<p>I got into both and want your advice on where to attend!</p>
<p>DUDE... go to HPME, hands down... NW > USC... Chicago > LA</p>
<p>i'm thinking about HPME as well... not sure yet tho.</p>
<p>what school did you app under for HPME?</p>
<p>i applied under weinberg arts & sciences. also, i got into rice with merit money equalling half tuiting, so its hpme vs. usc bacc/md vs. rice w/ $</p>
<p>then i'd go with rice.. because it is a GREAT med school and you're getting money.</p>
<p>too bad thats not one of the choices =p</p>
<p>clarification: rice doesn't have a med school, and i didn't apply to rice/baylor. so rice with half tuition is just the regular 4 years, not anything more...</p>
<p>HPME, definitely. Congratulations!</p>
<p>I guess I want to revise my question. I will choose HPME over USC bacc/md. But, is the assurance of medical school at NU override the Rice undergrad experience (while i got Rice scholarships totalling half-tuition, the cost of NU 3 years will be about the same as Rice 4 years b/c NU gave financial aid, Rice did not beyond the scholarships). Also, part of the Rice scholarship is a guaranteed 2 year research position with a mentor.</p>
<p>So, can the statement be made that a person capable of getting into HPME now is capable of getting into just as good a medical school as NU or even better after 4 years undergrad at, for example, Rice?</p>
<p>Anything is possible.Its up to you.If it was me I would go to hpme.But you are asking to us who applied to most direct programs.btw,congrats</p>
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So, can the statement be made that a person capable of getting into HPME now is capable of getting into just as good a medical school as NU or even better after 4 years undergrad at, for example, Rice?
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<p>Feinberg is a top 20 med school. The top 20 med schools probably have around 3000 students (at 150 per med school). According to AAMC data, almost all Top 20 colleges produce b/w 200-400 med school applicants each year. So, that's probably a total of 6000 medical school applicants from Top 20 colleges. You can see, even if every student at a Top 20 med school came from a Top 20 college, half of all applicants from Top 20 colleges still won't make it into a Top 20 med school. Obviously, if you factor in the premed attrition rate and all that other stuff, the numbers are even more skewed. In reality, even optimistically, only around 30-40% of students at top med schools probably came from name-brand colleges.</p>
<p>My point being, most applicants from even Harvard or Yale, etc. won't get into a med school as competitive as Feinberg. It doesn't mean you won't. But, that will depend on how much of a risk taker you are.</p>
<p>wow, thanks for the data and the specifics!</p>
<p>some people say that if you just want to be a clinical doctor, the med school doesn't matter b/c you learn the same stuff everywhere. however, i want to go into academic medicine, mix research with patients in the clinic, and i hear that the med school matters in that case. Is this true for academic medicine, or does residency matter more (and of course residency placement is partly determined by med school..)</p>
<p>You make it really clear.I would choose any direct program over any college except may be MIT or Harvard. Only thoes two would make me think.HPME is not much to think even for Harvard,so i hope this makes it clear.</p>
<p>Just a question . . . if you were good enough to get into HPME, why didn't you apply to Rice/Baylor?</p>
<p>good question, i ask that to myself too...rice/baylor's deadline was dec. 1, the same as bu and usc bacc/md, and with the fall sports season over just a month before, i didn't have time to adequately prep everything. i thought rice/baylor would be too hard and that applying would be a waste...then i got a likely letter to rice and got into hpme and then i wish i applied..</p>
<p>i'm leaning towards hpme right now. its undergrad is as good as rice and its med school isn't horrible, at #20. i feel like the college atmosphere exists to a greater extent at rice though, with its res colleges, but i may have to sacrifice that.</p>
<p>deathly: NU has residential colleges too. in case you didn't know. I would def choose HPME. i think a guaranteed med school= lots of less stress and worries...and to me, that's priceless</p>
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can the statement be made that a person capable of getting into HPME now is capable of getting into just as good a medical school as NU or even better after 4 years undergrad at, for example, Rice?
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My point being, most applicants from even Harvard or Yale, etc. won't get into a med school as competitive as Feinberg.
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<p>This isn't exactly an answer to his question, since kids who are accepted to HPME at this point in time are surely much better future applicants -- in essays, interviews, experience -- than the vast majority of elite-undergrad premeds.</p>
<p>My answer is yes, barring something serious happening (an illness during the MCAT or something), you'll be fine for medical school applications. If you like Rice better than Northwestern, pick Rice. If you like Northwestern better anyway, then by all means -- take HPME.</p>
<p>i would actually disagree with bluedevil. HPMErs and other students applying to med school now (while in HS) are not necessarily better future applicants because there are WAY more factors when actually applying to top tier medical schools. From my school there are only a couple of HPMErs but there are a LOT more potential med school candidates who decided not to apply to a straight program but who still plan on attending med school, and these students are amazingly brilliant. </p>
<p>the MCAT is 8 hrs, which alone is not comparable to SATs which are what 3.5 hrs? Moreover, to get into a better med school than Feinberg (which for non-HPME candidates requires an avg 3.71 gpa...which in case you don't realize is an A- average) you need to get a 3.71 and above (harvard medical school requires avg. 3.81, JHU = 3.85, WashU in SL = 3.88) and that is an amazingly difficult feat in college. i don't care how brillant you are or think you are. Plus, there are MANY brillant students who never get into med school. </p>
<p>the question comes down to: do you really want to forfeit your guaranteed spot at a prestigious med school for something in the future that you can never be certain about? IF worse comes to worse, and you decide, while in HPME, that you want to try for a better med school (b/c your GPA and resume is awesome) then you're free to try it. But at that time at least you'll know that you have the grades and the resume to compete that prestigiously. Right now, you don't even know if 4 years from now you'll have what's necessary to get into a better med school than Feinberg.</p>
<p>that's my 2 cents</p>
<p>Obviously HPME's, being a relatively small group, aren't going to comprise all or even most of NU's top premeds. But they will be considerably better than NU's average premeds -- or even Harvard or Yale's average premed.</p>
<p>The MCAT is not eight hours.</p>
<p>You can't "require" an "average" GPA. Those are just the averages.</p>
<p>actually any school can set a required GPA.</p>
<p>also my point was: the avg. GPA of top tier medical students is MOST DEFINITELY NOT average but quite exceptional. that's what i wanted deathlyhallows to realize. </p>
<p>oh and i researched with a med student who got a 3.65 GPA from CAL in BME (which is extremely difficult to do) and she didn't get into med school right away. so she took 2 yrs off to do some research and after all that the med school she is attending is not as good as NU's which is ranked 20th (hers is 42nd...still a great med school but not as good as Feinberg)</p>
<p>Had she been HPME-qualified before medical school? And in any case, we're not talking about Berkeley, which is a notorious premed shredder. We're talking about Rice and Northwestern, both of which are perfectly fine.</p>