<p>hi, I would like some help with respect to deciding whether Emory would be good for a premed.</p>
<p>Now, would a premed WANT to go to a school with a lot of premeds (a school like Emory)? I highly doubt that one should go to a school that is already heavily premed populated but then why do people keep flocking to Emory for premed?</p>
<p>Emory is very strong in the sciences, has its own med school, awesome location and weather, and sends a lot of grads to top med schools, but is it a good choice? Is it risky to go to a school with so many premeds (in terms of hurting my GPA, etc.)? </p>
<p>What do you think? I mean, Emory is a HUGE premed school...definately one of the biggest in the number of premed students....I heard some unbelievable stats like over 50% are premed or even higher....</p>
<p>^^ Yes, around 45-50 percent of the kids are INITIALLY pre-med, at the beginning of freshman year (most drop out as the years go by because they their interests change, their grades aren’t competitive for medical school, etc), but this is NO DIFFERENT than other schools (Cornell, Rice, Vanderbilt----all three schools have 40-50 percent of their incoming freshman start off as pre-med). In order to get good grades you should be focused more on what you can control (how you study, your work ethic) rather than what you can’t control (how “intelligent” other people around you are). I go to Emory, and its not that difficult to get a 3.8, if you know how to study and are willing to put in the hours</p>
<p>And our intro science classes aren’t that large compared to other schools of similar size (Vanderbilt, Duke). We have around 60-70 kids in each intro science class, so its not that bad. My friends who go to much larger schools told me they have like 300 kids in their intro science classes.</p>
<p>I think you might have mis-heard the folks in admissions. When I toured last year, an adcom said that approx half of Emory’s matriculants are premed or pre-biz, i.e., the total between the two pre-majors was 50%. 50% premed alone does not pass the smell test. (Do you really think admissions would not start to limit the bio/premed majors in favor of a classics major?) And, no way that 40-50% of the entering classes of Cornell and Vandy are premed.</p>
<p>Sorry I should have said Pre-health. 40-45 percent of the incoming freshman are pre-health. Last year I remember the intro bio and intro chem lab directors saying there were 500 kids enrolled in intro bio and 500 kids enrolled in intro chem. Emory has roughly 1200-1300 incoming freshman so it would be around 40-45 percent. </p>
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<p>^^^ Like I said, that is for INCOMING freshman, most change their minds because of new interests, or they realize that there scores are not competitive enough. So when the time comes to pick a major, I am sure the number of bio/chem majors is a lot less. Emory and other schools like it are also mainly pre-professional (I have met very few kids who did not want to be a doctor, lawyer, or a ceo). </p>
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<p>^^^ Thats what I have heard from other posters on this forum.</p>
Wouldn’t surprise me. 46% of Duke freshmen my year were pre-med, and Emory also has a pre-med rep.</p>
<p>That number decreased rapidly, partly due to weeding out and partly due to people simply exploring new interests they hadn’t been exposed to before. By senior year, only about 25% applied to med school.</p>
<p>As for the original question, no, I don’t think it would hurt your chances at all. In fact, I think pre-meds often feel more at home at those schools than some other students do - starting out as a non-premed bio major, I was one of the odd men out.</p>
<p>For Colleges00701, could you comment on how well Emory prepares you for the MCAT? Are the things you learn in class really helpful for a great score? Are there any services, etc. for premeds to help direct them and help them out? And a 3.8 isn;t hard to get at Emory with hard work? That’s great!</p>
<p>Now, I need to focus on getting Emory scholars or that 2/3 tuition scholarship to go to Emory…</p>
<p>So far my experience at Emory has been great. The kids are really chill and laid back. Like I said before, I haven’t been accepted to medical school yet so I can’t comment how “good” emory’s pre-med “program” is.</p>
<p>I feel like we’ve had this discussion about Emory before. For some reason their students end up with shockingly low MCAT scores for a school of this caliber, and do correspondingly poorly in medical school admissions.</p>
<p>But I don’t remember the discussion off the top of my head. It’s possible I’m remembering incorrectly.</p>
<p>I don’t have a good reference point, but that ratio strikes me as horrible. And it’s not because Emory just sends a whole boatload of premeds, either. Their number of premeds is pretty in line with other top schools.</p>
<p>That ratio is terrible and most definitely the reason for the atrocious acceptance rate. But, I don’t really understand why such a selective school would end up with such terrible MCAT scores.</p>
<p>I think we should still give Emory some credits for making this info public. As I remember, Cornell may be the other school (that I am aware of) which publishes such grids.</p>
<p>I learned from some source (not a very reliable one as I did not see it myself) that the mcat average from DS’s school is 32.</p>
<p>I have a theory about why the average standardized test score from many top private colleges in the south tends to be lower than that from many top private colleges in NE: There are fewer high power private HIGH SCHOOLS in the south. I even notice that some “financially resouceful” families from my city send their children to some competitive private high schools in NE. These students still apply to colleges as residents of their (southern) states during the college application cycle, and often still end up studying at some NE top colleges. There are relatively fewer stduents who go the other direction, from NE to south.</p>
<p>In other words, because the education industry in NE is more flourishing, it “steals” some students who tend to be good at standardized tests. This does not mean that, statistically, the people born in NE are better testers than southerners.</p>
<p>(As an annecdotal example, where are the two posters above me now and where were they as middle/high schoolers? Both of them are extremely good testers. But they were not born in NE. --Well, Duke may be an “exceptional” southern univerisity :))</p>
<p>bluebayou, I agree with you. You should know what is like in California better than I do as you are from there.</p>
<p>I think there are definitely many very competitive public high schools in big cities (suburban) in states like California. DS once mentioned that a very high percentage of premeds at his college actually come from competitive public high schools, not from those small, competitive private high schools. The grueling, unpleasant nature of premed classes/labs may not appeal to the students from extremely wealthy families, e.g., those students whose parents who are partners of some successful law firms, or whose parent is the anchor of a major TV station. (These are two real examples.) The well-off families tend to send their children to a high-priced (and maybe high quality as well) prep school. Many (but not all) well-sheltered students have the luxury of starting to think of their career goals in their thirties (Is our previous president one of these?! Can you imagine he would be studying laboriously in a premed class when he was 19 yo? I had better stop making a comment like this; otherwise somebody may attack me verbally as he does not lack some loyal followers. I have met somebody who strongly believes almost all top private colleges are not good for their children. DS once went to a doctor (in sports medicine) who gives him an unsolicited “lecture” on how morally bad some of these schools are. Hopefully he will not run into this kind of doctor during his interview – if any interview.)</p>
<p>Mcat2 your theory doesn’t hold true simply because Emory has a lot of geographic diversity in its student body. For example, I know we have 30 percent of the kids coming from the northeast (I would have to look up the stats for other regions, I don’t know them off the top of my head). </p>
<p>The low MCAT scores are scary. I remember freshman year contemplating whether or not I should transfer to another school because I thought there was something wrong with Emory’s curriculum. But for now, I am staying.</p>
<p>Colleges, I don’t know where you are getting these information, but last time I checked Emory has issues with trying to recruit students from areas that have great schools (NE, West, etc)</p>
<p>Southeast 38%
Mid-Atlantic 18%
Midwest 10%
West 7%
New England 6%
Southwest 6%
International 13%</p>