Good colleges for premed, not sure about Richmond and William and Mary though.

Hi! I’m a junior right now in high school. I’m thinking about going to colleges with good premed programs on the east coast. Right now, there are several colleges on my list for visiting: Tufts, Swarthmore, Haverford, Brandeis, JohnS Hopkins. Richmond, William and Marry, Emory and Duke. I’m not really sure about Richmond College and William and Mary. Do they all have good premed programs? Can you give me some suggestions.

Pre-med is an intention and not a major or formalized program. You can find the necessary coursework offered at just about every college in the country. There are dozens of colleges on the East Coast that offer a strong pre-med environment. What other criteria do you have?

Seriously, find a college that fits you and that is affordable since the name of your undergrad makes little difference in gaining an acceptance to med school. (Med school admissions are based on your grades, test scores, recommendations and accomplishments, not where you went to college.)

You should also consider that 2/3rds (or more) of freshmen pre-meds never get to the point of actually applying to med school. Choose a school that you would be happy attending whether you’re a pre-med or not.

And I'll ask before mom2 can ask--

What are stats?

What is your home state?

How much can your parents afford/are willing to pay for college?

Are you looking for merit aid? Need-based aid? How much?

My parents are willing and can afford the tuition. I think I’m gonna find a part time job when I’m in college as well. To share a bit of the expense. I want to go to a college where I can get most A grades and can get into the medical school. Right now Tufts and Emory are my top choices. Do you think this is a great idea? I know getting into a good med school really need good grades. So I think if I go to colleges that have good grade inflation might help.

You’re right that good grades are important. Critical, in fact. But that’s just one of many factors. If you don’t have the rest (MCAT, LORs, ECs, etc) good grades won’t save you.

If you’re looking for a grade inflated school–neither Tufts nor Emory fits that description.

If you want to stack the odds a bit–look for schools where your stats place in the top 25% of the admitted students. All undergrads curve in lower level science & math classes and all undergrads limit the number of A given out. (It’s called “weeding”) It’ll be those kids in the top 25% that you will be competing against for As.

Not all schools weed. Some LACs are quite explicit that they don’t weed and that if everyone in the class earns an A, then everyone gets an A. In practice, that doesn’t happen but it also means you are not competing against class-mates for a limited number of As. This is part of the cooperative, non-competitive culture that many LACs tout. I’d therefore check out the LACs for this as well as for other reasons. Your best bet is to contact the pre-med societies at the schools you are considering and ask about what the policies are related to ‘weeding’ in their entry level bio and chem classes and about how supportive the school is of their pre-meds generally. (Supportive means that they will write a committee letter for any student who asks for one: Many schools have policies restricting whom they will give a committee letter to in order to make their admission statistics to medical school look good. They weed for the same reason.)

And yes, you definitely want to attend a school where you are 1) in the top 25% of the class academically (because you need As in almost everything) and b) you don’t go into debt.

@N’s Mom I think that’s true of many schools. Weeding is not necessarily a set number of A’s. Obviously, if every student gets 100 on every test and assignment, and has perfect attendance, the prof could never only give 20% of them A’s.

Weeding is sometimes just a natural result from having tests that are hard enough to expose the weeker students.

Virtually all schools weed.

I think you have a good list- anecdotally, i know classmates from my med school class who went to undergrad from all the schools on the list except for richmond- they all had nice things to say about their alma mater and pre med experiences there. I am sure all of places on the list (only one i m not sure is richmond- nothing against the school, i just don’t know much about it) is great for pre med, but of course you should pick hopkins -sorry as someone from hopkins, i have a huge bias =)…

But on a more serious note, i think your choice comes down to liberal arts college vs research universities. Generally, research universities tend to have more of a curve w/ larger class sizes, but i also heard that swarthmore is pretty tough esp their science classes.

LACs? You mean California university system?

Acronyms can get confusing…

LAC = Liberal Arts College

UC = University of California system

CSU = California State University system (or Colorado State University)

Liberal Arts College

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_arts_college

LACs generally do not offer graduate degree (Masters or PhD) programs, or if they do, only offer them in a very limited number of subjects.

So you think that liberal arts colleges are better for me for going on the premed track? I heard most liberal arts colleges are very strict on students as well as on grades…

Do you have suggestions on that kind of schools? Do you think Emory and Tufts are “good” in that definition? Nonweed…?

Tufts and Emory both weed heavily in pre-med classes.

Tufts & Emory are private research universities. I don’t think find many (or any) research Us that don’t weed.

Or to eliminate the double negative–Many (or most/all?) research universities weed.


There are advantages and disadvantages to LACs. 

On the plus side, LACs have fewer students so it's often easier to get to know professors since you'll have the same prof for several classes. Can be easier to adjust to if coming from a smaller high school and/or you're not good at seeking out opportunities/advocating for yourself. Focus is on teaching, not research. Few or no TAs teaching classes/recitations/labs. Smaller class size. No competition from grad students for research positions.

On the minus side--the variety/breadth of electives for your major is often quite limited. Required major classes are only offered once year or, for upper level courses, every other or every 3rd year. That means if for some reason you get "off track" in your major or change majors, you may not be able to catch up and graduate on time. Limited research opportunities/limited research funding.