan1921 said: “OP doesn’t have enough context, or data, that would allow him to make this judgment.”

  • I disagree. This is part of the research that every student needs to do before deciding to apply and certainly before deciding to show up. A good amount of it is just settling in your head your degree of commitment and effort, as well as understanding your limitations and choosing your courses sensibly (admittedly very difficult to do with a pre-med track!). UChicago is really no different than other schools in this expectation. However, the big surprise for many tends to be the very rapid pace of the quarter system, which, for a rigorous major, leaves ZERO time for slacking or kicking back or putting something off. It's a place where you will oftentimes need to make some sacrifices in order to get your work done. If that's NOT what the applicant is looking for, then UChicago would be a bad fit and it's best to move on and not risk ED.
15

It’s highly unlikely that UChicago applicants are given slack wrt undergrad GPA when applying to med school. @WayOutWestMom?

As for other ways to interpret this data:

Here are a number of factors that could explain why students who attended UChicago had a lower sGPA than average (let’s just focus on sGPA). Any of these factors, or combination thereof, could lead to an applicant with a lower than average sGPA being accepted to med school:

-Completed a post-bacc program
-Completed an SMP
-URM
-Relatively higher MCAT score
-Accepted to their in-state med school, most of which typically strongly favor residents
-Reapplicants who have worked for several years post-undergrad
-MD vs DO schools

Again, because UC doesn’t provide enough data (nor does any school), we have to speculate. Many successful med school applicants with lower than average sGPAs will fall into one or more of the above categories. And these factors matter for admissions, a lot…which makes it fair and reasonable for a prospective student to have access to this info.

For example, every single successful applicant with a below average sGPA at UChicago might have attended an SMP and/or post bacc program. Or been accepted only to a DO program. Etc.

Fundamentally, we just don’t know how many applicants we are talking about (numerator or denominator), whether they fall into one of the groups above, whether the stats are for MD and DO, US and ex-US, ug majors, post-grad programs/work experience, etc…because UC is not being transparent with the data. Like other schools.

I am sure that UC premeds are getting excellent advising and strategizing how to best prepare their med school candidacy (course selection, applications, post-bacc/SMP assistance, etc.)

These are good reasons to give pause when considering attending UC for pre-med studies.

16

A strong student can work their rear-ends off at UC and still graduate with a low GPA, and one significantly lower than needed for med school. While pre-med is tough everywhere, it’s much harder at UC. Let’s not pretend that it isn’t, and that’s the OP’s concern. UC may kill his pre-med dreams. Why take that unnecessary risk when he will have options that come with less risk? Smart pre-meds carefully manage risk, and that starts with choosing their undergrad wisely. This OP has a $0 EFC. There is no room for error here. Post-baccs and SMPs aren’t going to to viable options if his risk doesn’t pay off.

OP, switch to RD. That’s the smart choice for a pre-med hopeful in your situation.

17

OP, I get the sense that you want someone to validate your desire to attend UC, even when everyone has give you very sound reasons why it doesn’t make sense in light of your ultimate goal.

You have some truly great options now, and you still haven’t heard from Brown. If you do get into PLME, you’ll also be set, as you will be with some of the options you already have. Kind of surprised after all you’ve been through that you’re letting the “dream school” idea possibly derail your long term goals.

We are all rooting for you. You’re going to do well in life. After all you’ve come through, keep your eye on the ultimate prize, which seems to be becoming a doctor.

18

@HKimPOSSIBLE. Does the UIC program also pay for medical school or just guarantee acceptance into it? Just curious if there is a financial incentive also.

Forget about schools for a bit. Where is the training you will receive. Let’s look only at UIC and their affiliates. Just looking on their website and not going to Peoria or Rockford just Chicago.

You will have some of the best training anywhere.

Then look at UC training… At the end of the day it is all going to look very similar. Sick /injured people unfortunately are abundant.

I am still intrigued with the UIUC new medical school and don’t know how that comes into play or if it does with the UIC program.

But keep something in mind. The UIC program is very respected in Chicago and most likely elsewhere. We are the third largest city. Lots of people to treat. Lots of sleepless nights studying. As much as I think UChicago is great and know several there right…if your end goal is truly medical school then you already have that. Why put yourself through what you just went through all over again. Take the golden ring and rejoice. With the pressure off your back you will be able to excell and do great things. As smart as you are you become just one of the smart kids at UChicago. Then if you make it through with great grades then you get to go through the pressure cooker to see “if” you even get accepted into medical school… Like is that really what you want. Do you really want to face the “possibly” of getting into medical school?

So now regrets : which would you regret more? Not going to UChicago or not getting into medical school?

That is your decision right there.

I am pulling for you since I know you will do great things regardless where you go.

19

Well, I just emailed UC to change my round to Regular Decision - after everyones’ helpful insight and taking a moment to reflect on my goals, I would be stupid to not back out of ED2.

I think I’ve made a good choice long term. Thanks everyone!

@Lindagaf I guess I was, in a sense, looking for reasons to choose UC over the GPPA program, but mostly it was an attachment to the UC student life and atmosphere.

@Knowsstuff I am pretty sure it’s just admission, but I’m thinking there’s a financial aid policy, but that is something to start thinking about too down the road.

20

Congratulations on making the decision hkim…it sounds like the right one for you.

Regarding knowstuff’s question on UIC GPPA costs/fin aid…if admitted, these are fair questions that you should ask of the program sponsor and/or fin aid. Ask about:

  • The undergrad fin aid package (especially because UIC does not meet full need for most students....and many of the schools on your list do, including W&L where you will be accepted)

-Whether there is any aid for the med school years and if so, on average how much is it and what does one need to qualify.

Continued good luck as you await your many admissions decisions!