For all the potential Berkeley science majors and pre-meds

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
1

<p>First, regarding med school admissions....</p>

<p>Berkeley's med school admit rate was a little under 70% last time I checked. That's pretty good considering Berkeley does NOT have a pre-med committee that screens out applicants and considering Berkeley is composed of 90% California residents. Being a California resident pre-med is a disadvantage because California's public medical schools (UCSF, UCLA, UCSD, UCD, UCI) are all ultra-competitive. So while most of the pre-meds at say, UPenn, have the advantage of applying to private med schools as well as to less selective home state med schools as backup, most Berkeley pre-meds don't have this luxury as their state med schools are actually HARDER to get into than the vast majority of private med schools.</p>

<p>Stanford University is composed of 50% California residents. Perhaps this explains why Stanford's 75% pre-med acceptance rate is lower than you'd expect from a school of Stanford's reputation.</p>

<p>Also, don't expect a complete pre-med profile from Berkeley's career center website because less than one-third of Berkeley medical school applicants bother to release their data to the career center (I'm one of the Berkeley med admits that didn't bother to release data to the career center = sorry, career center folks).</p>

<p>Second, regarding the sciences at Berkeley.....</p>

<p>I stongly recommend Berkeley. I spent 3 years there, took a year off, and i'm currently picking up an MS degree from Stanford before heading off to medical school. Berkeley science is tough, but the quality of the education is top-notch. Believe it or not, I didn't realize how great (and under-rated) Berkeley was until I started school at Stanford. Not to rag on Stanford too much, but Stanford is just the over-priced, over-rated, and lame version of Berkeley. I directly credit the education I got at Berkeley for allowing me to score 99th percentile on the MCAT (without even having to take a prep course), because I challenged myself by taking some of the hardest science courses Berkeley had to offer. If you do well as a Berkeley science/engineering major, you WILL get into a top grad program or med school. I have lost track of how many of my friends go to top medical school or Harvard/ MIT/ Stanford/ Berkeley/ CalTech/ Princeton/ Yale/ Cornell/etc for grad school, but I can HONESTLY say that MOST of my Berkeley science major friends do, including around 20 acquaintances+friends that are at STANFORD ALONE. </p>

<p>Here's a fact: I would choose Berkeley over ANY school if I could do college all over again. My years at Berkeley were some of the best in my life, and I would strongly recommend Berkeley to any serious student. The Bay Area is a fantastic place to live, and even within the Bay Area, Berkeley is a gem. Most people who visit Berkeley only see the campus and the grimy area bordering Oakland, but North Berkeley and the Hills are picturesque to say the least. Between having the beautiful Berkeley Hills next door, the quaint towns and streets nearby, San Francisco being 20 minutes away and Tahoe a few hours away, sailing down at the Berkeley Marina and beautiful artwork in the Albany Bulb, having a vibrant college town and campus, the best food i've ever eaten being available in Berkeley, the scenic coastal highway 1 nearby, being under great weather, and receiving a great education to boot, among a multitude of other things (sorry for this massive, akward sentence and special apologies to all the "correct English" nuts out there as I am getting too lazy to further edit my text), I honestly cannot understand why anyone would turn Berkeley down...but that's just me. </p>

<p>Good luck on your decision, and be sure to check out the galleries on this site, as it may be your home territory for the next 4 years:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.terragalleria.com/california/region.sf-bay-area.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.terragalleria.com/california/region.sf-bay-area.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I sincerely hope you choose Berkeley.</p>

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<p>good info on this page. Plus, those pictures are beautiful.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Berkeley's med school admit rate was a little under 70% last time I checked.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Here is the data. I'll let people judge for themselves what it means.</p>

<p><a href="http://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/national.stm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/national.stm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>
[quote]
Also, don't expect a complete pre-med profile from Berkeley's career center website because less than one-third of Berkeley medical school applicants bother to release their data to the career center

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I am not aware of any information that has ever substantiated that "less than 1/3" of Berkeley med-school applicants bother to release their data to the career center. Do you have a link?</p>

<p>The data leaves to believe the interpretation that 1/3 of Berkeley applicants are graduating seniors (as opposed to alumni). Berkeley does provide accompanying data for "1-year-out" alumni but interestingly refuses to provide any data for alumni beyond that. So I think it is entirely probably that Berkeley does in fact have at least some of that data, but just chooses not to release it. </p>

<p>
[quote]
If you do well as a Berkeley science/engineering major, you WILL get into a top grad program or med school.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Ah, but there's the rub, isn't it? I have always agreed that * if * you do well at Berkeley, you can do many things. But the real question is - what if you don't do well? What happens now? </p>

<p>The truth of the matter is, a lot of students who do poorly at Berkeley would probably have been better off if they had gone to another school. And there are plenty of students who are doing poorly.</p>

4

<ol>
<li><p>"Last time I checked" was for 2006, at the MCB office (MCB is the most popular "pre-med" major). They said it was "a little under 70%". Apparently the career center hasn't posted 2006 data online yet. Perhaps they don't have a sizable data set yet? I don't know. </p></li>
<li><p>The career center has posted school acceptance/marticulation data for 136 graduating seniors in 2005, and no school acceptance/marticulation data for the 158 "one year out" crowd (although acceptance rate is listed). I asked someone at the MCB office and I was told that the "one year out" crowd often do not bother to state where they decided to marticulate so the data is left out. In 2006, there were 574 medical applicants from Berkeley, so i'm going to assume that 2005 saw similar numbers. Hence "less than one-third" for the school acceptance/marticulation data set. </p></li>
<li><p>You're right, "if you do well" is the issue at Berkeley. In all likelihood, you're gonna have to work your *** off at times to do well at Berkeley...but if you're willing to put out, the opportunities at Berkeley are boundless. That's the point. </p></li>
</ol>

<p>Trust me, I'm no genius nor am I an anti-social nerd by a long shot: if I can graduate Berkeley in 3 years (plus a couple summer sessions) with a Bachelor of Science degree + decent GPA, you probably can too.</p>

5

<p>
[quote]
2. The career center has posted school acceptance/marticulation data for 136 graduating seniors in 2005, and no school acceptance/marticulation data for the 158 "one year out" crowd (although acceptance rate is listed). I asked someone at the MCB office and I was told that the "one year out" crowd often do not bother to state where they decided to marticulate so the data is left out. In 2006, there were 574 medical applicants from Berkeley, so i'm going to assume that 2005 saw similar numbers. Hence "less than one-third" for the school acceptance/marticulation data set

[/quote]
</p>

<p>There's a rather big difference between "not releasing their data to the career center", and not releasing specific matriculation information to the career center. At least the one-year-outs (and presumably the two-year-outs and later-outs) release * some * of their data to the career center - specifically, data regarding whether they placed anywhere at all. </p>

<p>I am personally less interested in which med-schools people place into than I am in whether they place * anywhere at all *, because that is where the real drop-off happens. Specifically, the difference between getting into Harvard Medical School and some no-name med-school is tiny compared to the difference between getting into a no-name med-school and not getting in anywhere at all. There are a lot of premeds at Berkeley or any school who don't get in anywhere at all. There are also plenty of other premeds who don't even apply to med-school because they know they won't get in anywhere at all. </p>

<p>
[quote]
3. You're right, "if you do well" is the issue at Berkeley. In all likelihood, you're gonna have to work your *** off at times to do well at Berkeley...but if you're willing to put out, the opportunities at Berkeley are boundless. That's the point.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Sure. And my point is, there are other schools in which you may not have to work that hard, yet * still * do well. Furthermore, there are plenty of students at Berkeley who are working extremely hard... and* still * get terrible grades. A lot of engineering and natural science students fall into this category.</p>

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<p>i know this is going to sound like a series of stupid questions, but what is the pre-med screening committee you mean? is it an advantage to have one? and although berkeley doesnt have a screening committee, i heard the first couple of years weed out premed students.. is that true? and what happens if you get weeded out?</p>

7

<p>
[quote]
i know this is going to sound like a series of stupid questions, but what is the pre-med screening committee you mean?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>A system run by some schools that consists of a group of officers in the university that evaluates all undergrads who are prospective med-school applicants and, at their discretion, provides them with the official school certification letter endorsing that student. If your school has such a committee, you basically cannot apply without that letter (but if your school does not have such a committee, then you obviously don't need that letter). Some schools will simply refuse to provide a letter to students that are deemed to be poor candidates. Others will provide only a mediocre or even a bad endorsement to such candidates. It is often times alleged (with some merit) that these committees act this way in order to discourage poor candidates from even applying at all, and therefore raising the placement percentage for the school (as that percentage only counts those students who actually apply). </p>

<p>
[quote]
is it an advantage to have one?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>It may be an advantage provided you receive a strong endorsement letter from that committee. It is clearly a disadvantage if they don't even give you a letter at all (hence, preventing you from even applying) , or they give you a bad one. </p>

<p>
[quote]
and although berkeley doesnt have a screening committee, i heard the first couple of years weed out premed students.. is that true?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>It's about as true as the notion of whether the Pope is Catholic.</p>

<p>But to be fair, this happens at all schools. The difference is in the degree (no pun intended). </p>

<p>
[quote]
and what happens if you get weeded out?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Simple - you don't go to med school. Or, in the worst case scenario, you get weeded out so badly that you won't even be able to graduate from Berkeley at all, as your grades are so poor that you flunk out. Not every student at Berkeley will graduate. Some will indeed flunk out. {To be fair, students flunk out at other top schools too.}.</p>

8

<p>
[quote]
Berkeley's med school admit rate was a little under 70% last time I checked. That's pretty good considering Berkeley does NOT have a pre-med committee that screens out applicants and considering Berkeley is composed of 90% California residents. Being a California resident pre-med is a disadvantage because California's public medical schools (UCSF, UCLA, UCSD, UCD, UCI) are all ultra-competitive. So while most of the pre-meds at say, UPenn, have the advantage of applying to private med schools as well as to less selective home state med schools as backup, most Berkeley pre-meds don't have this luxury as their state med schools are actually HARDER to get into than the vast majority of private med schools.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Well, then, logically speaking, this is a reason to choose an out-of-state school, particularly, a school in a state with many relatively less selective med schools. But going to that school, you have a chance of establishing residency in that state, while still retaining the option of retaining your California state residency (i.e. at about your college sophomore/junior year, you can gauge how strong of a candidate you are and thus make moves to either establish state residency in your new state or retain your California residency according to where you think you have the best shot). </p>

<p>
[quote]
tanford University is composed of 50% California residents. Perhaps this explains why Stanford's 75% pre-med acceptance rate is lower than you'd expect from a school of Stanford's reputation.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>People keep referencing this 75% figure but I have never actually seen the source. Do you have it?</p>

9

<ol>
<li><p>I'm not trying to tell people what is "logical" to do if they want to pursue pre-med. I was merely suggesting a very plausible explanation for Berkeley's <70% med acceptance rate. </p></li>
<li><p>Stanford's pre-med success rate being approx. 75% comes from a couple Stanford undergrad pre-meds I talked to who read it on a pre-med Q&A pamphlet they received. If you look hard enough, maybe you can find it?</p></li>
</ol>

10

<p>
[quote]
2. Stanford's pre-med success rate being approx. 75% comes from a couple Stanford undergrad pre-meds I talked to who read it on a pre-med Q&A pamphlet they received. If you look hard enough, maybe you can find it?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>So basically you heard it from somebody who read it somewhere. I was looking for a little stronger proof than that.</p>

11

<p>So there's a pre-screening committee for some schools, but isn't that effectively also what's happening at Berkeley? There are many students who look at their grades, see that they are poor, and don't even bother applying. It's just that there's no committee telling them such. Heck, I even know of plenty of students who don't even bother trying to do MCB or go for pre-med because they know how competitive it is, and they know they don't have a chance to do well, so they end up majoring in something else like IB. Most of the students I know who are interested in IB, when asked why they picked that major, tells me "I don't want to do MCB because it's too difficult."</p>

<p>Anyway, to Berkeley's credit, for a school of its size its med school admissions rate actually isn't too bad, and is quite a bit higher than the rates at UCLA or UCSD (which hover around 50%). That always surprises me. I would hear many high school senior who decide to go to UCLA for pre-med because they think it's easier there or that UCLA's pre-med is better, when in fact it's also very competitive and the admissions rate is lower. I wish this myth some students buy into that UCSD or UCLA is a better place to go for pre-med than Berkeley could be dispelled.</p>

<p>Still, given the choice of Berkeley or Stanford for pre-med, I would almost certainly choose Stanford. For a choice of Berkeley or Harvard/Yale/Princeton, the decision is even easier.</p>

12

<p>many people who defend UCLA as the best "pre-med" uc is because they claim berkeley skews its stats because they work off students who only submit their information, so it leaves out alot of people who are rejected that didnt submit as well, that can mess up percentages.</p>

<p>so far, i have read so many threads that say the premed experience at both schools is about the same except that UCLA has a hospital</p>

<p>what i was wondering is if it is true because my brother once told me that UCLA graduate school doesnt usually take UCLA undergraduates as often because of the fact theyve been to UCLA already for four years, can anyone confirm if this is true? esp. the med school?</p>

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<p>"esp. the med school?"</p>

<p>the ucla med school does admit its own students, but they cant admit everyone that applies out of ucla (~700: assuming all of them apply to their home school) especially when each incoming class for med school hovers around 120 students</p>

<p><a href="http://career.ucla.edu/GraduateSchool&PreProfessionalServices/UCLAMatriculantsToMedSchool.asp%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://career.ucla.edu/GraduateSchool&PreProfessionalServices/UCLAMatriculantsToMedSchool.asp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

14

<p>
[quote]
So there's a pre-screening committee for some schools, but isn't that effectively also what's happening at Berkeley? There are many students who look at their grades, see that they are poor, and don't even bother applying. It's just that there's no committee telling them such. Heck, I even know of plenty of students who don't even bother trying to do MCB or go for pre-med because they know how competitive it is, and they know they don't have a chance to do well, so they end up majoring in something else like IB. Most of the students I know who are interested in IB, when asked why they picked that major, tells me "I don't want to do MCB because it's too difficult."

[/quote</p>

<p>Think of it this way. Other schools with screening committees effectively run a 'multi-layered' process. All schools, Berkeley included, have students who self-screen. The screening committee can therefore serve as a 'secondary check' to eliminate those students who are want to apply regardless of poor grades and MCAT scores.</p>

<p>As a case in point, consider the fact that in 2004, there were actually a guy who had a GPA below 2.8 and MCAT below 20 who applied anyway. Unsurprisingly, he didn't get in. If Berkeley had a screening committee, they would have surely screened this guy out. </p>

<p><a href="http://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/2004seniors.stm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/2004seniors.stm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>[quote]
Anyway, to Berkeley's credit, for a school of its size its med school admissions rate actually isn't too bad, and is quite a bit higher than the rates at UCLA or UCSD (which hover around 50%).

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Well, actually, I think we have to be careful here. The Berkeley stats are not entirely comparable to UCLA or UCSD stats in that the Berkeley stats only deal with * graduating seniors *, whereas the other stats tend to deal with * all * applicants, graduating seniors + alumni. Alumni tend to have lower placement rates than graduating seniors (simply because a lot of those alumni applicants didn't get in as graduating seniors and are thus reapplicants). </p>

<p>Nevertheless, I agree with you that Berkeley is still probably a better, or at least an equivalent place for premed than any of the UC's. For all of the problems that Berkeley has as far as properly preparing premeds, I would contend that the other UC's are * no better *. </p>

<p>The only difference I can surmise is, as said above, some of the other UC's have hospitals. But I frankly don't consider this to be a serious advantage. If you need hospital time, you can get it during the summer when you're not bound to be in Berkeley. I would contend that Berkeley makes up for the lack of a hospital with available high-level research opportunities, provided you're diligent enough to fight for them.</p>

15

<p>Misleading Stats since it does not take into account all those who diappeared during the 4 years at Cal and either dropped out or where eaten up by the bigger fishes. Notre Dame acceptance rate is over 80% with a low drop out rate over the 4 years. You don't know if 99% of the Stanford freshman continued as pre-meds, and only 10% of Cal's freshman class continued as premed...with a high drop out rate. People play with stats and they do not represent truth....funny this is coming from the "premier" california university.
And, by the way I graduated from UCSF Medical in 86. I found the Harvard, Stanford, and other ivy league kids much more impressive than the Cal and UCLA ones.</p>

16

<p>
[quote]
Think of it this way. Other schools with screening committees effectively run a 'multi-layered' process. All schools, Berkeley included, have students who self-screen. The screening committee can therefore serve as a 'secondary check' to eliminate those students who are want to apply regardless of poor grades and MCAT scores.</p>

<p>As a case in point, consider the fact that in 2004, there were actually a guy who had a GPA below 2.8 and MCAT below 20 who applied anyway. Unsurprisingly, he didn't get in. If Berkeley had a screening committee, they would have surely screened this guy out.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Point taken, but I would imagine students with horrible stats who apply anyway are in the minority. Also, there are probably more students at Berkeley who want to be pre-med but are discouraged by the competition than say, students at Harvard.</p>

17

<p>"And, by the way I graduated from UCSF Medical in 86. I found the Harvard, Stanford, and other ivy league kids much more impressive than the Cal and UCLA ones."</p>

<p>By the way, I'm a graduate student at Stanford. I find the UC-educated kids much more impressive than the Ivy League ones......</p>

<p>opinions, opinions.</p>

18

<p>"...funny this is coming from the "premier" california university.
And, by the way I graduated from UCSF Medical in 86. I found the Harvard, Stanford, and other ivy league kids much more impressive than the Cal and UCLA ones." </p>

<pre><code> --- the wise words of the sage known as aberam, MD
</code></pre>

<p>...It happens every year on these forums: some random person with a bizarre and irrational dislike of Berkeley starts posting on the Berkeley forum. Why a guy who has no connection with Berkeley, and whose son is going to Harvey Mudd (and presumably did not even apply to Berkeley) has a vested interest in trash-talking the University of California-Berkeley, I cannot comprehend. Wait, let’s look at this guy’s previous posts and find out more about him:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>He doesn’t think much of the UC schools, especially UCLA and Berkeley, and cites his experiences with a handful of UCLA/Berkeley grads he interacted with in the 1980s.</p></li>
<li><p>He did his undergrad at USC, circa late 70s to early 80s, during the days when USC accepted pretty much anyone.</p></li>
<li><p>He got his MD at UCSF…pretty obvious as he mentions it only several times and it’s pretty much his signature. Wow, he must be an authority on everything, with that medical degree. </p></li>
<li><p>He is strongly conservative, and makes odd generalizations about liberals.</p></li>
<li><p>He is Hispanic, which puts him in an awkward situation because he is strongly conservative, but his ethnicity most likely played a significant role in his acceptance to UCSF medical school and UCLA residency (oh, I’m sorry, I forgot to mention that I’m not the “politically correct” liberal that you stereotype us Berkeley graduates to be—actually, I’m not even liberal). An "Affirmative-Action Conservative". I like that- it has a nice ring to it, kind of like the word "hypocrite".</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Seriously, “aberam”, do us all a favor here on the Berkeley forums, and stop talking about things you know absolutely nothing about. You don’t know Berkeley, and you don’t know Berkeley students. Your ridiculously skewed opinions of Berkeley/UCLA students circa 1980s are uninformative to say the least, and poorly entertaining at best. </p>

<p>Keep your bizarre opinions out of the Berkeley forums, especially in light of the fact that your opinions about Berkeley carry no value in the real world – I suggest you develop some class and maturity (especially considering your age), and work to resolve your pitiable agenda in your head such that you no longer feel the need to make dumb generalizations about a 150 year old world-class university with 30,000+ current students and a couple hundred thousand living alums.</p>

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<p>CC stalker!</p>

20

<p>My thoughts for those who are still considering attending UCB....</p>

<p>My son is a freshman, planning to major in MCB. Last year when he was making his decision about which University to choose, I looked at the posts on CC and warned him about what he was getting into and how competetive Berkeley would be. I told him he might be better off going to another school which would be easier for him and offered him scholarships (that would have benefitted me too). However, he decided to attend Berkeley. He is not a genius or super intelligent.</p>

<p>Here is how he has done so far...</p>

<p>There is no doubt he has been challenged academically. Getting good grades has not been easy (as it was in high school) but he has worked hard. I think he worked the hardest in his Chem 1A class and still managed a B. He is finding the Chem 3A class this semester even harder and I hope he can squeak by with a B in it.</p>

<p>He has joined some clubs associated with MCB which help students aspiring to get into med schools.</p>

<p>He has joined a couple of other clubs in the extra curricular activities that interest him.</p>

<p>And he has made new friends. I know overall he is happy and really enjoying the college experience. Though he is worried about making it into a med school (as he should be).</p>

<p>That being said about my son, I know Berkeley is an excellent school. I'm an Engineer and work for a consulting firm in San Francisco. We have engineers from both Berkeley and Stanford working in our firm. Technically, Berkeley graduates are far superior to the Stanford graduates (at least the ones I have come across in my 17 years in this profession). I would anyday hire a Berkeley grad over a Stanford grad. I am not biased because my son is currently attending Berkeley but I had the same opinion before he went to college. Thus all the hard work you put in at Berkeley now, pays off and the world recognizes this.</p>

<p>I do not know very much about the Berkeley pre-med program or whether your grades suffer because you attended Berkeley. But, there has to be some recognition of the fact that one has lived through and survived one of the most rigorous programs; which makes you work really hard for your grades. I'm sure people can see how well Berkeley graduates have done in the past in their chosen profession.</p>

<p>Thus, if you are willing to work hard to get a good education, Berkeley is the place for you. It is a University known all over the world. I am an immigrant and I knew of Berkeley before I came to US. I did not know of UCLA (maybe in sports) or UCSD as outstanding academic Universities.</p>