How hard is it to juggle academics and social life at WashU?

<p>I'm a potential incoming freshman (got pulled off the waitlist last Wednesday) and I'm planning on taking the pre-med route. I understand that this is a highly competitive program, and I believe that I can keep up with the academic rigor of it, but I'd like to have some balance too. Do kids in pre-med have time for sports? Clubs? Just loafing around? </p>

<p>Bonus question: I'm also interested in the Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology program, and is it possible to do pre-med and/or this, plus still have time for the above things? Thanks.</p>

<p>My D just finished her freshman year and is a double major in P-N-P and a foreign language, and is taking the premed prereqs. Yes, it is doable. That is one of the many things that draws top students to WashU - the ease of double majoring, adding on premed prereqs while majoring in something else, etc. My D does manage to participate in some ECs and socialize a little. She does study VERY hard (see link below for more info). I think the answer to your question depends on alot of things - how well your h.s. prepared you, your natural talent and ability in certain subjects, etc. Those things will dictate how hard you will have to work to do well. If you are thinking premed, you have the added requirement of keeping your gpa up. The fact that an A- is a 3.7 at WashU, makes that even more difficult. Even though the link below is to a thread about gpa at WashU, I think it might answer your questions. PM me if you have any specific questions about P-N-P, premed prereqs, etc.</p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/washington-university-st-louis/467209-gpa-wash-u.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/washington-university-st-louis/467209-gpa-wash-u.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>It's not terribly hard. For instance, this past semester I pledged a fraternity, did well and won some stuff for varsity athletics, and got a 4.0. Also, as an added bonus, I am also part of the PNP program, or at least the Mind, Brain, and Behavior way into it.</p>

<p>Oh yeah, I forgot, I'm a pre-med too. Feel free to ask me stuff.</p>

<p>As my son says he will be doing very similar things (PNP, foreign language, pre-med), I have questions for both of you (that's WUT and Midwest D). First, how does the experience compare to making grades in HS? Were you two auto-4.0 types then? Do you feel more challenged for time or less? I assume the course themselves are more advanced and therefore more challenging, but am trying to find out whether one can resonably expect to do as well or better on grades than HS.</p>

<p>Let me preface this by saying that I went to a decent public high school, where one or two people made it into ivies in my class. I was not an auto- 4.0 in high school. Gradewise, I was not even in the top 10% of my class. In terms of time, I have way more time in college than in high school. In high school I would go to school at 7:30am, get out at 2pm, get out of practice at 5:30, take a shower, eat some food, and it would already be about 8 o'clock. I'd do my homework for an hour or two, and only have an our or two of free time. Now I don't start class until 1. Go to a couple hours of class, maybe go to practice, and thats only about 5 hours of my day. Spend a couple of hours doing homework or reading, and that still leaves me tons of free time to hang out and do stuff. Because I like sleep, I probably averaged 9 hours per night. One thing that is different about my situation is I'm not taking a foreign language, which I think requires early classes.</p>

<p>that's WUt, what do you believe was your hardest class this year? I'm wondering whether i should brush up on biology/chem before coming this fall. Also, did you take calc I or calc II or calc III?</p>

<p>HartinGA - I PMed you as my detailed response was pretty lengthy.</p>

<p>Abbreviated, my D's story is a little different that WUt's. She went to a very mediocre, rural h.s. (2 APs offered), had a 4.0 (was the val), but her SAT and ACT scores were in the 99th%tile and she was the only NMF at her h.s. Her chem and bio prep in h.s. were atrocious.</p>

<p>First semester she took chem & lab, required writing, foreign language, and Calc II. Had no trouble with any class except chem. She studied more for chem than all the other classes combined along with going to every PLTL session, help session, review session, tutor session, professor office hours, and had a study group. She studied hours and hours and hours and ended up with a B (first of her life!). 2nd semester she took chem & lab, bio, lang (the top undergrad level class) and psych. Same senario, chem took more study time than everything else and she ended up with a B and a 3.7 gpa over all. Also remember than an A- is a 3.7 at WashU. She plays in two music groups and takes private lessons for no credit (which requires group and individual practice), volunteers some on campus, and played a club sport on a limited basis. Most of her socializing had to do with studying, although she did occassionally just do something for the sheer fun of it. We would tell her, "Go out! Have fun!" She would say, "I'm trying very hard to do well here!" </p>

<p>Next year should be fun orgo, bio, grad level lang classes, and finally start to get into the "real" P-N-P classes.</p>

<p>Wash U is intense, but it's definitely manageable. I'm a premed, and I got a 4.0 both semesters on top of working 7 hours a week at the med school.</p>

<p>I have a ton of fun, but I'm kind of a recluse because I'm a gamer. I spend about 25 hours a week playing computer games. I game a lot with kids in my dorm, and sometimes with my friends back home, so I am not completely antisocial I guess.</p>

<p>I still have time to go out to dinners, hang out randomly, eat dinner with programs I am in, and attend student events like Lunar New Year festival. In college you have a ton of time, I try to do use all of my time wisely (for fun, or for study).</p>

<p>You HAVE to have fun or studying will burn you out.</p>

<p>EDIT: forgot to say, I'm going to be a sophomore next year.</p>

<p>About the A- is a 3.7, if you do engineering, there are no +'s or -'s, so you can only get a 4.0, 3.0, etc.</p>

<p>^Srunni - you may not know this, since you're going in next year too, so this is open to anyone.</p>

<p>How does the lack of -'s +'s work? Obviously in engineering classes the teacher can just give you a solid grade. But what about classes taken outside of the school (anything in artsci, the art school, etc)?
Do those teachers give you grades that have a +/- and webSTAC just computes your gpa as if they weren't there?</p>

<p>You can get plus and minus grades in engineering classes. The only difference is that an A-=A=A+=4.0 for engineering students. That includes artsci classes also.</p>