Hello! I am an Emory university fall admit and am planning on going to the main campus as a biology major on the pre-med track. To be honest, I am really scared. I thought I was prepared, and was super stoked about studying next to the CDC, but after reading about Emory’s 54% med school matriculation rate and difficult/harsh grading criteria, I’ve gotten really doubtful about pursuing med. Does anyone have any tips for a highschool senior going into pre-med, especially at a school where it is notoriously difficult to get a good GPA? I am a stellar biology student (In AP Bio, I was the top student in my entire grade in that class, but I am horrible at Chem…) I’m okay at physics. Should I sign up for some tutors? Can some of the more successful pre-med students at emory comment on things that have helped before and during their years at Emory?
Thank you so much!
I’m not sure where you get your information about unduly harsh grading or low admit rates for similarly qualified applicants.
In other words, where is the data to support the assertion that an Emory applicant with a 3.7 GPA and 515 MCAT with 2 years of research experience does less well than a Brown applicant or Wash U applicant with a 3.7 GPA, 515 MCAT and 2 years of research experience?
The data DOES show that the ratio of Emory med school applicants to total class size is higher than at just about any competitive private university with the possible exceptions of Cornell, Duke and Johns Hopkins:
https://www.aamc.org/download/321458/data/factstablea2-7.pdf
This data, which is substantiated, suggests 2 things:
- Fewer Emory premeds get “weeded out” over the course of 4 years. Often, premeds simply choose not to apply to med school at all (i.e. are “weeded out”). Emory seems to have less of this going on considering the ratio of Emory premeds to class size who actually end up applying to med school after 4 years.
- There is no prescreening by a premed committee. At many undergrad institutions, the premed committee will refuse to write you a rec letter if your GPA/MCAT don't measure up. That's not happening at Emory, apparently, given the large volume of medical school applications.
Emory
There’re a lot of threads on CC where students complain about the difficulty of being premed at their respective highly selective universities:
Eg.
Johns Hopkins
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/20397098#Comment_20397098
03-13-2017 at 10:36 am edited March 13
Please do not make the same mistake I made. I transferred in 2016 as a junior from a state school. I had a 3.98 at my previous institution and in the Fall at Hopkins I got a 4.0 with 2 A+s. However, I am discouraged from applying directly to medical school b/c the advising office keeps telling me to take a gap year. They won’t write me a committee letter cuz I was not at Hopkins for 2 years.
The school is extremely depressing. The reason the students are “cutthroat” or “hardworking” is due to the lack of non-academic things you could do on-campus. I made a huge mistake. I only applied to Hopkins and regret it heavily. Life is terrible in Baltimore. DON’T TRANSFER just because you think this school is good for premed.
Vanderbilt
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/19481732#Comment_19481732
The people who I see dumping on asian life at Vanderbilt most vocally seem to have what I have named “disaffected premed syndrome.” Basically, premed here is hard and to be successful at it, you often give up your social life.
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/20496320#Comment_20496320
@crazym0m Mostly the former( the debt isn’t worth the cost of the education). Also for the reason that many of the premed classes here are unnecessarily hard to weed people out. Many people who wold have been top students at their state school here are unfortunately weeded out with sub 2.5 GPAs ( the average grade given in a premed class is a C) and are no longer premed, when they could have easily gone through their state school and go to med school.
Washington U/St. Louis
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/19084009#Comment_19084009
12-16-2015 at 9:31 am
My D says the three hardest majors are premed, engineering and architecture at WashU. Howevever that doesn’t mean business is easy. It just means premed, engineering and architecture are extremely difficult and many drop out. Obviously not everyone can do it.
UChicago
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/20215947#Comment_20215947
04-28-2015 at 11:40 pm
@Iwannabe_Brown, thanks for this thread. I am have a DS headed to Brown in the fall. He’s not gonna be pre-med but my older CD is at one of the most dreaded bell curve grading schools (UChi). 100% agree that it is tortuous undergrad experience w/lots of stress and a constant state of gpa focus for pre-meds there. Classmates are actually collaborative, not competitive, but mostly bc they simply bond over the suffering. Many very smart capable kids fade out of premed, unfortunately. And the brilliant science teachers just don’t care–they are there for the research.
Brown
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/20215947#Comment_20215947
And for anyone who thinks it’s easy to get an A at Brown, search this forum. There was a thread started, I believe this year, by someone who was shocked at how hard it was in some classes to get an A.
@literaturechoi : You should study and do whatever you feel you need to do within ethical limits to succeed. All the schools you see @BiffBrown list have about the same type of grading as Emory, but you actually hear less complaining at Emory. Many students are very successful and the reason for the lower rate is basically because less competitive applicants still choose to apply to medical school even though their app. is not optimal yet. This is not Emory’s fault (keep in mind students would get upset if advised not to apply or if advised to consider plan Bs or other healthcare options. Very stubborn folks some students are. Emory has many students literally coming from families of doctors and indeed some are pressured into applying when they know chances are not great and even when they may not want to). They should have measured themselves up and had a plan B or just have waited to apply.
As for learning Emory is generally much more cozy and supportive (from a faculty point of view) than many of the peer schools do to smaller “weeder” section sizes and more effective instructors. In lower division and intermediate courses,top lecture track faculty for life sciences courses are used quite strategically and these are the types of instructors whose SOLE focus is teaching and mentoring undergraduates and they put lots of effort into students. Emory also has strong tutoring and problem solving session networks/sessions for most of the pre-health frequented STEM courses. You must try hard to not do solidly (B+ at lease) in most of your courses especially if you take a normal pre-health course load (which usually only involves like 1 or 2 STEM courses per semester depending on the major). You also want to choose decently challenging instruction in the right core courses that will train you for the MCAT. You do not want mismatched GPA and MCAT with MCAT being surprisingly low and GPA extremely high. Take a couple of professors who teach you how to really problem solve even if it means getting a B grade for sure (and actually, who knows, it may click and you may excel in a very challenging environment and learn a crap ton). And try to generally at least take medium instructors for your core courses as you will have choices.
Perhaps another fault of Emory: Students who want to avoid any challenge can do so by ultra strategic instructor selection for literally every core pre-health course. For more talented students (who are slated to do well on MCAT regardless of previous training) in this context this works out okay, but for more average students (in an Emory context), this almost almost always leads to a “meh” GPA and then also poor training so an unimpressive/non-compensating MCAT. Avoid the lazy teachers (often research faculty) if you can. These are ones that have no time for students so are not supportive, but will ultimately give super easy courses to keep students out of their hair. They tend to de-emphasize problem solving and go more toward memorization or problem-solving at a very basic level which will not serve you in the long run. I can think of 3 such instructors who will likely be teaching Chem 150 in the fall (I would really avoid them because they will NOT teach the second semester of chem which is “ochem lite”. If you do not take someone who is at least medium, you will likely struggle with whoever you take in 202 for 3 possible reasons: a) insufficient knowledge and work ethic and b) if your 202 instructor grades on a curve or adjusted scale, you will be at a disadvantage versus even B performers in medium to higher level instructors for 150. It will just be harder to keep up c) you may be beaten to the punch in search of the “easy” 202 instructor and have to transfer to a hard one. A severe downward shift in performance becomes likely. Medical schools do not like to see this for overall GPA or course sequences. You want to put yourself in a position so that you can do as well or better regardless of the instructor you are taking).
And if you find yourself not competitive by junior year and still would like to be pre-health, you should face facts and think of ways to enhance your application BEFORE applying. Do not feel pressured to apply right out of college if you are not competitive or even just not ready. Plan ahead to find opps to enhance your application.
@BiffBrown : I know 1 school for which you posted where a person is exaggerating unless they are engineering majors lol. But regardless, the same sentiment can be echoed by pre-healths and engineering majors at any school let alone elite schools.
A little more about premed at Vanderbilt - again to put things in context:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/vanderbilt-university/1814340-vanderbilt-premed-weed-out-p1.html
09-27-2015 at 11:17 am in Vanderbilt University
How difficult is Vanderbilt’s premed?
I am taking some general science courses right now. I don’t learn much from the professor’s lectures. Instead, I learn pretty much everything by myself. Each class holds 200+ students, and I am not getting the attention I need in order to actually learn the material deeper. Even though I use all the resources on campus–tutoring, professor office hours, and TA office hours, I am struggling with the material. I study constantly, don’t go to parties, and sometimes skip meals to study. (I usually get only 5.5-6 hours/day of sleep.)
I am very disappointed right now because despite all my efforts, I did very poorly on my science test. I am steadfast in becoming a doctor yet the required sciences courses at Vanderbilt will certainly bring down my GPA. My passion is medicine, and I still want to pursue that dream. I am a very hard worker: I am willing to put in any amount of work to make my dream into a reality.
What should I do next? How difficult is it to stay in Vanderbilt’s premed program? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
09-28-2015 at 1:10 pm edited September 2015
Wouldn’t just going to a public school make life a lot easier? I would have a higher gpa, and I also have the motivation to study very hard for the MCAT. Medical schools care more about the numbers than about the college brands.
I don’t want to be pulling hairs and always stressed out just for a 3.5 at Vandy. It will hurt my chances at medical school, and at the same time I will not be enjoying my college experience.
Don’t get me wrong: Vandy was my dream school and still is. The environment, research opportunities, and people are more that I could have ever dreamed of. I absolutely love my writing courses. The academics for science and engineering here, however, are questionable. I don’t see how Vanderbilt’s science department differs from a public school’s. Big lecture halls, unpersonalized attention, and unclear labs. Even though I use all the resources here to better my understanding on lectures and textbook concepts, the tests deviate from the lectures and textbook problems.
In the end, I am planning on majoring in science, yet I now attend a weak STEM school. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
@BiffBrown : There is something I cannot put my finger on about life sciences there. When looking at the materials, I noticed it and Cornell were most similar at the freshman and sophomore level. It was very “cookie cutter” and memorization focused. Even general chemistry was purely math/algorithmic problem solving and little concepts. Don’t get me wrong, general chemistry at most schools, even elites, is quite dull and minimalist, but theirs took minimalist to a surprising level. For example, the exams, which are standardized across sections, distribute points in favor like 70% of multiple choice, T/F, and more closed ended items that can be graded on scantron). And then the free response were typically single concept prompts and only weight 30-35%. I find this strange when there are like 4 instructors that all give the same exam. I would understand if they had to rely on themselves and grad. students, but that isn’t the case. It appeared as if teachers were writing exams that were just easy to grade, even the lecture track faculty. This happens at Emory, but among usual suspects, the tenured and tenure track faculty. The lecture track folks are generally quite exceptional and make their classes much more personable when they can and write more rigorous exams than I saw from either of those two. Perhaps Emory and places like Rice benefit from having smaller sections in many weeder classes so the teachers can go a step beyond if they want.
Also, that poster…I remermber them. “Things that appear on test were not directly taught” is kind of questionable. That is very normal at any elite school as instructors who teach well (and even many that don’t. When you get a teacher with only “straight-forward” test questions, you recognize that you got lucky or specifically had to cherry-pick them because it isn’t but so common in STEM and is very rare if you have a better teacher) expect students to go a step beyond to be able to sort of extrapolate or problem solve what may be a curveball problem (the fact is, to get an idea of who truly deserves an A or strong B grade among really good students, you can’t just put problems that simply change the wording slightly or change the numbers. Problems that build upon ones practiced or are somewhat related to will separate out students). Yet I tend to hear lots of complaints from those 2 schools (even when the courses they are whining about are much more doable and predictable than counterparts at other schools) when that happens which does indeed suggest that they think they are not being prepared well enough to take that next step. Emory tends to suck at lower division math and physics (though the life science calculus course apparently gets solid teaching), which was better off when Dr. Bing and Weeks were teaching physics 141/142. However, most pre-healths don’t major in those. I used to be a critic of say, biology courses (not just intro) at Emory, but it turns out it had issues everywhere and Emory’s is in comparatively good shape as there is at least a lot more effort in mixing up the teaching style among most introductory and even many intermediate and upper division courses which pivot more towards problem solving and experimental biology as opposed to just “know this overwhelming amount of content at a superficial level”. More about understanding scenarios and cases and not definitions and specific pathways (of course courses like physiology and biochem 1 will be exceptions but I even find these more conceptual than normal despite not thinking they are enough so).
*Either way, the same things about grading and challenge could as easily be said about Emory (again, chemistry courses are definitely harder at Emory than there and biology is too different to compare), just very few folks complain perhaps because it is more supportive and teaching could be better in many of the weeder courses. Folks just take their grades and move on. Also, Vanderbilt students have VERY high SAT scores, so they may have many more students who do not expect to be challenged by the curriculum. Emory students have high scores but are in this sweet spot for the most part where they know they are capable, but do not necessarily expect ease. It is very much a “sit and whine among your friends, but just ultimately get the freaking work done because this is what is expected at a school this level” kind of environment. No one feels so offended and oppressed that they come on CC and whine because they basically accepted that this is what they were in for and perhaps appreciate it to some extent. Either way, I think their (Vanderbilt students) tolerance for rigor is higher with math and physics courses, whereas Emory students tolerate it better in biology, neuroscience, and chemistry. Just two different places and the student bodies may just have different strengths and expectations.
Those comments suggest that the person expected to more or less cruise by studying hard and not smart. Apparently they didn’t even do particularly “bad” either.