<p>What are some schools that are known to be ridiculously cut-throat… where students will do anything to beat each other out?</p>
<p>I’ll start- (just from what I’ve heard around)</p>
<li>UPenn- Wharton</li>
<li>Northwestern</li>
</ol>
<p>I wouldn’t say that students at Wharton are super cutthroad and do anything to beat eachother out. The courses are competitive because the number of As allowed are capped at 25-30%. This is compounded by the fact that the material in many of the core courses isn’t terribly difficult and everyone is smart and hard working. Students at the two schools you listed are smart, hardworking, driven, motivated, etc. However, I wouldn’t say that they are cutthroad, backstabbing, or would do literally anything to get ahead.</p>
<p>I read that Kellogg has a distinctive culture of being collaborative and competitive… (Yes, they can co exist together) :)</p>
<p>Competition among premeds are ridiculous. Totally pwns business school hyper competitiveness admissions.</p>
<p>Kellogg also isn’t undergrad. Competition =/= cutthroat. Competition is good for schools. Cutthroat is a tad much when people sabatoge eachother, don’t help eachother, etc.</p>
<p>Just curious, why is it always the pre-meds who are mentioned as being super competitive? Are they really THAT bad?</p>
<p>Signed,
A very happy international relations major</p>
<p>Hypercompetitive =/= competitive. By that, I meant the kids’ lives run around beating out each other. That’s where the cutthroat comes in</p>
<p>Definitely all of the Ivies.</p>
<p>Berkeley, Wharton, Harvard, JHU, Cornell…I know people who attend or have attended all of these, and there’s some truth to their competitive reputations. All great schools, though.</p>
<p>“Definitely all of the Ivies.”</p>
<p>Negative. Brown and Dartmouth are both wayyy laid back & collaborative.</p>
<p>I agree with ChoklitRain’s stuff for cutthroat schools. </p>
<p>Here’s a bad mix: pre-meds, intro classes, harsh curves. I’ve heard this happens at Cornell, JHU, and Berkeley. I’m not sure about Harvard (grade inflation?) or Wharton, though.</p>
<p>Wharton can boast about their ultra low 15% admission rate… WOO, so competitive.</p>
<p>Harvard medical school, Johns Hopkins medical school, and other top 25 elite medical schools each boast a ridiculously low 1-2% acceptance rate.</p>
<p>5,000 to 7,000 applicants for only 100 spots. Statistically speaking, it’s 5 times harder to get into Harvard med or Hopkins med than MIT! You have to basically get a 3.7-3.8 GPA plus epically pwn the MCAT, publish, do some ridiculous research, philantrophic work, donate a million dollars, create an AIDS vaccine… etc…</p>
<p>Premeds are ridiculous.</p>
<p>I heard JHU is very cutthroat. I have a friend who goes there and he told me that you can never leave your backpack or the like unattended even for a minute during exam seasons.</p>
<p>I definitely do not leave my stuff unattended at JHU’s library… Who knows what creeper might steal your stuff. My green door mat was stolen just a few hours ago. It’s gone. It was there 30 minutes ago, but now it is gone.</p>
<p>The only way I went from a C+ in intro Chemistry to an A in organic chemistry was because I was in a very tight knit highly collaborative group of Valedictorians (ultra competitive premeds with like 3.8 - 3.9 GPAs).</p>
<p>It was fun; we studied 8-12 hours straight 5 nights straight before the final exam and went into irrelevant material into orbital theory that was beyond the scope of course back then. Our study sessions actually expanded to at least 40 students with one of my closest friends at Hopkins leading this informal study session. lol</p>
<p>Generally, Hopkins science classes are very competitive yet very very collaborative… Cutthroat… I’ve only had that happen to me once when the entire biology lab study group refused to reply to my email about group meetings (thus affecting my attendance grade and I made this senior girl cry)… </p>
<p>Long story short, Hopkins cutthroat? maybe… but it’s highly competitive and collaborative too…</p>
<p>Thank goodness I’m not a premed at Hopkins anymore. :)</p>
<p>most definitely not yale. i heard cornell can be at times, depending on the major.</p>
<p>ah, I went to JHU for a summer thing and I heard about its intensity with that stuff… but mostly for medical related stuff. </p>
<p>I’m glad that I’m going to major in something business related or international relations… but I heard that gets pretty bad sometimes, too.</p>
<p>^ Yes, the reading, writing papers… That is typical for many top universities like I heard University of Chicago has to read and write a ton in humanities related classes as well…</p>