<p>My son got admitted to both Emory and Rice. At this time, he wants to major in Biochemistry with possible pre-med (not 100% sure at this time). We visited both colleges in the last 2 weeks and not able to decide between them. He looked at different factors like, look of campus, classroom setting, dorms, weather, food, student social life and came to a conclusion that any one will fit for him. From financials point of view there is not much difference in family contribution amount, so it is not a deciding factor. We drove around a bit both in Huston and Atlanta during our visit. Again it is a tie. So, it came down to how good Biochemstry dept is at these schools and pre-professional advising/support available at these schools. Provide your opinion from these 2 points of view and any other information that will help us decide.</p>
<p>The CDC is in Emory. That, in and of itself, is fantastic for ALL SORTS of research. Not only that, but Emory is highly involved in research as an institution.</p>
<p>[Rankings</a> & Successes: Breakthrough Research | Emory University | Atlanta, GA](<a href=“Facts and Figures”>Research | Emory University | Atlanta GA)</p>
<p>You may want to look at Rice’s research offerings.</p>
<p>Both colleges probably offer fantastic pre-med curricula that you really can’t go wrong with. There are brilliant individuals in both colleges, and I know people always say this, but at these top 20 universities, the difference is not in the facility offerings (though they can vary a significant amount) but rather the student’s willingness and dedication to finding these offerings.
I would say Rice’s and Emory’s pre-med are of comparable standing. You’re not going to have trouble getting into a dream medical program if your son works his butt off doing what he loves with all sorts of international and domestic volunteer and research.</p>
<p>This thread may interest you</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/emory-university/1128183-cmu-v-s-rice-v-s-emory.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/emory-university/1128183-cmu-v-s-rice-v-s-emory.html</a></p>
<p>How hard or easy to get a 3.9 GPA for pre-med at Emory. Any current seniors/juniors comment on this</p>
<p>It’s pre-med at a top school, where will getting a 3.9 be easy? That’s not going to happen at Rice or Emory if your son does not work very hard. Anything is possible. Plenty of pre-med folks here with 3.7+(some worked hard, lots chose easy courses/profs., w/e). Ideally, though, it should be challenging to get that GPA at either. If not, your son is wasting money. Also, hate to turn your son away from here, but we don’t have a specific undergrad. biochem. dept. What I have done is major in chem and bio and it has served me well intellectually (my GPA is of course not a 3.9, I take really hard classes. I’m doing ok, but not a 3.9 or near it to be honest. It’s closer to Emory’s graduating average which isn’t bad considering the classes I’ve been through). However, this won’t be simple if you want a “3.9”. If anything, just dabble in the chem and bio dept for courses of interests (the more bio focused courses in the chem. dept.). The chem. dept is somewhat brutal compared to the other science majors here, but it isn’t undoable. Most pre-meds will generally wimp out and get a BA if they are also dabbling in biology. </p>
<p>However, if you’re like many (especially pre-meds) here and just want to make it look like you took hard classes and learned a lot, there are some profs. in both depts that I would recommend, but you really shouldn’t waste your time (your son won’t learn a thing from these folks). You might as well go to a non-flagship (and in some cases flagship, like UGA is surprisingly much easier than here for example) state school for this if you come to a top school to constantly worry about keeping a 3.9 GPA. It costs much less to do so at such places. And if you do that well at such an institution, you have just as much a chance at a dream med. school as an Emory student provided you do well on the MCAT (Emory offers no advantage here, hardly no school does. You either do well on standardized tests or not). Basically, this is me being blunt and saying that, if your son is to get his money’s worth at either, he will need to take better profs. (which tend to be tougher) and will thus have to work hard to get the desired GPA. Hopefully this is an okay. A pre-med is wasting time if they came to slack off.</p>
<p>As for grading, neither has low inflation-deflation if you are worried about. You generally get what you deserve or a bit higher in some cases, so it’s tough but doable with dedication (and easy if you cheat like the pre-meds I allude to above. Yes I view taking “easy, easy, easy, easy” at a top school as cheating. They cheat themselves more than anything, both out of money and a higher MCAT).</p>
<p>I will pick Rice</p>
<p>Shuimao: Rather than posting the same ungrammatical phrase over and over again in different threads, perhaps you could provide some information that supports your assertion.</p>
<p>3.9 GPA is a very hard target for biochemistry major in a top 20 school without some superhuman effort.<br>
Someone pointed out CDC is in Atlanta and attached to Emory. Rice sits in the middle of two medical schools and a world renowned medical center with every type of specialty hospital in walking distance.</p>
<p>Lichen: Don’t feed ■■■■■■. Again, I’m sure the person would choose hell if it was a university so don’t bother.
Texas: I think they both have clout in the medicine area, so Rice nor Emory really has advantage there. In fact some may claim that our direct attachment to one plus the ties to Tech, Grady, and various other healthcare facilities/centers in the Atlanta area/Georgia is extremely advantageg school. A surprising amount of undergrads. here are getting on board with projects and interests in this realm, including pre-meds. . I mean, we run the largest healthcare system in the state. That plus clout in the public health realm provides quite an array of options Global/Public Health is essentially our substitute for the missing engineering component. Not to mention, many initial pre-meds maychange their mind. Many of my friends have good grades, but developed a very strong interest in service and public health efforts. Having heavy influence/connections with things that are healthcare related, but not directly related to medical practice could be beneficial. So Public Health School+CDC+Med. School+Healthcare System/Auxillaries+Tech gives great oppurtunities in an array of areas just as Rices proximity/connections to surrounding medical schools. So they basically tie again. I don’t think that poster meant that Rice has nothing, they were simply saying that Emory has a strength on top of the norm/expected one when it comes to health related fields. Rice has engineering (having connections to a place like Tech is like having 1/2 an engineering school. It mainly improves research opps/prospects as Tech is excellent for engineering related research. If it wasn’t Tech or a similar-higher caliber place it probably would matter much less), we have Public Health (as in these are key differences between the two as we both have heavy medical facility/school connects)</p>
<p>Go to Emory</p>
<p>Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using CC App</p>
<p>Thanks every one for your feedback. My son paid deposit at Rice. He went back and forth between Emory and Rice. He used a numeric scale (every item is scored on 10 point scale) for: Major that he wants to major in, Academic Rigor, Research Opportunities, Grade Inflation/Deflation, Campus look and feel, Class room setup, Campus surrounding area, Food at dorms, Dorm Room, Career Center help and Pre-Professional Advising. Both schools scored almost the same with 1 point difference (Emory with advantage). Rice offered about 6K more in financial aid (In my original post, I mentioned that there is no difference in family contribution, to get the feedback on items other than money). In our OPINION, both are very similar schools (again, our opinion), with minor differences in each of those areas mentioned, but at the end we followed the money as other differences are so minor.</p>
<p>I think that’s fair. Smart decision. When schools are so similar, you should just go with the less expensive option. Good luck to the both of you.</p>
<p>Rice is a better overall school than Emory and carries more prestige. Good decision!</p>
<p>More prestige among whom…certainly not in academia. Both are excellent schools and will provide you with many opportunities. I suspect Emory provides more research opportunities based upon the amount of funding each school receives for research. However, the primary difference is in cost and fit.</p>
<p>Owl: You fail. You have no proof of that. The prestige is probably equal in the US, and generally Emory is probably known better outside of it because of its various public health, policy, and educational initiatives such as Tibet-Emory Science initiative and our “very” close connection to the Dalai Lama. I doubt you hardly know anything about Emory other than its rank so you should shut up. The academics are probably very similar for any fields shared between the two except that I hear the science/engineering scene at Rice almost completely overshadows the liberal arts. I heard this from my freshman roommate from Houston who considered Rice and chose Emory over it. He also sited some advantage in facilities, which if you look at architecture you can’t tell, but he said the general condition of facilities here was much more consistent, whereas many Rice buildings only look solid on the outside. Emory still has a very alive and noticeable social science/humanities scene and certainly carries clout in that area. The prestige/influence difference is really not different enough to choose one over the other based upon just that. Also, Rice may have an advantage in the grade inflation area. He and another fellow Texan told me that they tend to inflate more like Ivies than top southern privates, so I imagine that must be nice.</p>
<p>You must be an idiot if you really think that’s enough to choose Rice over Emory. Even the rankings imply that we are more similar than we are different in terms of academics. Given their smaller size one would expect a huge advantage, but that clearly isn’t the case. In fact our larger size may actually serve us well in terms of research ops. and internships.
As for academia: Rice has always been great w/physics, math, engineering and stuff, while we do extremely well in medicine/healthcare and the natural and behavioral sciences (lots of ground breaking stuff in psychology, neuroscience, behavioral biology, which have lead to medical/pharmacological discoveries). So the two are awesome, but in different fields. Not to mention, many of the great researchers teach undergrads. and often “well”, a rare quality for a place of Emory’s size (like twice Rice’s size, meaning that Rice better have this quality).</p>
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<p>Getting at least a 3.7-3.8 is doable if you work hard. A lot of it depends on what professors you take.</p>
<p>Yeah, so it’s the latter where many/most chose courses/profs. Otherwise it’s very hard. Unfortunate that many will have to sacrifice learning and good teaching to get into med./professional school, not to assert that most wanted to learn, but still… not like most had a choice unless they were extremely strong students willing to work very hard or to perhaps get some Bs (but not too many of course).</p>
<p>However, I think the bad thing is the fact that those who cherry-pick easy profs. not only make getting 3.7-3.8 doable, but easy. There should not be such a disparity between teaching style, quality, and rigor within a single dept., or worse, a course. The disparities in orgo. and physics for example, are horrible. The fact that people at a top school can go into any science class knowing they won’t have to work hard at all is a huge problem. Emory should fix that. And of course, it has the same problem as other universities where the humanities/social sciences are unacceptably easy grading, thus people could leave here not knowing how to write or communicate that well, but their grades will indicate otherwise.</p>
<p>However, Emory’s problems are the same as the other top 20s. Oddly enough, it’s gpa is on par or lower than peers that have engineering schools/depts. Considering the fact we don’t have one, and engineering is supposed to be hard, it is odd that places like Duke, Northwestern, WashU, and Rice have higher graduating GPAs than Emory. These schools obviously are not as hard as they make themselves out to be. They probably have overcompensating curves.</p>
<p>And it is also true that some of the harder professors for pre-med classes here make those at even top Ivies look moderate to easy. However, these schools generally have at least all moderate profs whereas Emory will range from Very tough to fairly easy. And then of course the curve is not as large (places like Brown for example have no class with a median lower than B, whereas we probably still have some C+ and quite a few B- sections).</p>
<p>Bernie, do you know what is the average GPA for a pre-med student, the percent of pre-med students that get into med school, and percent of students dropping out of pre-med?</p>
<p>I’m planning on doing pre-med at Emory this fall and I am just wondering.</p>
<p>I don’t know all of those stats. I just know that only about 50% are admitted (many to amazing medical schools) because the applicant pool is oversaturated. Many people that should drop it don’t, or the MCAT slaps them down and they still apply. The easiest part is probably just getting the GPA, however, often the MCAT suffers if you use the method described above. A low MCAT+High GPA=Grade inflation, and even medschool adcoms recognize this. Also, apparently many top schools want a well-rounded schedule as opposed to just a bunch of science courses that appear to help one for med. school (reality is, most don’t. Perhaps taking teachers that do case/research based learning do though. If anything, if done right, and you don’t cheat, you’ll develop a work ethic that will benefit you that many won’t have entering med. school). I will post the following link where Dean Ram (Runs pre-health office) discusses some visitations by prestigious schools such as Chicago and Stanford.</p>
<p>Such blog posts are on the following page: There are also other interesting topics displayed throughout the page.
[Preetha</a> Ram Innovating Education](<a href=“http://preetharam.■■■■■■■■■■■■■/author/preetharam/]Preetha”>Preetha Ram | Innovating Education)</p>
<p>^^^ Most kids though who work their asses off (learning the material/relearning the material/and then studying the material for a 3rd time) in their classes for a 3.7-3.8 gpa, do fine on the MCATs, because they know the material well. For example, I recently took a kaplan MCAT diagnostic, with no studying, for my kaplan classroom class, and scored close to a 30. Considering how you need at least a 30 to be competitive at most medical schools and a 35 to be competitive at top medical schools, I think I had a good diagnostic test. My goal is obv. a 35+ so I still have a lot of hard work to do.</p>