<p>hi so i've recently been waitlisted to emory and accepted to oxford... im planning on doing everything i can to get off the waitlist. with that said, i was wondering which one would be better to go to in terms of being ready for MCATs and just medical school work in general. </p>
<p>I'm pretty set on going to med school but i love love love the humanities. I know oxford is concentrated on intensive liberal arts ed, but then isn't emory based on l.a as well? I guess I just don't really know what the difference is. I also heard that Oxford education is much more hard and is more difficult to get good grades. </p>
<p>PS- I plan on studying abroad during my 3rd year in Spain... Idk if that should make a difference but thought i would let you guys know</p>
<p>ok guys. 32 views and no replies? help!</p>
<p>Harder to get high GPA at Oxford.</p>
<p>^^^ Not true. Wheres your data?</p>
<p>The reason Oxford may have a lower average gpa then Emory Main Campus, but that is because Oxford accepts less selective students then Emory College.</p>
<p>In other words, the difficulty of the classes at Oxford and Emory College is the same, but since Oxford accepts less selective students, who on average, tend to make a lower gpa, Oxford has a lower gpa on average. Emory College is the same difficulty as Oxford, but since Emory College accepts more selective students, who tend to get a higher gpa, Emory has a higher gpa on average.</p>
<p>As far as MCATs, go, I can’t say, because I haven’t taken the MCATs yet, so I can’t say anything about how well Emory College prepares you.</p>
<p>^^not true.
Oxford and Emory classes from what I know (and what I have heard from upperlcassmen at the main campus) have the same amount of difficulty but Oxford students have a heavier workload than Emory students. The most likely reason for this is that students are being prepared for work on the main campus and also since the class sizes are small the professors expect more out of you since they have less papers to grade and other factors that I might not be aware of. Selectivity from admissions is hardly factored in here when it comes to the average GPA of the two colleges.</p>
<p>From reading threads by Emory College students it seems that they hate Oxford. </p>
<p>Yeah, Oxford admits lower stats, but do you really think they WON’T change once they get into college? The lower stats might be really smart people who start working once they get there; the higher stats might slack off and get low GPAs. Who knows?</p>
<p>^no Beretta the Emory College students on CC hate Oxford LOL ;P</p>
<p>I don’t think any Emory College student hates Oxford students. Many Oxford students on CC make dubious claims and fail to provide any concrete facts to support the claims. I have had many former Oxford student friends and fraternity brothers, and they have never made the claims being purported on CC. I can make a counter argument to missy’s claims. Did you ever consider Oxford students feel their school is alot of work and more difficult because they are not the same quality of student found at Emory College? Consider, the students do not take the same classes at Emory College and Oxford. Intro science classes at Emory College have much lower grades than advanced science classes. I suspect Oxford College is a good school, but better than Emory College … please!</p>
<p>^ I am not even going to start arguing with you. It will be pointless immature drivel all over again and plus I have work to do so this will be the last post that I will make on this site since it is now useless to me. Tootles!</p>
<p>^^ I’m not trying to be argumentative. I am simply pointing out your claims are not based upon any factual data.</p>
<p>K, the word “hate” was the wrong one. How about “look down on”? That good enough for College of Arts and Sciences students?</p>
<p>i just started wondering about what ppl think about emory now a days, so i started googling on the web and found this thread. if you are still reading hear me out. I was a four year scholarship fellow at oxford. i went in with all the APs i could and left oxford in a year. however during my spring semester there, on the odd days i would take classes at oxford and even days i would take compsci 170 and a bio at main. I would have to say emory atl’s science is a **** load harder than oxford’s. although this was 2004 to 2007, but i dont think things changed much in terms of level of difficulty. my genetics class at oxford had about a 80-85 avg while on main the avg of science classes in general was about 2.5(as a mean). I can also tell you I’ve made a **** load of friends at oxford and pretty much knew everyone that went there or graduated there. then, on main i’ve also made a **** loads of friends and joined a frat (p.s. all these main ppl knew i went to oxford and didn’t think twice). its a vary interesting experience, one that i cherish, and will continue to do so for as long as i can remember. i majored in compsci/math join major and econ minor and went to the said school of buizzz at the U of oxford in her majesty’s kingdom — raw_input print"enter like if you like: "</p>
<p>Okay, I just had two friends get their MCAT’s back that were both students at Oxford with me. One got a 36 (96th percentile), and one got a 30. And to clear up some of the ******** Emory students say about Oxford, they really don’t have a clue about the difficulty there, as they didn’t take classes there. The classes in my opinion were much harder at Oxford. My GPA went up significantly at Emory, and granted, I’m an NBB major (neuroscience and behavioral biology), which is one of the hardest majors. For example, and “concrete evidence,” I received a B in Neuroscience 301, and the way the class is scaled is that the class average on the tests are scaled to a B-, so because I received a B, that means I was above the class average. The Emory students are very smart, but then again, so are the Oxford kids. Let me tell you about some of my classmates there. One got a 2400 SAT and 36ACT, and was accepted to Yale (but came to Oxford). My other friend Alexa was valedictorian at a top school in Florida, was accepted to Columbia for undergrad, and chose Oxford. The kids with the lower stats usually went to Oxford because their SAT’s were sub-par due to merely slacking off in high school, or went to public school with no assistance on how to do well on the SAT. Surprise everyone, SAT scores do not reflect IQ. Anyone with a private tutor could pretty much ace the SAT. To be honest, I’m impressed by the intelligence of Emory students, but as an Oxford grad, I was expecting way more from them based on the COCKY-ASS attitude that all of them have. Just because they had doctor and lawyer parents, and are rich as hell doesn’t make them any smarter than Oxford kids. Granted some Oxford kids are very below average, the majority of students that do continue on the main campus do very well. The judgement between the two schools need to disappear, as the animosity is just plain stupid.</p>
<p>I took bio at Emory, not Oxford, and had a 96 average, and received the highest grad on test 2, and the class was mostly comprised of emory kids, and I thought the class was easy as ****. Emory kids need to realize that its becoming a lot harder to get into Oxford, and the “stats” that everyone raves about are going up.</p>
<p>Who did you take for bio? That makes a huge difference dude. I mean a big. Tell the truth. And you are perhaps a special case. We don’t know. You cannot say that your experience applies to all. And honestly, most people’s GPA increase over time, no matter if they take courses that are harder or of the same level as freshmen year. This is even true at Georgia Tech where the freshman gpa is about a 2.7, but people graduate with about an average of 3.1 (Emory is 3.0, 3.4 respectively, so same increase, but our overall is much higher b/c of humanities courses, and a higher level of inflation). People who take bio as sophomores for example are known to do much better than their fellow freshmen classmates (I think there are a bit more freshmen taking it than sophomores). Seriously, unless Oxford students took the majority of the As or top scoring spots in your bio class, you hardly have a claim there. Also, your NBB anecdote is irrelevant. You can’t compare that to Oxford coursework because I don’t think it is offered. You in no way would be able to claim that NBB 301 over there would be tougher. If anything, I am willing to admit that Emory coursework/material covered is often as complex or tougher than Oxford, but the curves/inflation perhaps overcompensate due to the larger class-sizes. My other friends admit that they worked harder in their courses over here (one is a chem. major and one is bio), and said that it’s primarily due to unpredictable grading schemes/curves (some of the tougher classes that are small don’t even have curves) in smaller upperlevel/intermediate courses. This is an impossible argument to win on either side. I will admit that Oxford indeed does get good students. They basically get UGA caliber students which get better every year, but it is pointless to argue over which campus is more difficult. Also, getting a good MCAT is up to the student partially. We can’t say for sure whether one school preps better than the other or not especially since the student takes prep. courses at both institutions. Would it really be fair for me to say that Emory is better I have a friend who got a 38(this is true) and he took classes on main campus and said that gen. chem, orgo, biochem, and human phys. here helped. What if I simply said that his 38 is higher than your Oxford student’s 36, so Emory must be better (even though Emory pre-meds overall does not get that many people with 30+ 3.5+ stats). This is pointless. The student will take classes at both, so they should be able to expose themself to enough material to do well.</p>
<p>Instead of looking at stats (I’m not so good with numbers), I snooped around the Oxford bio, chem, and orgo conferences from last year. Biology at oxford is considerably different. Their tests have a lot of short answer as opposed to all multiple choice for the tests at Emory. Organic chemistry did look easier but that was compared to Weinshenk who is one of the hardest professors at Emory. The general chemistry tests were pretty much the same as the ones found at Emory. I think that overall both institutions are pretty equal in terms of teaching and it all comes down to how the students perform.</p>
<p>Yeah, I’d imagine that. Normally, each year in biology, there is that one prof. that decides to place a short answer portion on their exams. For 141 it’s Eisen. The year Campbell taught 142 (Spring 2009), she also did it. I think more profs. should do it, but they probably don’t want to put much time into making a test. Spell and them, in fact steal a good bit of their test questions from GRE practice exams. My friend showed it to me. Short answer-multiple choice hybrids are often more common at smaller schools, and those in which profs. of intro. courses are willing to put more time into the class outside of lecturing like MIT. Their bio test are very difficult. They are more like our Bio 142 problem sets which are tough. Not much multiple choice, you must completely know what you are doing, whereas the goal in most sections here is to get around the wording and phrasing if you know the material merely somewhat well. There is almost no need to show that you know it really well. </p>
<p>By the way, I checked out MIT’s (I also saw a GT orgo. test, it was on par w/easier moderate profs. here) orgo. through their Open Courseware website (really cool), and it even appears simpler than the stuff harder profs. here give. Everything else, however… you know the rest. Point is, some profs. make orgo. really tough at Emory, even though they are really good profs (then again, I guess that’s the trade off. If they put time into their class and teaching you, so must you).</p>
<p>hey man,
my bad if i offended you… I was drunk when I decided to stick up for oxford, lol. I had Dr. Campbell for 141, and there was no curve… there were more emory kids than oxford kids in the class like there is in every Emory course… In essence, I’m trying to say that biology at Emory is easy if you had a good AP class in high school. I took NBB301 at Emory (it’s not even offered at Oxford). It’s a little weird that you’re trying to tell me that the complexity is different at Emory when you havent experienced the rigidity of Oxford. I’m sure in the end its very similar… You and me both know that the average MCAT of emory kids is below a 36 or 38… probably somewhere between 29-33 depending on the student.
Good luck this year.</p>
<p>That’s what I was trying to say. I was just trying to claim that it is difficult for either side to make an irrefutable claim that most can agree to from their own experience. I also agreed with you that we don’t perform that well on the MCAT overall, so pointing out the exceptional students will get us nowhere. </p>
<p>And for Emory main campus bio: It depends a lot, I’ve observed like others over the past 2 years and it seems volatile in terms of difficulty. Seems to depend on a lot of politics at a certain time.<br>
Also, doesn’t Campbell teach in the summer? I guess you may be older than me that’s why, but she has not taught 141 during the semester since I’ve been here and I’m a junior. However, my freshman year, she taught142. She apparently had the lowest averages. My friend took her for 142 this summer, and said that the testing format was different from her normal tests. It was much easier. All students claimed that she was in “summer mode”. And like you, this friend breezed through the second test with a 96. He is from main campus though (he was also complaining about the poor performance of some Oxford students so that somewhat shows that this argument is impossible, because I just countered with another anecdote) Apparently she did multiple choice only, and any short answer was extra credit. When she was teaching 142, it was clear that 60% of her test was short answer and it was graded harshly. This is why my friends were griping all of the time. The experience in Emory biology is really subjective. For example, Spell tends to be the toughest 141 teacher in the past. I don’t know if that’s when you took it, but you would have more credibility if you took her. However, things have changed since last year. Eisen, Calabrese, Spell, and Escobar teach 141. Needless to say 3/4 of them are hard (Escobar is the exception), and Eisen and Calabrese are supposedly harder than Spell, and it’s believable because I saw a test from Eisen, and he obviously likes students to think outside the box (and most of the test is very thoughtful and creative short answer that requires good command of the material). Needless to say, many students don’t like doing this, especially on an exam. But anyway, bio varies. If you get a tougher prof., even with AP credit or experience, you may have trouble. Depends on the year and testing style. Most bio profs. here may be easier to those that prefer multiple choice, which are a lot, but some go out of their way to even make that hard while some don’t.</p>
<p>I’m more curious as to how gen. chem may or may not differ between the two. While some profs. decide to be a little easier or a little harder each year here, the big 3 (Weaver, Mulford, Morkin) always end up reasonably tough. Better comparison, b/c they don’t vary as much in difficulty as bio.</p>
<p>Oh by the way fellow freshmen majoring in sciences. I just got word that at least one newer dorm (Fevans) will be hosting a learning resource that Georgia Tech does for its freshmen. They will set up the e-pass tutors for physics, chem, and bio (Tech of course does calc. instead of bio) in various locations throughout Few I believe. These are formatted like drop-in sessions. Fortunately, Fevans has many studyrooms for a more thorough explanation to perhaps a larger group needing help. I don’t know if such sessions will be held in New Turman or Longstreet-Means, or any of the older freshman dorms (if not, you can find a way to get into Fevans and join them anyway) and will let you guys know if I find out anything. I just thought I would let you know of this new addition to learning resources. I think it’s a good one that you guys should know about. I am just a little concerned that whoever is in charge of the implementation may not do as good a job of spreading the word as they should. It’s y’alls job to spread the word to fellow friends when classes start if I’m right about that.</p>
<p>Don’t wait until you really start struggling to use these resources. It is actually true that top students use these perhaps more frequently than students that are not doing to well. Using a tutor for an intro. course is not embarrassing, because some/many of the sections are difficult to many students. Just a word of wisdom and heads up.</p>