<p>I'm looking for a good college that could provide a strong premed program. I'm looking at UWash as a possible safety school but also looking at liberal art school. I live very close to Reed College and I was wondering how a liberal art school like Reed will help me as a pre-med student. Other schools I'm looking at are UCSD or JHU or many other schools. Main question is how liberal art school will differ from other well known premed school.</p>
<p>Um, I dunno about the other schools, but if you're seriously thinking pre-med, I wouldn't go to JHU. The only reason it has such high admit rates to med schools is because they screen their applicants as to who they think is going to get accepted before you apply. So, unless you're a tip-top student, you might not even get a chance to apply.</p>
<p>And I heard they have brutal grading curves there too. Kills your GPA.</p>
<p>I second UCSD, the pre-med there is arguably the best in the UCs.</p>
<p>hmm what about my original question.... how does liberal art school fare when it comes to premed</p>
<p>Here are Reed's pre-med success numbers:</p>
<p><a href="http://web.reed.edu/ir/medschool.html%5B/url%5D">http://web.reed.edu/ir/medschool.html</a></p>
<p>Another somewhat pre-med-related data point is that Reed is number one in the country (of <em>all</em> schools, by percentage, not raw numbers) at preparing students for future PhDs in biological sciences:</p>
<p><a href="http://web.reed.edu/ir/phd.html%5B/url%5D">http://web.reed.edu/ir/phd.html</a></p>
<p>Other LACs are in the top ten as well, so it would seem that being an LAC is mostly irrelevant.</p>
<p>hmm 59% seems a bit low. would you say a liberal art school wouldn't provide as many opportunities for EC as other schools might?</p>
<p>Hmmm. Could be, since LACs are smaller, so they may be less able to field a critical mass for, say, fencing. In addition, the work load at an LAC like Reed may be heavier than at a large public U, resulting less time for ECs.</p>
<p>mrcapslock, you cannot generalize about "a liberal art school", when all colleges and universities are different. One liberal arts school is different from another, just as one research university is different from the next.</p>
<p>If your intent is to adopt a pre-med track, you will be able to do so at a national university or a liberal arts college and be assured that you will be adequately prepared at either -- assuming you are conscientious about your studies. The requirements of most medical schools include: 2 semesters of Biology/lab, 4 semesters of Chemistry/lab (e.g., Organic Chem), 2 semesters of Physics/lab, 2 semesters of Math, and 2 semesters of English. It is entirely possible to major in say, Music, and still be on a pre-med track.</p>
<p>The single most important factor in getting into medical school is your GPA (some say that a 3.2 GPA is too low for consideration, but it does depend on the rigor of the college/university; most applicants to med school average 3.5+). The next important factor would be your MCAT scores. The lower your GPA, the higher your MCAT scoes must be. Other factors are important, but they may never be considered if your GPA and MCAT's don't make the cut. </p>
<p>As for LAC's, one of the best in America is Swarthmore College, outside of Philadelphia. Their acceptance rate of grads into medical school is in the 85-90% rate -- far better than the national average rate of 49%. They're not alone either. They're not alone. In the Northwest, the University of Puget Sound claims an acceptance rate of 80% of their grads into medical school. Ultimately, it's not the school or university that will make the difference, it's the degree of diligence on the part of the student to stay academically focused.</p>
<p>You should contact the individual schools (look online at their premed pages, etc....) and find out exactly what they have to offer premed students. A liberal arts college can be very proactive with assisting premed students. Does the college help with volunteer placement? Physician shadowing? Research opportunities? These things are helpful, but ultimately you will be responsible for finding these opportunities and studying for the MCAT, planning your course loads, etc.... So, really you could go to any school that you feel comfortable with as long as you do your planning and research on your own.</p>
<p>First of all there is really no such thing as a "pre-med program". You can go into medicine (and Law) with any major you desire. In order to be adequately prepared to take the MCAT it is recommended that students take: Biology, Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, Phyiscs, and Calc. Some med schools may also like to see students take courses in biochem or additional humanities course. </p>
<p>Contrary to the rarified air that is CC, most students go to med school at their local state U's as it is the most affordable option. At the end of the day, O-chem is going to be a lot of work and memorization no matter where you take it at.</p>
<p>thanks for all the reply.</p>
<p>hmm provided that I work really hard and do well, wouldn't a liberal arts college generally still provide less research opportunity than a school with heavy research facility inside the school.</p>
<p>Not necessarily. Remember the bread and butter (funding streams) at most research institutions come through the graudate programs so you would be "competing" with grad students for research opportunities where you would be at the bottom of the food chain. </p>
<p>Keep in mind at most LACs the focus is on undergraduate education where you can get plenty of opportunities to work side by side with professors doing research. You can still have opportunities to study and do great research.</p>
<p>Yep. Allegheny College's science facility, for example, is larger than almost any other of its kind, except perhaps Columbia's graduate science building or Duke's LSRC.</p>
<p>And at LACs it's the <em>undergraduates</em> who get co-author billing with the profs' research.</p>
<p>Again, it depends - look at the individual schools instead of making generalizations. Agnes Scott is a liberal arts college for women, but they have a working relationship with the CDC for research opportunities. That's just one example where a student shouldn't make an assumption without checking out the details.</p>
<p>Remember too that many of the science professors at research universities, where they have their own graduate students, hate pre-meds (or at least they did back in the day). Chemistry professors, for example, are interested in chemistry for its own sake. They have a dozen graduate students equally interested in chemistry. They don't want to bother with kids who look at chemistry merely as a means to the end of getting into medical school, not of studying and researching in chemistry. (That's another reason why many of them hate teaching the intro courses. They want to teach budding chemists, not budding physicians.) And of course that applies to the other science professors as well.</p>
<p>Just because they're doing research doesn't mean that the opportunity for undergraduates is there.</p>