<p>This may sound like a weird question, but as the title says, how difficult is it to get into UCSD? I am so happy that I got in it (premed/bioengineering) and I plan on attending. I also got accepted to Northwestern, Cornell and UCLA, but I heard the bioengineering is really awesome at UCSD. I am a U.S. Citizen who lives in Korea and want some help deciding whether to attend UCSD. All my friends say I should go to Cornell because .. well.. in Korea everything is about Ivy Leauges because thats all they know. I know that all these schools are hard to get into but I dunno about UCSD. However, I know that concerning bio medical engineering and premed, UCSD is much better. So help me out you guys! gimme your opinions!</p>
<p>how difficult is it to get into UCSD?
you can check out the stats of the admitted/rejected people using this forum and look up overall acceptance statistics on the UCSD website. beyond those factors, i don't think there's really a quantifiable way to describe it ...</p>
<p>OP,</p>
<p>Bioengineering is probably excellent at UCSD and the city of SD is one of the major hubs for biotech industry. But whether the premed is good or not got nothing to do with bioengineering program. In fact, non-science majors tend to have higher chance to get into med school than engineering majors. Admit rate to med school for UCSD is near the national average. Cornell/NU have higher rates than UCSD. I don't know about UCLA but in general, top privates tend to have noticeably higher rates than top publics.</p>
<p>OP, if it matters any, I've noticed that there are a lot of Koreans at UCSD. You might feel more at home here ;]</p>
<p>Careful, bioE/premed may not be what it seem like. A good number of upperclassmen I talked to warned me to switch now while my gpa is still okay. </p>
<p>I'm going to switch once I figure out WHAT to switch to. hahaha</p>
<p>Oh yeah, there ARE a lot of korean here (not to be racist, but I hear people talking in krn every other five minutes or something.. kinda ...er sometime)</p>
<p>How hard is it to get into the pre-med program at UCSD? I think UCSD has a BS/MD program, is this true?</p>
<p>Here are my stats:</p>
<p>Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>Stats:
SAT 2300 (800M/750CR/750W)
SATII Math: 800 Chem: 800 Bio:800</p>
<p>PSAT: 216 NMS Semi Finalist</p>
<p>APs (all A’s and 5’s except Calc BC)
Chem
Calc BC (first sem: B, second sem: A)
World Hist
US Hist
Bio
Physics B
Physics C
Eng Lang
Eng Lit
Comp Sci
Psych</p>
<p>School Percentage: Top 5%
Very Very Competitive HS: Torrey Pines HS
WGPA 9-12: 4.50
WGPA 10-12: 4.66</p>
<p>ECs/Summer/Work:</p>
<p>Science Olympiad (Various awards at regional and state levels)
Qualified for National Chem Olympiad
Science Fair (Various awards at regional and state levels)
Model UN (Various Awards)
Tutoring 9, 10, 11, 12
Started a club, president 9-12
Gathered funds at local events in order to cure TB in India
Volunteer @ Hospital 10,11,12
Internship at bio company 11
Worked as Web Designer w/private clients 10,11,12
Used money from jobs/internships to fund surgeries for several people in India
Tennis (various awards) 9,10,11,12</p>
<p>Well I would think that it is considerably “easier” to get into UCSD than Northwestern or Cornell</p>
<p>I don’t think what you’re looking for is how hard it is to get IN to UCSD, but what you will be able to do there, and what UCSD can give you. Purely in terms of acceptance rate, My guess is Cornell is harder than Northwestern is harder than UCSD–though this is based purely on where my classmates have gotten into/been rejected to. I’m not a science major, so I can’t really tell you anything about UCSD’s bioe program that you don’t already know. Based purely on prestige and name, Cornell is certainly more visible, no matter how high UCSD might be ranked. If you’re set on bioe/pre-med, look around and see what the programs for that are like at these schools–try to think about which one you most envision “working” for you. (Again, though, not a science major, so I don’t know whether the programs would be visibly different in form to begin with.)</p>
<p>If you get into UCSD pre-med, are you guaranteed a spot for med school. After pre-med, are you allowed to apply to other med schools and have UCSD as a backup?</p>
<p>PWD,
First, the BS/MD Program at UCSD does guarantee a spot if you can maintain HIGH standards in undergrad (no lower than a 3.5 in any quarter, and be done w/in three years).</p>
<p>Second, Not to be mean, but I honestly dont think you’ll get into the BS/MD Program at UCSD.
A close friend from last year applied to the program.</p>
<p>His Stats were pretty much:
2nd place international chem competition
1st place medical knowledge competition (national)
Strait As
Varsity Captain of the Track and Cross Country Team since Freshmen year
Finished all possible AP Tests at my school by Sophomore year (including Calc BC)
Perfect SAT, ACT, and P-SAT (national finalist)
etc etc etc</p>
<p>He was put on the WAITLIST. Here’s the reason why, UCSD’s program is open to the WORLD. So pretty much you’re competing for about 18-24 spots with millions across the world.</p>
<p>But with your stats, I think you can definitely get into other med programs (just google BS/MD Programs).</p>
<p>Good luck man</p>
<p>And for Happy,</p>
<p>I dont think you should look necessarily how hard it is to get into the school since you already got in. You need to look at the difficulty of the major, how much time you want to put into your work and how much you want to dedicate to having fun w/ friends, and also what your future career goals are.</p>
<p>If you want to go into medicine, I personally (after seeing my sisters do the hardest science majors at UCLA) would say try Cornell or Northwestern. My reasoning being that if the program is nationally recognized, you know that it is hard. Which means that you must work 5 times harder than anyone else at school to keep up your GPA. And seeing that you want to go into med school in the future, you want to keep a high GPA since med schools dont care about the prestige of a school</p>
<p>Difficulty of getting into UCSD is based on numbers and points.
there’s a post somewhere on this web about how the point systems are usually worked.</p>
<p>Congrats on getting into all those colleges.
I would say that in general, you might want to choose which college you want to go to by what sort of life style you want to live. SD has its wonderful climate, and views. Cornell, has its snow. etc… </p>
<p>you may also want to consider what sort of classroom experience you want. Perhaps you want to be in class size of 50+ or maybe 30 or smaller. </p>
<p>in terms of programs and classes. perhaps NW or cornell may be better as it won’t be TA’s teaching you.</p>
<p>um, every single lecture is given by a bona fide PhD-toting professor or lecturer.</p>
<p>the only time when i’ve had an exclusively-TA-led class was when i enrolled in a language class, and that was led by a graduate student who was near-fluent in the language. apparently columbia does the exact same thing, so it’s not ucsd-specific.</p>
<p>and for what it’s worth, i’ve had some pretty good TAs who taught me more in discussion than the professor ever did in lecture.</p>
<p>sorry about the incorrect info. >.<</p>
a little late but I got in as an out of state applicant (and got denied from Berkeley & UCLA mind you)
4.1 GPA (I think 3.8 not weighed)
1710 SAT (Yeah i know WAYYYYY under the mark)
I was also:
Captain of the tennis team
President for the Pit Orchestra
President of the Jazz Band
President of the Jazz Combo
Section Leader/Drill Instructor for percussion in Marching Band
On Prom Committee
E-sports club
Ping pong club (this and the last one were jokes for the sake of resume building)
ALL honors societies (very important)
Spanish Club
History Club
Peer Tutors club
Lesson: if you fall short in a department (for me, SAT. WAYYYY short) make sure you make up for it with outstanding extracurriculars. This didn’t even mention summer internships, working, etc.