Emory Pre Med questions?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Emory University
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Hi guys, I was recently accepted into Emory University and am planning on pursuing a humanities major (considering English, history or philosophy). However, I would like to ultimately go to medical school. I just wanted to know what the premed classes/exams are like at Emory as I’ve seen different responses everywhere-

  1. Are classes graded on a curve?
  2. How difficult is it to get a med school worthy GPA? (a little worried because it said the average was around 3.38?)
  3. Are premed classes very competitive?
  4. As an Emory graduate, would I have a higher chance of getting into Emory Medical School?
  5. How is the premed advising at Emory along with other related resources that they offer for students?
  6. If I were to attend, which professors would you say have the easiest classes for the sciences/math to do well in? (I’m asking this because throughout science in high school, I learned one thing in class and was assessed on something entirely different on tests/quizzes and don’t want another experience like that.)

I’ve also gotten offers from Fordham, American, Boston College, Union College, and Carnegie Mellon. Would you say any of these colleges would help me gain a higher GPA for med school than Emory?

Thank you so much for your help!

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@highachiever793 :

  1. Some are, but most aren’t. Some of the better courses that are mostly exam based are because the instructors want to write a challenging exam, but a curve is not what you probably think it is. They take their “low” means (as in would convert to a low grade on the classical +/- grading scale) and fit grades to a curve such that the mean and median are recentered at a more reasonable distribution. Pre-health cores typically have a B- (or B-/B) mean at the end, so if a challenging professor writes exams where the means are 60-low 70 which convert to D or C on a classical scale, they fit grades so that the people around that 60 and 70 score B- or B and then set some statistical or arbitrary cutoffs for grades significantly above and below that. No pre-health courses curve grades downward. If the course mean is already B-/B, they apply the classical scale.
    2)The median is like a 3.5 in most cohorts and MOST Emory students are not pre-med so there is no need to primarily focus on GPA or be overly cautious in course selection. Most students can afford to be challenged and get some Bs.
  2. Not really, there is a lot of infrastructure in place (like SI/bio-mentors, chem-mentors, etc which come with instructor designed p-sets to be worked in a group with an undergrad facilitator) to promote group study and learning. This idea of “competition” in classes is sort of mythical at any rigorous university for STEM. It would only be relevant in courses that maybe curve down. Some students can be nasty like anywhere else, but will not sabotage you. In a curved course (like those mentioned in 1) ) hey simply will be a loaner and not use as much time helping students who are a bit below them in terms of how they score. It may be a personal preference of theirs or be because they could have ulterior motives (like know they are scoring high, but are on B+/A- line or A-/A line, so getting too many people to where they are would shift the distribution in that range of grades). But such people are rare (though I sadly met a couple during undergrad).
  3. I don’t think so, but maybe. Certainly a lot of top Emory pre-healths get in and attend, but that may be selection bias (as in Emory med. may get a disproportionate amount of applicants from Emory undergrads who actually end up wanting to attend).
    5)Strong and probably strong
  4. Do not even think about it. You need to do well on the MCAT and most “easy” teachers do not emphasize skills or give tests aligned with the MCAT (which is NOT memorization and low level understanding oriented in designed). In college, you just need to work hard in rigorous pre-med core courses that give you that preparation and then use some STEM courses that aren’t cores to boost your STEM GPA for medical school in the case that you slip up in a core or two (and plus, your philosophy major will likely pad your overall GPA). But you do not want ease for those cores.Get the best training possible, and usually the more rigorous instructors who tests in more analytical ways are better reputed at Emory and are often attributed to students’ research and MCAT success. This really isn’t high school. If you take the easy instructors, they will under-prep you for the MCAT which will test on the content your instructors may have covered (or not if they are easy), but call on you to do and think about that content at a much higher level than what an easy instructor would. The harder instructors will get you to do this in their course so you are used to applying and understanding foreign or more complex contexts for the content during the exam. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot. Any biology, chemistry, physics, or neuroscience instructor giving overly “straight-forward” and memorization focused exams just isn’t helping you even though your self-esteem may fell great at the time.

*Your last question about the schools and higher GPA will not be answered because it is a HORRIBLE question. You need to balance, quality, rigor, and YOUR performance. Pre-med is doable even in rigorous courses and there are ways to balance out courses with rigorous instructors EVERYWHERE. That criteria is not how you should choose a school. Ain’t none of these schools giving you anything. You need to think about this more clearly.

When you take your courses, keep in mind that MCAT passages look like this:

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@highachiever123
You’ll probably get a higher GPA at Emory than CMU, however, if you want a high GPA go to American. HIgh GPA’s at elite schools do not come easy.

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@emorynavy : They are about the same. CMU’s STEM GPA is probably on par (their average is apparently 3.2 something and that isn’t graduating seniors, that is overall so includes freshmen and sophomores) and may be lower only due to the engineering presence and the fact that almost a majority of students are in STEM there (USNWR shows 46% are between math, CS/IS, and engineering. So this doesn’t even add biology and other STEM majors that probably have less heavy STEM course loads). And how do you know anything about American? I don’t have any data on that one. Either way, do not rank these places on GPA and feed into this narrative of them needing to choose schools this way. They need to find a school and choose high quality courses. STEM grading is fairly uniform across schools. If they pick a STEM major at any of these schools, their GPA is more likely to be lower only because they took a higher abundance of those courses which have more stringent grading.

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@bernie12

Great insight. I like challenging classes. How would you know which professors to pick there. Is there a way to find out, I think it makes sense to do more in-depth study as it indirectly preps you for MCAT.

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As others have said, you are not asking the right questions. Emory has 15,000 undergrads. Union has 2000. Where do you feel more comfortable? Would you rather be in classes with 25 students or 100 students? Some kids feel lost in a large school and some feel stir crazy in a small school. Where will you have the best access to research, clinical opportunities, community service? Where do you think you will be able to bond best with professors - they will be writing your letters of recommendation.

Are there any financial constraints? Did any offer you better aid or merit?

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@Simpson2019 : Ratemyprofessor is generally pretty strong. Usually the sweet spot minimum is about a 3.5 ranking for difficulty and at least a 3.5 for quality. Professors who have 3.8+ difficulty and 3.8+ for quality are often the most well reputed instructors, but in some departments there is some confusion likely because of self-selection biases and expectation biases. For example, Dr. Eisen’s cell biology course is going to end up with a self-selected crowd of people who already come in knowing that he has a different style of teaching. Same with Frenzel for NBB 301.

For example, Spell is no longer rated that well on RMP, BUT she has traditionally been a freshman biology intructor. Having a certain style of rigor with freshmen is risky even at elite universities. If they challenge students in biology with heavy volumes rote memorization, students will complain much less than if the instructor asks them to derive extrapolate, or apply at a solid level. Many will deem the latter as “unfair” because “she doesn’t directly test what she teaches”(which is code for: “I can’t just regurgitate or display a basic understanding of her notes, assignments, and books”). She is very well-reputed by GOOD students and has a track record for mentoring and designing her class around the right kind of rigor. She is responsible for inspiring this (they even attempted to take their project to the Hult Prize Competition) :https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/reds-rapid-ebola-detection-strips#/

I’m sorry, but it is rare that you’ll see that level of inspiration or engagement be derived from a large or medium sized lecture cpurse (I feel you’ll only get this from places like Caltech or in the highest level, small honors rendition courses at some key schools) elsewhere or even at Emory, but Emory does have a lot of STEM professors who have mastered making their teaching engaging and inspiring even if it is in a tiered lecture hall with 60-100 students.

With biology (and core NBB classes if you plan to take any), hearsay can be your friend. Often polarizing instructors have a good level of rigor and teach very well. You’ll typically hear more average students complain about their tests or assignments while still recognizing that they teach well and then hear more enthusiastic students praise it while recognizing that it defies their expectations for biology courses. Chances are, if a biology course is celebrated or characterized as having " mostly just memorization or multiple choice" (unless it is an anatomy or physiology course where a dominant focus on memorization is difficult to avoid), then you know you probably won’t be getting the best experience no matter how popular the instructor is (chances are they are popular because many biology students view memorization and multiple choice as much easier than critical thinking or free response/data analysis in the first place).

For more quantitative subjects like neuroscience, chemistry, physics and math, RMP is generally more reliable because students seem to more or less expect a particular kind of rigor in those subjects (whereas, again, there are misconceptions about what biology at the university level and beyond is about due to how most are exposed to it in grade school. Anybody who flips the script and does it differently has to basically reverse a certain mindset and a lot of misconceptions about what biology and learning biology is about. It is a tall order for someone teaching freshmen to take on) and will tolerate or even welcome higher than average levels of it from said departments as long as the instructor is solid. So when you see a decently high difficulty and quality rating, it may be a very fair assessment.

Note that you can also gauge a lot about upper division and intermediate courses just by syllabus design. If the course syllabus only has traditional exams and quizzes comprising the grade, chances are, it isn’t that special a course. The best courses usually involve small projects, reading primary literature (again data analysis and figure analysis are required for MCAT and research), case studies (puts content in foreign/complex contexts you may not be familiar with. Research and the MCAT will do the same), writing proposals, presentations, practical aspects. You’ll have different ways of effectively feeling out who provides the richest experiences (again, they are often those who good students flock to, but others are intimidated despite recognizing the quality).

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@gallentjill
You mentioned Emory has 15,000 but does that mean it has that many total enrolled or in undergrad… Any idea how many enroll in freshman year. Undergrad opportunities for research I assume would be different for undergrad vs grad ? Would they compete for the same

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@Simpson2019 : 15k is overall, UG is just under 8k. You can research enrollment per unit of the university here: http://opb.emory.edu/academic-profile.html

And graduate school is a completely different thing from undergrad. Most graduate programs are only focused on research so that is the default activity of students (coursework is just to cover bases and ensure foundation for research and proposal writing). Undergraduates opt to do research. There is no competition for resources and graduate students, post-dos, and the lab PI will mentor undergraduates when they join a group.

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@simpson2019 These are the questions you need to be asking the school. Enrollment is easy to look up. You should speak to current students and faculty about availability of research for undergrads as well as all the other opportunities you want and need. If you can’t visit the school, you can contact them and arrange to speak with the pre-med advisor over the phone. Emory might have a pre-med club with its own facebook page. When my D was researching schools she made certain to speak with current pre-med students and ask all of these questions. Find out about class size, availability of professors, how easy it is to register for the classes you need.

All of your choices are good schools. Some are more prestigious than others. That doesn’t necessarily mean much when applying to medical school, but it may mean something to you - one way or the other.

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@gallentjill : simpson is a different person from the OP I am sure.

@Simpson2019 : Here is the undergraduate research page for Emory. It is quite robust and since they want to increase research participation even more (it is already as high or slightly higher than peers, but I think they definitely want more humanities and social science majors involved), they have a established programs that don’t exist at a lot of schools to sort of liason and funnel students into opportunities more easily than what it would be like to just send out a bunch of e-mails (the Research Partners program). Furthermore, once a student places, they have a formal mentoring program in place (Research Ambassadors Program). If you are URM, lower income, or first generation and were considering a PhD/MDPhD, then there is the IMSD program which is a very formal mentoring program: http://college.emory.edu/undergraduate-research/index.html . Basically Emory has several things that help get you into a group or opportunity and then has things to support you.