I was fortunately accepted into Emory and it’s definitely one of my top choices! It’s around 22k with FA + 20k annual merit scholarship. I do have some (aka a lot of) concerns, however, that I’d love to get some insight on! (I’m comparing it to UT Austin Honors btw, similar price):
SCHOOL
- I’ve heard pre-med is really cutthroat, I don’t think I’d survive. Can anyone tell me what the competitiveness is like?
- How hard is it to get a 3.7+ (med school worthy) gpa?
- How hard is it to get the professors who care about you/make class interesting?
- I know Emory is huge on research, but I’ve also heard it’s really hard for undergraduates to get into a lab…
- Difficulty in shadowing and clinical volunteering?
- Are both biology and neuroscience majors very solid? UT’s neuro is solid, but its biology sucks
- There wasn’t much science study abroad last I checked, what do EMory students think about this?
- how good is premed advising/committee?
STUDENTS
- I’ve heard Emory students tend to diss their school. Doesn’t this mean the school environment is kind of not healthy?
- I love how diverse Emory is! But I’ve also heard people stay in their racial/cultural bubbles
- my tour guide said she went out like once a month–is this normal for most Emory students? I want to have fun too
- I heard in Emory, to “count the number of asians in you class. If theres’ more than half, drop it” is this true?
LOCATION
- imo emory village kind of sucked in terms of fun, how convenient is it to go to Atlanta from emory?
- Is there a lot of hiking (casual, not intense) trails nearby?
- ******does it snow???
FUN
- I know it isn’t a party school, and while I’m not a party rager, I do think I’d like to party (and club) occasionally, non-greek life. Is this possible in Emory?
- How big is Atlanta’s music scene?
- Are there a lot of clubs that are interest based and not academic societies?
- Is there good Korean food??? I freaking LOVE Korean food and it is my daily sustenance. I know I’ll get terribly homesick without some spicy kimchi to spice up ma life
Myself: I think I’m a work-hard party-hard wannabe but actually I’m pretty lazy and slacked off a ton in high school, which is why I’m worried about Emory–I’m really worried I won’t be smart enough to thrive, especially since I have like 0 study habits. I’m already worried UT will be too hard for me, which is easier than Emory, so I’m scared 
Hobby wise, I’m into planes (so glad for ATL) painting casually with friends, making food together, hiking, occasional parties etc.
Yikes this was a lot of questions. I’m definitely not expecting all my questions to be answered but any advice would seriously be amazing! I’ve been switching back and forth since I heard from Emory and I have a college-induced headache now. I really do love Emory but I’m a worrywart…please help
@culaccino: Uggghhh…answering this stuff over and over again is annoying. In terms of all that partying and music stuff…it’s freaking Atlanta. I won’t answer such silly questions. Go look that up, you should have plenty to do. If you can’t make it happen, that is completely your fault.
I’ve heard pre-med is really cutthroat, I don’t think I’d survive. Can anyone tell me what the competitiveness is like?
- How hard is it to get a 3.7+ (med school worthy) gpa? What is cut-throat about it? Either you perform well in your coursework or not. The competitive aspect may appear in curved courses, but not really because curved courses at Emory are mainly the challenging courses where grades are re-centered when they would result in low letter grades. So yes, in a course where the mean on the exams/components of the grade are recentered upwards to result in some distribution of grades, there is a little competition. You want to make above the mean. Typically your chances of getting a solid grade by beating the mean is higher when an instructor writes difficult exams. If they do not write particularly difficult exams, then there will be a higher mean or more top grades. Honestly taking the curved courses, if you have the study habits is more low risk than taking someone who writes easy/medium exams as the latter affords little room for error. In a class with a 76-85 average on exams, what you get is what you get (most will receive a B-/B and it is easier to not get an A simply because you missed a couple of multiple choice questions or something. Small differences in performance are amplified and some differences in grades can be due to luck and guessing). If the average is 50-70, then it is about relative performance and something higher than the mean usually means that you actually can do more than just say…memorize and regurgitate. Also, Med. school doesn’t really require a 3.7 but it certainly helps. Typically those 3.5 overall and 30 equivalent from Emory have great chances (80-90%)…It is idiotic to ask “how hard” that is. It depends on the person, and I can tell you that if you are afraid to work hard or want to just GPA protect while at Emory, your MCAT will likely suffer. The more rigorous instructors are also better instructors who prepare substantially better for the MCAT. You better just learn to suck it up and adjust your study habits if you actually value the quality of your education. Also, you should maybe just not be a STEM major at any major research university or LAC if you fear having to adjust study habits.
- How hard is it to get the professors who care about you/make class interesting? Not hard, but "more interesting" and "caring" professors are usually substantially more demanding as they should be..in college. When a STEM professor seems easy, be afraid. They likely do not care about you and certainly do not have time for you. They are typically watering their courses down to keep undergraduates out of their faces in office hours.
- I know Emory is huge on research, but I've also heard it's really hard for undergraduates to get into a lab...That is just stupid! Where are you hearing this crap? Ughhh..For goodness sake!: Emory makes this really easy and has a nicely organized system to facilitate placement as well as a peer to peer mentoring system for those who place: http://college.emory.edu/undergraduate-research/) And there are so many fellowships that are school wide targeting different groups or hosted by departments. How could 40%+ of undergraduates at Emory be doing supervised or independent research if it were difficult to gain access? That makes no sense! The only hard part is sending out e-mails to PIs and maybe having to be interviewed by those who are interested...this is typically standard protocol at any school. This is not considered a difficulty. A research faculty is not going to come looking for you. Either way, if you struggle to hard doing that....then there is a problem
- Difficulty in shadowing and clinical volunteering? Nope, just not difficult at all. Place runs a healthcare system and is strongly affiliated with other healthcare entities. You would have to try extremely hard to be denied access to such opps.
- Are both biology and neuroscience majors very solid? UT's neuro is solid, but its biology sucks. Both are excellent
- There wasn't much science study abroad last I checked, what do Emory students think about this? Wow, another silly assertion: There is plenty more than most near ranked (let us say between 12 and 25) privates of a similar size so I have no idea where you got that mess from. There are some near peers of Emory with literally no STEM department facilitated Study Abroad Options (only CIPA/CIPA analog facilitated), yet Emory has plenty in comparison (it is unfair to compare it to UT Austin which is huge...in addition when a department does not host or facilitate and you want something different...there is this thing called CIPA). Even chemistry has a major program. Emory students obviously do not think that is the case because it just isn't true. Hell, some semester, Maymester, and summer courses have an abroad component in biology.
I am annoyed I am doing this (likes to SA for 3 biggest life science majors):
http://www.biology.emory.edu/study-abroad …you can go through Spring 2018 and Fall 2018 Course atlas to see course based abroad programs
http://nbb.emory.edu/study-abroad/index.html
chemistry has rearranged its website and doesn’t list it but it hosts a program in Sienna each summer that is open to other STEM majors as well. They also have a direct connection to Imperial College London that allows high achieving chemistry majors to study there for a semester or year.
Either way: There’s your “not many”…which is way more than so called “comparable programs” at similar sized schools.
- how good is premed advising/committee? Lackluster and uses one size fits all advising until a student is in trouble, but you should honestly rely more on yourself no matter where you are. Develop some independence. IMHO, no advising committee should have much influence over your course selection or anything. They can maybe help you plan out fitting in study abroad, putting your committee letters together, and putting together a list of medical schools to apply to, but ideally that should be their only use.
I don’t know where you are hearing certain things. They don’t make much sense. Have you been listening to people pull stuff out of their behinds or are you? What’s the deal. Only the social stuff is somewhat accurate, but who doesn’t know that already? The academic stuff is just off the mark and kind of silly.
Also…how does anyone know that UT Austin is easier than Emory? Did you “hear” that from someone or do you have course materials? Emory may be more uniform in its student body than Austin (so stiffer competition in the context of a course that is actually difficult and gets grades curved up), but unless you have seen course materials, there is no evidence of relative ease of content or intellectual rigor. Maybe I do have them or maybe I don’t, but unless YOU have them to compare, don’t make such assumptions. You would actually be surprised when you compare many of these “top private” schools to top publics. They tend to have many STEM instructors that teach at the same level, especially among those who choose to pitch easier courses. If anything, a major pubic university would have a higher "floor"and generally less variation because the curricula and level of courses tends to be more heavily micromanaged and regulated whereas at a private such a thing is atypical. At a private school, if a research faculty wants to barely teach and give students essentially no work and very easy exams, it is rare that an undergraduate director will step in to curb the behavior, so you can get large variability across sections (speaking of which, publics may only have 1-2 sections per pre-health STEM course, Emory has like 3-6 for most except physics. There are escape paths for students to access the most joke-like instructors if they don’t value quality. Good luck trying the same at a top tier research public/ Chances are, the instruction will be at least “medium” in the 1-2 sections offered).
In addition, level of rigor in STEM can vary widely by department at each school. One school may emphasize undergraduate teaching in chemistry (Emory) so may be very rigorous there, but another may be superior in something like physics (Austin) UG education, so one would expect courses to be harder in that department. The only thing I have seen many top publics truly struggle with is biology. They have larger section sizes so many tend towards not so great multiple choice only exams and are more likely to have the classic paradigm of “cell biology first semester and ecology/organismal 2nd” whereas many top privates are “cell first, genetics second”. Either way, do not underestimate these top tier public schools for STEM. They are not to be viewed as a joke against all or even most private counterparts (and let us not bring Michigan and Berkeley into the conversation).
Austin is constantly rated as the best college town among larger cities with big schools. While Emory is a friendly campus, Emory Village will never be confused with Austin. It’s a suburban school and more of a closed community. It’s not as if you can’t get to Buckhead, Midtown, or Decatur, but it’s not like being in Austin, Madison, or some of the other great college towns. The more recent grads and students can probably fill you in on the competitiveness among students.
I know Emory was shut down for some snow this year, but it’s not New England. They just don’t have the equipment down there to deal with it all that well.
@bernie12 @ljberkow ok, thanks for the help! I got these pros cons from my two friends who attend Emory. Thanks for showing me that what they say is bull, they were probably just expecting everything to be open for freshmen. I’ll disregard their advice, I’m not too close with them anyhow.
Also snow is definitely a plus haha, so that’s great!!
@culaccino : Things are open for freshman (trusting their opinions is tricky because many do not know how to access certain things and will not try hard enough. They are still very green. Also, I find many of them also do not know how to look things up.). They were probably fools who expected it to require little effort though. Also, with research, aside for someone with tons of AP credits, or an olympiad or Seimens recognition, why would all PIs be so quick to take a freshman in? They want people who have some exposure to the major conceptual foundations that will help them UNDERSTAND the lab work (and not just do stuff with minimal understanding of what is going on…work study students outside of the area can do that), so yes, a freshman will need to e-mail many more people. Either way, just because it is harder for FRESHMEN, does not mean it is hard overall. That is just ridiculous.
I still want to know why your friends think UT Austin is easier. What is the evidence? Or did YOU make that assumtion up? Many students attending elite privates or any private can be semi-snobby and instead of targeting peer or competitor privates for comparison, will take ill-fated and uninformed shots at major public schools. I have heard stupid stuff like: “Georgia Tech cant be more challenging because it is a public school” coming out of some students’ mouths (and many more hold these public versus private sentiments even in the case that the 2 are near a similar level of respect). There are tons of Emory students, who like others at selective private schools, have a high IQ but clearly do not know the ways of the world beyond their bubbles, so let silly assumptions and expectations run wild in their heads. Worse, they start saying them allowed or spreading them. Also, instead of worrying about one being easier than the other, why not ask your friends what they are taking, how their classes are run, how challenging their specific courses or instructors are, and how they dealth with it, and ultimately how well they performed in the course? This is far more informative than attempting to make a blanket statement comparing two schools. You can even get them to send you some of the freshman coursework in STEM if you are worried so much so that you can measure your background up and see how well it compares to your AP/IB courses. If you really are concerned, there are so many ways to actually find out since you have friends there or at both.
@culaccino there is good Korean food. There is a city called Duluth which is very close to Emory. It is like Koreatown since it has many KBBQ/Korean restaurants and Karaoke bars.
@culaccino I’m in a pretty similar situation as you, have you decided where to go?
@culaccino @lollypip I’m in the same situation! Have either of you made a decision yet?
@viola137 @culaccino @lollypip
There are nice hiking trails on/near Emory’s Atlanta (and Oxford) campuses:
https://www.atlantatrails.com/hiking-trails/lullwater-walking-running-trails-emory-university-atlanta/
https://365atlantatraveler.com/day-362-lullwater-park/
https://www.traillink.com/trail/oxford-trail/
Undergraduate research: It’s not hard to get a research position. It’s easier if you’ve had prior research experience and/or more advanced science courses in your background. Keep in mind that Emory has multiple options for undergraduate research via various institutions on/near campus: (1) Emory College of Arts and Sciences (biology, chemistry, physics, psychology, neuroscience, etc. departments), (2) Emory Medical School and related institutions such as the Winship Cancer Institute, (3) Yerkes Primate Center, (4) Rollins School of Public Health, (5) Center for Disease Control, etc.
Volunteering: Many teaching and other hospitals affiliated with Emory Medical School provide for volunteer opportunities.
Biology department: It has a wide range of offerings from more traditionally taught lecture style courses to more quantitative biology courses to more primary research article driven teaching. You also have to consider that you can supplement through biophysics offerings via the physics department, biochemistry/medical chemistry offerings through the chemistry department and upper level courses offered by the graduate school and Emory Medical School.
Biology and chemistry both offer study abroad.
http://www.biology.emory.edu/study-abroad
http://abroad.emory.edu/index.cfm?FuseAction=programs.ViewProgram&Program_ID=1070
Other departments such as Italian offer premedish like summer programs abroad focused on things like medical history and ethics:
http://italian.emory.edu/home/abroad/index.html
Social life: There are plenty of opportunities for socializing. Keep in mind that Atlanta’s a college town with Emory, Georgia Tech and several other undergraduate schools like Georgia State, Morehouse College, Spelman College, etc. You will have to decide on the appropriate balance of study and social life that suits you.
From Wikipedia:
“Atlanta, Georgia is home to the largest concentration of colleges and universities in the Southern United States.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universities_in_metropolitan_Atlanta
@viola137 @lollypip @culaccino I’m in basically the exact same position, have any of you decided yet?