Faculty here: I have a senior who has done it all right at Big State School. At the moment he is waitlisted at four med schools. Imagine the stress. Even though I love Harvard, a family school, I say take the easiest route, Brown, and use the freedom to develop your mind.
I agree. Having a goal is good. Having your goal guaranteed in advance is better. Very few premeds look at their four years of ug with the same warm memories. You wonât turn into some lazy student at Brown. Itâs brown university people. I would say most would say brown over nu although both excellent. But brown plus a guaranteed entrance to med school with 3.0 and no mcat. Has the world gone crazy!
Direct quote from a plme second year. The single greatest gift she has ever received in college is taking orgo pass fail. Sheâs actually enjoying herself and taking other interesting classes. One is a medical related design class at risd. Still doing incredibly well. Maybe because of the less stress and more sleep.
NU BS/MD would be my pick (didnât look to see if finances are a concern)
^ Did not realize that Brown wants a 3.0 and NU wants a 3.7. I would definitely pick Brown. Thatâs a huge difference in expectations.
@JenniferClint I know you preferred greater detail on the various Princeton over Duke threads, can you say why you state this recommendation so briefly ?
Nu with. 3.7 minimum gpa and other requirements is not an easy hill to climb.
Congrats on your great options. There is no wrong answer. If your goal is to go to a top medical school, then Harvard should be out. I personally know of 10 plus students who went to HYP and did the premed track. They all ended up at fine med schools but only 2 went to a top 20 med school. The other 8 had great scores and gpas but you have to remember that top med schools combine the randomness / holistic nature of top college / MBA admissions plus the stringent grade / test requirements that top law schools require. In other words, top med schools are a total gamble for anyone. Most of the acceptance rates at T 20 medical schools are less than 5 percent. I personally would choose northwestern over brown at the undergrad level regardless of the med school option, although both are great. The schools are pretty equal at the undergrad level. Sure, Brown has the ivy tag but Northwestern has been ranked higher than Brown in every us news ranking for the last 20 years and is trending up - should stay firmly in the Top 10. Brown is usually closer to 14. At the med school level, NU >>>> Brown. No contest. A top research university (NU) with one of the best research / teaching hospitals in the world compared to an elite undergrad focused school that happens to have a mediocre med school. If your goal is to have the path of least resistance, then Brown will be the easiest option. But, you get nothing for nothing. For medicine, your residency is as important if not more important than your med school. If you slack your way thru Brown with a 3.0 GPA to just meet the mark there, your residency options will be severely limited as they absolutely look at undergrad transcripts as many med schools are P / F these days. I think Northwestern is the happy medium between Harvard and the easy road at Brown. And this doesnât even account for the fact that Chicago >>>> Providence in terms of a city. Good luck.
Exactly, thatâs why I would go with Brown. The 3.7 requirement is too extreme. Someone who gets into a program like this is undoubtedly capable of meeting it but the whole point of a BS/MD program is to provide an applicant with some certainty. I donât think you have that if the requirements are so stringent.
Additionally, while NU (Feinberg) is a better med school than Brown (Alpert), medical school prestige doesnât matter half as much as B-school/law school prestige IMO. I think the student should go to Brown, explore his/her non-medical interests and then begin medical school. The 3 year undergrad at NU could be viewed as a positive but the 4 year Brown degree (with fewer pre-med requirements) will give the student more intellectual freedom.
I would take Harvard over the NU program. If you have to get a 3.7 anyway, you might as well go to Harvard and get as close to a 4.0 as possible. That way you have all your options open in the future.
@JenniferClint nails it!
If you go with Brown, you can spend a year abroad without having to worry about your GPA at all, and focus entirely on public health in another country. Invaluable insights.
Thereâs a big gap between 4.0/3.9 and 3.7. The former allows very little margin; even an A- is a setback. 3.7 GPA at NU is not extreme considering any top-20 med schools these days require close to 3.9 avg GPA, even in science. Science GPA requirement for HPME is only 3.5. Itâs reasonable to predict that if you canât get 3.7 GPA at NU when NU undergrads already have an average GPA of around 3.5, you will likely struggle at NU med school. It seems to me the requirement serves to confirm the high school record wasnât a fluke and the candidate has what it takes to handle NU med school. Itâs not trying to make life difficult.
NU HPME can do 3yr, 4yr or 3yr + 1 gap year. OP would save a year of tuition if he/she does 3-yr or 3-yr+1 gap year. Also, most probably would prefer spending 7/8 yrs at one of the best Chicago neighborhoods over Providence.
Although riskier, donât discount the prestige of a Harvard undergraduate degree in medical school admissions. According to career advising, 95% of Harvard premeds with a 3.5 gpa or greater are admitted to medical school.
https://hwpi.harvard.edu/files/ocs/files/applying-to-medical-school.pdf
Definitely biased here as an incoming freshman at Brown, but I would echo what many have already said on this thread⊠Take your 4 years of undergrad as an opportunity to explore! Youâll have plenty of long hours studying and doctoring so donât leave that youthfulness to waste lol. While I was visiting, I definitely remember at least two current students mentioning how they chose Brown over Harvard as pre-meds. Not to mention that Brownâs got a bustling neuroscience departments that is only going to keep growing in the coming years (if you donât believe me, google for â2018: Revised Operational Plan for Building Brownâs Excellenceâ and scroll to around page 9). You certainly arenât tied to Providence forever, but guaranteed med school acceptance is super dope! Even so, I remember an info session claiming that something like 90% of med school applicants got into one of their top 3 choices but my memory could be wrong. Obviously thereâs no wrong choice here, just wanted to give another voice for my school⊠hope to see you in the fall!
@RefreshingGel: âAccording to career advising, 95% of Harvard premeds with a 3.5 gpa or greater are admitted to medical school.â
Most to med schools worse than NU.
See post #24.
I personally liked Harvard when I visited, but I also feel like it is slightly immature for me to make a decision based on the 48 hours I spent at these three schools. Question for any students at Harvard (or anyone honestly) - What is the most difficult aspect of being a typical PreMed at a school like Harvard (grades in PreMed classes, preparing for the MCAT, filling out applications, finding/sustaining extracurriculars, etc.)?
Here is my ranking:
- Brown PLME - the least stressful academic environment of the 3 options (doesnât mean it canât be stressful tho), No MCAT, open curriculum, semester calendar, med school admission guaranteed with a 3.0. Calling @iwannabe_Brown to add input, including the taking of required med school classes pass/fail
2)Harvard - biggest name, studying mcat while taking classes is challenging, no guarantee of med school acceptanceâŠwill need competitive GPA/MCAT combo, go through med school application process which is time consuming and expensive, outcome could be attending med school ranked lower than Brown/NU, pre-health advising is good
3)NU HPME - most stressful (of the 3) academic environment for pre-medsâstudents are competitive and quarter system adds extra pressures you wonât have in #1 and #2, 3.7 gpa requirement, 3.55 science will be more challenging than Brown requirements
Brown is the clear winner in my mind, with a smaller gap between 1 and 2, and a large gap between 2 and 3.
The premed courses at NU are taught at the same pace as those in semester schools. They are splitted into 3 parts instead of 2. They are probably no more stressful and competitive than those at Harvard.
Here are the pros for NU:
- Higher ranked med school and better location than Brown. The latter probably means something as it seems OP wants a city with more opportunities.
- More medical research than Brown. NU med school has a brand new research center with another 600,000 sq foot of space for research. A lot more research will be brought in than what they already have in the years to come. The research grant is already more than twice the size as Brown.
- A year of tuition can be saved. To the extent OPâs family is not rich, this isnât insignificant.
- A gap year (if elected) at the age of ~22 to do something one chooses could be the best time in oneâs life. Many wish they could go back in time to do that!
One more thing: HPMEs are waived certain grad requirements (so they can finish their undergraduate portion in 3 years if they want to but donât have to); itâs close to open curriculum and not really all that different from Brown.
Having just watched a close friendâs daughter go through the med school admission process, take Harvard off your list. You donât know what a gift you have with auto admit to med school.
IMO, I would choose Brown. The freedom to actually enjoy your undergraduate experience without the constant stress and worry over grades is priceless.
I love NU, but the quarter system and the higher GPA threshold will make your courses much faster paced and be more stressful.
@Iwannahelp We will have to agree to disagree.
I generally agree that there is more research available at NU, although much of it is at Feinberg, in downtown Chicago, 20-30 minutes from the Evanston campus depending on transport method and time of day.
The fact is the GPA requirement is much more stringent at NU than Brown, and grading likely harder at NU than Brown. NUâs strength of more research doesnât overcome its disadvantages, IMO. And I love NU, I am an alum who supports the school in many ways, including financially.
So⊠my first post here; but thought i had a bit to add from personal perspective.
I went to Brown PLME and LOVED Brown! Just had wonderful experience. Loved the open curriculum and it really spoke to me. Loved the no pressure of not having to worry about MCAT. Got great financial aidâuntil med school. I was totally not prepared for that. Decided i could not swing the cost and had to go back to state school. Which luckily I got in and got scholarship.
Brown 1 hour from Harvard. So very, very, close and went to Boston only occasionally.
Downside: Providence after 4 years was enough! I was ready for a new âsceneâ and felt a bit smothered having to stay in PVD for another 3-4 years.
Bring in Northwestern. I am local; so NWU was NOT a choice for undergrad as I wanted to go, duh, to Brown.
BUT, 7 years/8 years at NWU allows you to experience 2 different environments. NU quarters will kick your butt.
However, if you choose NU, you at least get to âchangeâ environments. Undergrad in Evanston, Med school Downtown Chicago.
Nix Harvard. Med school waaaay to competitive to 'risk". Either Brown (woo woot) or NU will allow the flexibility of courses to choose if you opt out of Medicine (itâs been known to happen).
Finally, â i donât remember you mentioning cost. With all due respect, that may be the MOST important.
Which one (Brown vs NU ) is giving you the MOST merit money???
Hope this helps. 
And you are right!! Great âproblemâ to have!!!
very likely if you went to NU and had GPA>3.7 you would likely get into another equal or better med school and choose to leave behind the chicago winters. Thatâs why I mentioned the Wash U. story (which is not a bad med school) undergrad who stressed himself out to hit the autoadmit GPA but went to a better med school anyway. The only single reason not to pick brown is that even doing study abroad you would not be able to be in providence that long.
As far as matching for residency thatâs a standard exam all second year med students take that determines your match. And FYI doctor of osteopathy will be taking the same exam soon so kids going to DO schools wonât be as stigmatized.
Brown is the way to go.
For me the med certainty is huge. NUâs GPA requirement is tough.
Go to Brown take the extra year take classes you really are interested in taking and become a well-rounded individual.
To me freedom is priceless.