<p>I was accepted to Georgia Tech and UGA Honors via early action but I'm still having a hard time deciding. I love Tech's campus and atmosphere but the thing I'm really worried about is its rigorous academics. I'm planning to major in Biology (maybe Biochem) and go down the premed path but Tech has a great reputation for lowering GPAs. If that happens, then my chances of med school would really drop and I could lose the Zell Miller full tuition scholarship. Tech has great academics but it's also more of an engineering school....</p>
<p>With all that being said, is it worth it to risk attending Georgia Tech as a science major and premed? Or should UGA Honors be the way to go?</p>
<p>Thanks!!</p>
<p>@Riceball14 : Biology is not that hard at Tech (I looked at many of the courses, and it is certainly doable. It’s not overwhelming and you can probably get a better training than UGA, although honors may be a different story). Also, I’m sure that UGA grades just as stringently as it is a public school (harsher curves because of larger classes and less people paying full tuition . The only thing that makes them really different is that the student bod quality of Tech is higher. The majors with the lowest GPAs are primarily engineering majors and physics. Biology and Chemistry aren’t that bad. If you were going to do something silly and do BME pre-med and you aren’t amazingly brilliant, then I would tell you to simply not do it and go to UGA. There is not much of a risk if you are pursuing a natural science. I feel as if the risk is similar to the risk of attending say, Emory for it and many people are successful. At Tech, you’ll just have to watch out for the math and physics sequences (whereas at Emory and most other places including UGA, the chemistry and even some biology sequences can be killer). </p>
<p>On the other hand, honors courses at public colleges tend to be more similar to the better taught courses at selective colleges (such as Tech) and you avoid the harsher grading of standard intro. courses. Often they are geared toward a different way of learning science that is difficult to achieve in large intro. courses at many public (okay, even private schools) schools, even the best ones. However, I don’t think there is much of a GPA penalty between the two natural science tracks at either, and it certainly isn’t as big as the difference between and honors and non-honors course.</p>
<p>^ lol. Last year at FASET DS was a BME major. At one point we were in a room with just the BME students and their parents. When they asked the kids how many were pre-med I swear DS was the only student who DIDN"T raise his hand… He’s no longer a BME major but at the time he was definitely in the minority.</p>
<p>@MichiganGeorgia: I believe that an engineer, especially someone trained in biomedical engineering, is an awesome addition to the medical/healthcare profession, but medical schools don’t seem to value actual scientific rigor and training in the selection process. They value superficial rigor and high numbers that come with it. Perhaps rightfully so, because the pre-clinical coursework (at schools with a traditional curriculum, as most still have) and step 1 is primarily memorization (step 1 is better than most medical school course exams because it’s scenario based, however, you basically memorize the components of the scenarios and you’re good). Problem solving and ability to handle ambiguity is not really rewarded and unfortunately the pre-clinical grades/rank and step 1 are often extremely important in placement. This explains the state of healthcare partially. “You’re not allowed to develop problem solving skills and creativity unless you are a genius and can hold a 3.6-4.0 in the major that would develop those skills” whereas those in less problem solving intensive (and sometimes flat out “easier”) majors that usually have higher grades will be rewarded for the higher grades and any ability to navigate the MCAT. Talk about squashing creativity and encouraging risk aversion and the creation of robotic students that are indeed great at regurgitating (I have to tutor a pre-med in organic chemistry right now and since the instructor she has likes application problems, she struggles immensely and she admits that her weakness is that she does rote memorization best. To keep her comfortable, I have to remind her that her ability to do organic chemistry or even deal with applied coursework, matters little after say, the MCAT, another contradiction. The MCAT is likely a superior exam for science compared to the ones given in most med. school courses, where, again, critical thinking is not really valued. I don’t know why it’s valued in the admissions process, but not the training once they get there. However, even the MCAT can be gamed if you already test well). </p>