<p>Anyone know med school acceptance rate for premeds at Berkeley?</p>
<p>probably low- med schools care about gpa gpa gpa</p>
<p>and its difficult getting a high gpa here :(</p>
<p>Ask and ye shall receive</p>
<p>Which leads me to what I've been saying for awhile. The reality is that Berkeley is not really that good of a place to go for premed. The premed acceptance rates (defined as those premeds who apply to medical-school and get accepted to at least one of them) is only slightly higher than the nationwide acceptance rate, which is rather shocking and grim when you consider that Berkeley is not supposed to be just some average school, but is supposed to be a top school. Heck, in one year in the last 5 (in 2001), the Berkeley premed acceptance rate was actually LOWER than the national rate. Now, I'm willing to accept that maybe that was an unusual year. But still, the fact is, Berkeley does not perform significantly better than the national average - a rather sad state of affairs considering that Berkeley is one of the most selective schools in the nation, and thus has a lot of available talent. Hence, I think there is strong evidence that Berkeley is, from a premed acceptance standpoint, actually underperforming relative to the kind of students it has. It's like a college football coach who keeps bringing in the top high school players in the country, and manages to post winning seasons, but not truly great seasons. </p>
<p>And I think the biggest reason why Berkeley is underperforming is what hwtf said - the grading is harsh, combined with the fact that the workload, for the most part (but with some glaring exceptions) is high. It is very hard to get top grades in premed classes at Berkeley. Med-schools want to see top grades, and don't really care about whether they are hard to get for you or not. There are other factors involved as well - a rather cutthroat student culture where students, especially premeds, not only don't want to work together but in many cases actively conspire against each other, to an infamously cold and unresponsive bureaucracy, to the sheer alienation of the campus, to the sheer contempt that many Berkeley premed profs have for students - many of them not only won't hesitate to give you an 'F', some of them almost seem to enjoy ruining student's med-school chances. </p>
<p>Now, don't get me wrong. Berkeley has many positive features as well. But when it comes to premed, you have to seriously think whether Berkeley will serve your needs. Keep in mind that in 2003, 37% of all Berkeley premeds who applied to med-school got rejected by every single med-school they applied to. That's right, every single one. And that doesn't even include those Berkeley student who'd want to go to med-school, but didn't even bother to apply because they know their grades are too low. If you're good enough to get into Berkeley, then you're good enough to do very well at a no-name school. And for the purposes of premed admissions, it's far far far better to do very well at a no-name school than to be mediocre at Berkeley. </p>
<p>If you don't believe me, look at the links I posted and see for yourself. You will almost certainly arrive at the same conclusions that I have.</p>
<p>What Sakky said is largely correct, but not a holistic picture of a career in medicine. </p>
<p>If you change your mind and decide not to apply to med school but to pursue a PhD in biology or chemistry instead, a mediocre GPA at UC Berkeley will be seen as the same as a high GPA from a private school. My friend got a 2.9 GPA in Micro Cell Biology, and got into many top PhD programs for Biology after graduating. All schools know about UC Berkeley's grading policy. Also keep in mind that the 37% of rejected applicants also had a lot of transfer students. Berkeley has one of the highest transfer student populations out of any university, and their failure may not be representative of the typical Berkeley freshman upon entrance.</p>
<p>All:</p>
<p>while I don't have the time to do the math, the other thing to look at is the proportion who apply to med school out the 'senior' class. I was very surprised that Berk only had 114 kids apply from last year's class out of, what, 4,000. Of course, 'senior' class at the publics is a misnomer, since so many take 5+ years to graduate (for all kinds of reasons: family committments, work, double-major, etc.). But, there is absolutely no doubt that the premed classes at UCB are weed out -- it's be interesting to ask an adcom what proportion of Frosh apps indicate pre-med vs what it finally ends up to be, and compare that to other schools, particularly the LACs. </p>
<p>On the other hand, if you do get top grades at Berkelely (3.5+), then you're acceptance chances go much higher that it would be at Stanford (much, much easier grading policy).</p>
<p>Well, actually, don't let the word 'seniors' fool you. In those links I posted, 'seniors' is defined as 'graduating seniors', and so a 'graduating senior' in 2003 is defined as any undergraduate who graduated in the year 2003 regardless of how many years that person took to actually graduate. If you took 3 years to graduate, you're a 'graduating senior'. If you took 10, you're a 'graduating senior'. </p>
<p>And about your other contention that your acceptance chances are higher if you get top grades at Berkeley than you would at Stanford because of Stanford's inflated graded policy, well, don't be so sure about that. I don't have the data for Stanford, but I do have data for Princeton, another school that is known for grade inflation (maybe not as much as Stanford, but still a lot of inflation). Let's compare some numbers</p>
<p>For admission to UCSF, in the last 5 years Berkeley premeds needed an average GPA of 3.85-3.91. For Princeton premeds, the average GPA was 3.73. </p>
<p>For UCLA Medical - Berkeley - 3.77-3.94. For Princeton, 3.62.<br>
For UCSD Medical- 3.83 - 3.90, for Princeton - 3.67.<br>
For UCDavis Medical - Berkeley 3.71-3.84, for Princeton - 3.62
For UCIrvine Medical - Berkeley 3.83-3.91, Princeton 3.58</p>
<p>Notice that I have deliberately chosen all the UC Medical Schools to give maximum advantage to Berkeley. The fact is, far more Berkeley premeds than Princeton premeds will be California state residents and so by law you would expect that Berkeley premeds get more admissions preference to UC Medical Schools. Yet the data is consistent - at every single UC Medical School, Princeton premeds are getting in with LOWER average GPA's than the Berkeley premeds who are getting in. This despite the state residency advantage and the fact that Princeton is a grade-inflated school. Hmmm.</p>
<p>Hey, if you don't believe it, then by all means, do your own analysis. Choose whatever group of medical schools you want. Choose UC Medical schools, Ivy medical schools, med-schools in the Midwest, whatever. And you will see that consistently, Princeton premeds are getting in with significantly lower GPA's than are Berkeley premeds. </p>
<p>I would just caution you - don't come back here with an example of one particular med-school that you happened to cherry-pick where Berkeley premeds might be getting in with lower GPA's I am perfectly willing to concede that you will probably find one. A few isolated data points are not interesting - what is interesting is what the pattern is. And the pattern seems to be that Berkeley premeds need higher GPA's than do Princeton premeds to get into med-school, despite the fact that Princeton grades easier. So if this is true of Princeton, I don't think it would be any different with Stanford. Again, if you don't believe it, look at the data. </p>
<p>^ Sakky. I admire your passion and analytic approach. I am guessing you were an engineering major who thought about every which career like I did.</p>
<p>However, your statistics are correct. That there exists a perception difference between Princeton and Berkeley for med school (although most certainly PhD programs would favor Berkeley over Princeton for same GPA). But that perception difference is largely a result of US News Ranking differences. The fact is that I have worked with many people from Princeton, and I was rather disappointed in their abilities. I thought that many of the Berkeley grads I knew would do a far better job than them in investment banking.</p>
<p>However, you are right, this perception does exist. And the gap between perception and reality is probably bigger for Berkeley than any other school. What we have to do as a university to put pressure on the US News rankings, so that it reflects reality better is something that over time, will alleviate this perceptual difference between Princeton and Berkeley. I remember that in the 90's, Berkeley was seen to be on par with Princeton in the state of California. However, since then, the continual low US News ranking has changed perception of Berkeley. And the gap between perception and reality has grown much larger than before.</p>
<p>I think you continue to put the cart before the horse. You keep blaming the recent lowered perception of Berkeley undergrad on the supposed bias of USNews. But as I've said before, if USNews really was biased against Berkeley, wouldn't USNews ALWAYS have been biased against Berkeley? Why has this supposed bias cropped up only recently? Furthermore, again if USNews really didn't like Berkeley, then why does USNews have such a high regard for the Berkeley graduate schools? If USNews really was biased, then shouldn't it be trying be giving ALL of Berkeley a lower ranking, not just the undergrad school? </p>
<p>Use Occam's Razor and instead of blaming everything on supposed bias in the rankings, I think you have to agree that Berkeley's fall in the undergraduate ranking is largely self-inflicted. The fact is, Berkeley undergrad is simply not as good as it was in the past. Funding cuts, lack of resources per student, and lots of other problems have cropped up. I believe that Berkeley's undergrad ranking has dropped simply because Berkeley's undergraduate program has declined. It's still good, but not as good as it was in the past. That's the main reason why its ranking has dropped. </p>
<p>I too have met many Berkeley graduates and have been greatly disappointed with their quality. You even admitted it yourself in another post - let's face it, there are a lot of transfer students and other such students at Berkeley who really aren't all that good. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that they are all of them are no-good. But the fact is, a lot of them are not very good. Besides, look at it from a pure selectivity standpoint. Princeton, overall, is a more selective school than Berkeley. It's far more difficult to get into Princeton than to get into Berkeley. </p>
<p>Finally, about your assertions that Berkeley undergrads would be more highly considered than Princeton when it comes to PhD admissions - please provide some data to back it up. No, don't give me some story about how you know some guy who did this-and-that - give me some actual statistics. After all, I have backed up what I've been saying about pre-med with extensive statistics from Berkeley and Princeton. I would appreciate it if you would do the same.</p>