how good is premed at these schools?

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
1

<p>originally posted in college search and selection...i was told to ask here

[QUOTE]
i'm a junior and i've started looking at colleges. i'm interested in majoring in either biomedical engineering or biochemistry and eventually go on to medical school.</p>

<p>the schools i'm currently looking at are:
UCB, Brown, UChicago, Columbia, Duke, Emory, JHU, MIT, Northwestern, Princeton, Rice, Stanford, UPenn, WUSL</p>

<p>i have a couple questions:
-how good are the science programs and premed advisory committees at these schools?
-what are my chances at these and what other schools should i consider?
-what do you think would be good safety schools for me?</p>

<p>here are my stats:
Demographics:
State: CA
School Type: competitive private catholic
Ethnicity: Asian-American
Gender: Male
Income: do not need FA
Hooks: N/A</p>

<p>Academics:
Class Rank: N/A (would be around top 5% out of 400 if school did rank)
SAT I: 2390 (790 W)
SAT II: Math II (800), Chemistry (800), Biology (750)
APs: World History, Chemistry, Computer Science (all 5s)</p>

<p>Courses and Grades:
GPA (UW/W): 3.97/4.53
Courses this year:
AP Calculus BC, AP Physics B, AP English Language, AP US History, Spanish III, Religion (mandatory at my school)</p>

<p>Extracurriculars, Awards, Accomplishments: (nothing major, my weak point)
-Volunteering at a hospital (100+ hours)
-Science Fair (won local fair)
-Speech & Debate (a few local awards)
-Member of Math & Science club at school
-I've taken many tests like the AMC, USABO, USAPhO, etc. but never scored high enough
-Went to COSMOS
-Did an internship at a local company</p>

<p>thanks in advance!

[/QUOTE]
</p>

2

<p>Try reading this thread first–</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/202936-good-pre-med-schools.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/202936-good-pre-med-schools.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>If you have specific questions after reading it, then ask away…</p>

3

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/10134087-post336.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/10134087-post336.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

4

<p>That really is a classic post of yours, bdm. I always like reading it. :wink: Well said.</p>

5

<p>I’d forgotten about that last paragraph and was just rereading it. Funny how sometimes even I fall into the trap of thinking about college as a purely financial transaction.</p>

6

<p>Best for the buck works for some, others have different criteria. You are the only one to know yours.</p>

7

<p>*Best for the buck works for some, others have different criteria. You are the only one to know yours. *</p>

<p>:)</p>

<p>We pray everyday that son gets accepted to UAB…instate, very good med school, and very good prices for instate (crazy expensive for OOS). Bang and buck. If not UAB…then some other very good med school that won’t put us all in major debt.</p>

8

<p>randomness</p>

<p>Not to go off topic but… I sure hope you plan to have some other schools on your list that are safer choices…just in case…that’s a highly selective list for an Asian American male who already admits that his ECs are weak…and they are.</p>

<p>I know this is not why you came to the Pre med forum but it should be addressed.</p>

<p>What do you bring to the table that is going to differentiate yourself from all the other Asian American males from Cali that will be in next year’s admissions pool? What makes you “interesting?”…this IS really important in the admission process because every school on your list could fill their classes with 4.0/2400/Valedictorians two or three times over, if not more.</p>

<p>Through the years that I have been here on CC I’ve seen plenty of examples of students with profiles very similar to yours being completely “shut out” at all the schools on your list. When April 1 rolled around they couldn’t understand what happened once all the decisions rolled in…yes, it can and does happen…far more often than you might think.</p>

<p>I just hope you plan to have some safeties that you haven’t mentioned in your list when all the dust settles.</p>

<p>Good luck…</p>

9

<p>ANY of those private schools will provide better advising than Cal</p>

<p>The mid-tier UCs are your safeties. (Cal and UCLA are borderline safeties, but are rejecting well-qualified applicants to seek OOS rich kids.) For private safeties, look at USNews and draw a line around ~30 - for the most part, anything below is a safety. IMO, several above 30 would be safeties as well.</p>

10

<p>

If a public school is starting to do something like this, how can you blame the private schools for seeking rich kids?! Blame the economy!</p>

<p>OP, many very top colleges may try to find any reason to disqualify an applicant (so that the adcom at least can feel better. LOL) A homogeneous list of ECs are often used to do this. An alternative is not to put so much emphasis on “I want to go to the very top colleges.” Many other good colleges provide very good education too.</p>

<p>Many years ago, it is rumored Princeton likes to take so-called “Princeton-type” kids. Likely many other very top colleges did something similar. I wonder if this has been changed or becomes more so in the past half a decade. My guess is that the schools like Rice or JHU may likely more appreciate a student mostly with the academic merit only (in the narrow sense – meaning that he is good at testing.)</p>

11

<p>thanks for all the advice guys!</p>

<p>@eadad - i totally see where you’re coming from. i had to write an essay about how i am “diverse” for one of the internships i’m applying to this summer. it really made me think about some of the things you mentioned.</p>

<p>also, how competitive are bs/md programs? do i have any shot at them whatsoever?</p>

12

<p>Academically you look competitive, but you lack the medicine-related ECs and volunteer hours that BA/MD programs generally expect.</p>

<p>BA/MD programs are highly competitive.</p>

13

<p>

The high-end ones tend to be quite competitive – not necessarily competitive in the sense of academic merit (Although the academic merit is a necessary condition, it may be like 40-50% of the qualification.)</p>

<p>A few years back, there was a girl who was good enough to get into MIT and a couple of Ivies but was rejected by all competitive bs/md programs she was applying to. It is likely that she paid too much attention to the academic as a high schooler, but had not built up convincing medicine-related ECs. She is in a top-20 medical school now (got in through the traditional route.) She could not get much helps from her high school, her family or extended family. The only help she might have gotten was through a small church she belongs to but very few doctors or medicine related families belong to that small church. So basically she did not know how to “do premed” until she was in college where there are more resources.</p>

14

<p>If you do end up some place like Cal, with less than personal advising, you can certainly learn all you need to on SDN & CC. we did</p>

15

<p>

</p>

<p>Fortunately CC is a great resource, but I don’t think it’s an adequate substitute.</p>

<p>I discuss more here:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1853709-post20.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1853709-post20.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

16

<p>Some bs/md’s are more competitive, some are less. Your stats are very good for any of them. You lack in medically related EC’s. D. is finishing in UG portion of bs/md. She was accepted to few bs/md’s at state schools and has chosen the one that allowed to apply out. It worked very well for her, she believes that it gave her a huge advantage.<br>
However, she always investigates herself. It is important to have your own criteria, visit, talk to people, get feel of campus and student body, research how place matches all of your personal goals, not just for medicine and academics.</p>

17

<p>Drexel…your post is impolite. </p>

<p>Unlike other forums, this one has members that try to be polite to everyone.</p>

18

<p>drexel- all of us are parents or students, we are only able to give anecdotal info based on our experiences, those of our kids and their friends. Often parents & students posting here will give specific stories, not to brag, to make clear the individual aspect of the info.</p>

<p>No one here needs to brag, they are either already in med school or even done with med school and moved on to residency, or they are involved in med school admissions or they are the parent of a med student. We are pretty much beyond impressing each other…heck, we are already impressed with each other :smiley: </p>

<p>It is important that new readers understand each of us has limited experiences. For example if I post for the umpteenth time that my DD has only a 29MCAT, an old timer either has roll their eyes or just ignore what is, for them, redundant info. For a new reader, I should tell them her score and also mention her LD, her school, her ECs, etc. So you can see how you fit against that profile and learn from the info provided.</p>

19

<p>BDM- you are right, CC alone is not enough, but add SDN and I really think that beats poor advising at your school. Ya’ll know that DD went to Berkeley and around her junior year she got some conflicting advice, this caused me to do a large amount of research and determine right then to stop asking them and have her do her own thing.</p>

<p>You can go to a large state school and still get into med school, DD and several sorority sisters all got into med school that same cycle. But you do need to be seriously proactive to do it.</p>

20

<p>Rofl…hahaha</p>

<p>UCB-saftey
Brown-reach, but it is for everyone.
UChicago-high match
Columbia-reach but it is for everyone
Duke-reach but it is for everyone
Emory-safety
JHU-match
MIT-reach, but it is for everyone
Northwestern-match
Princeton - reach but it is for everyone
Rice-match
Stanford-reach but it is for everyone
UPenn-reach but it is for everyone
WUSL-match</p>

<p>I wouldn’t worry about your ECs too much for Emory (just make sure you show some interest in the school), because I had worse ECs and still managed to get in. For your reaches, since you have amazing stats, I am sure more than 1 will give you an acceptance. Since you are applying to Emory and Rice (both are very similar academically) why not throw out an app to Vandy (The girls there are RIDICULOUSLY HOT, but in order to get the hot chicks, be ready to rush freshman year). </p>

<p>Good Luck.</p>