Fordham Universtiy's pre-med program

Does it prepare you well for medical school. Also, despite the school being ranked #60 in NY does graduating from this school give me a chance to go to an ivy league medical school, in contrast to graduating from The College of New Jersey which is #1 in public universities in NJ.

In need of much advice,
Thanks!

Premed at Fordham is extremely weak. There’s a couple threads down the forum where it’s discussed in great detail, but the gist of it is that the professors are poor, the material is not taught well at all, the advising is nonexistent, labs are in very bad shape, among many other problems. As someone who is premed and is transferring out because of the poor premed program here, I’d advise you to steer clear if you’re set on being premed. There’s a lot of premeds transferring out or all around dropping premed because of how bad it is here. It’s definitely at the bottom of all the departments here. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask. There’s also a lot of information in some of the previous threads, including my own thread, so I suggest checking those out for some more details as to where the issues with the program lie

I’m currently considering Fordham. As someone who is undecided I’d like to explore my options a bit and take a few science courses. Is the entire science department/courses bad? Or are you referring to just the general science courses being bad? I’ve also heard that there is grade deflation in many of the sciences (from a previous thread). Should I just avoid the sciences in general (besides the core). I would like to keep my GPA high in case I transfer.

@cloudyatmosphere The department is quite small so the intro level and advanced classes are sometimes taught by some of the same professors. The department on a whole is not the best. I haven’t taken general science courses that are just for the core because if you enter as a premed your intro Bio and Chem classes will fulfill those requirements, so I can’t speak for general science. I do know though that the classes for general core science are typically taught by the same professors who teach the premed classes so even though the material may be different, the deflation might still be the same. Not 100% sure but it’s very likely. I’m also speaking solely from my experience at LC so it might also be different at Rose Hill

Thanks for the response! Where are you transferring to?

@Shylam014 No problem! I am transferring to Hunter College. One of my friends who is also premed is transferring to Baruch College and a freshman friend who is premed is transferring to Brooklyn College. I know that last spring a couple of my classmates from my premed classes ended up transferring out too, not sure to where though. I know one transferred to LIU Brooklyn but that’s as far as I know

@EmB1997 Oh ok best of luck to you! I’m just curious because I’ve done a lot of research on Fordham’s pre-med program and there seems to be some positive feedback. I’ve looked around and the only negative ones seem to be with your posts? Maybe it’s just a personal preference that you or your friends don’t like Fordham. If their pre-med is so bad how do 90% of their pre-med students graduate and go to medical schools such as Columbia, NYU, Cornell, e.t.c. Thanks again.

@Shylam014 - it is obvious that EmB1997 is unhappy at Fordham. But do be careful when trying to make decisions based on what one or two people on this website say…it is hard to know if their experience is an anomaly or the norm. Unhappy people tend to complain a lot more than happy people.

If you can, go attend classes this week, there are many available everyday, including Bio and Chem classes. Ask the students in the classes for their input. If you can’t get there, call admissions and ask to have a student or two contact you to answer your pre-med questions. We have found admissions to be very accommodating.

Good Luck.

The % of students getting into medical school colleges (not just Fordham) advertise for pre-meds are a bit misleading. Out of the 100+ students who sign up and take pre-med coming in, only a small number of students who succeed in pre-med classes (i.e. get many A’s) will have a shot at getting into an American MD program come senior year. From hearsay, I’ve also heard the sciences at Fordham were not the greatest. However, your chances at getting into medical school will depend on your MCAT and GPA (and extracurriculars), not the school.

@Shylam014 I believe @WildestDream put it perfectly, and I also discussed that on one of the previous threads because that statistic that I heard was one of the main reasons I chose Fordham for premed. It had me convinced at the time because it seemed like such a promising number. I only learned about how the statistic is skewed after an upperclassman here who is premed explained it to me during my freshman year.
There are not that many premeds who come on these boards so that’s probably why you don’t see as many negative experiences.
My problem with Fordham is most definitely not a personal preference since I’ve had such amazing experiences in many of my non-science classes. Political science, theology, and sociology departments are a dream here, at least at Lincoln Center because I don’t have experience at Rose Hill. For input about Rose Hill’s premed program, if that is where you’re applying, I recall that @MomTheChauffer has a daughter at RH who was premed. Her posts about those experiences can be quite helpful

@flute1298 criticizing the flaws in the most in one of the most underdeveloped programs at the school is not really the same as complaining. The amount of students unhappy with the program is way higher than it should be. From complaints about our only premed advisor always being unavailable and having lab equipment that doesn’t work properly (which can be detrimental when trying to find accurate results for certain chem and orgo labs), to notoriously bad grade deflation, people in the program are really frustrated with it. I also wouldn’t say that I am unhappy here in general because as I said before, my experiences in non-science classes have been pretty great for the most part.

@EmB1997 I didn’t say you were complaining. I said to be wary of basing decisions on an anonymous forum where unhappy people tend to complain more than happy people write “good stuff”.

I also suggested that the OP contact the school and get more input from current students in the pre med program at RH.

I think that is good advice.

@EmB1997 Just curious, how many classes at Fordham are typically taught by adjuncts? I’ve read an article recently about disputes there between adjuncts and the school administration regarding pay and benefits, which led to a “no confidence” vote of the President by the faculty senate.

@flute1298 You did say that I am clearly unhappy here, which is untrue, and followed up by saying unhappy people tend to complain more.
They should definitely try to get as much input from as many students as they possibly can

@WildestDream During my freshman year I took 12 classes in total and 5 of them were taught by adjuncts if I recall correctly. I’ve had adjuncts in core classes, mostly, but I’ve also had them for non-core upper level classes. Last semester I had two classes taught by adjuncts professors, and this semester I don’t have any adjuncts.
Yes, there’s a lot going on between faculty and administration, but I believe there’s also full time faculty involved. Based off the the emails that Fordham Faculty United has been sending, as well as just from what some of my professors have been telling us in class, there’s issues of Fordham cutting health benefits for faculty members, which has sparked quite a few protests on campus.

Thank you all. I will try to do as suggested by @flute1298 it seems the most logical. I appreciate all your responses.

I have heard that the science programs at Fordham are very good, and also very tough. The broken equipment issue had been raised in the forum a few times, not consistently. Things break, that happens. As a physics major, I wonder it may be part of the ability to handle the equipment? It is purely based on my experience–I have made a lot of complains about broken equipment when I was trying to get measurements with tight deadlines, so nervous, I was almost definitely sure the thing was broken!

@CollegeGuruEast There is a clear difference between equipment being broken/ineffective and not being able to use them because of personal shortcomings. When our chemistry lab professor consistently tells us in the beginning of lab classes that many of the scales or other equipment do not work properly, that doesn’t speak on someone’s ability to use them. There’s an ample period of time blocked out for our lab (9-12:30) so there’s not really a rush at all seeing as most of our chemistry labs take 2-2.5 hours at most. Are you a science student at Fordham?

I already graduated with a physics major. I avoided taking chem so I have no idea of a chem lab. For physics, issues were related to sensors and the computer not reading them, multi-meters not showing accurate readings. The circuits are tricky, it turns out to be a lose crocodile clip or breadboard connection, affecting vol/amp readings. Once reported, it was replaced. The complains happen near the finals or midterms, with the pressure, labs seem like wasting time. Anyway, I submitted 100% of my lab reports. I guess there may difference between equipment in physics labs and chem labs, wonder same goes with physics labs, if you have taken physics.

In chemistry labs we depend greatly on proportions of chemicals and substances being as close to exact as possible and within reasonable margins of error, which is extremely difficult when many of our scales don’t calibrate properly. There’s also not enough of chemicals we need at times which means some experiments will either be compromised or the professor will do one experiment and everyone copies the result from it. That doesn’t help building lab skills especially for those of us want to do research, since a lot of the very important lab procedures end up being the ones where we end up having to copy the professors results without getting to do the procedures ourselves. Theres also bunsen burner parts that are not working well which ends very badly. For one, the ring stand screws are loose on a lot of them, so they aren’t stable enough to hold heavier beakers with substances in them. There’s metal mesh that goes over the ring stand and under the beaker that are disfigured so many of my classmates have had their entire beaker filled with what they needed for results ending up falling off the beaker and shattering. Then the entire result for the experiment is completely lost. Premeds only typically take intro physics, which I am taking now, and our labs are simpler mechanisms so we don’t come across issues with equipment.

Ive been pre med at both rose hill and Lincoln center and had bad experiences at both. I was a bio major at rose hill and a natural science major at lincoln center. It’s probably the worst dept at fordham right now and it’s gone from bad to worse from my freshman yr to my junior yr right now. I changed my major from natural science to poly sci but stayed pre med so i dont have to deal with the dept as much as before. It’s really bad. Poly sci dept is a million times better