If I want to eventually go into med school, is it plausible to do so from GaTech? I know they grade hard in engineering, but what if I were to take a major in psychology? Would that really be any harder than say psychology in a school like Duke? I also got into UGA Honors, but I really love the ambiance of GaTech, and decisions haven’t come out yet for Tech, but I just wanted to kind of get an idea. I also would think Tech has great research or internship opportunities that could help for med school.
Any response will be greatly appreciated!
^^^
This is the UGA section.
fwiw, this topic came up at Thanksgiving and there were 7 MDs there and not one thought GT was a good place for pre med unless the plan is to do medical research. This wasn’t a serious discussion. More like “you’d be crazy to go to GT if you want to be a Doctor.” To be fair none of them went to UGA either.
I’d suggest you contact GT and speak with their medical professional adviser. Ask how many students get into med school and how many don’t. If the adviser is vague or doesn’t know, that’s a big red flag. The upside for GT is it’s easy to change your major if pre med isn’t for you.
The MD school admit rates for GT and UGA are virtually identical. As I’m sure you’ve read, med schools look at your MCAT, activities, and GPA, so look for a college where you believe you will thrive academically. Also, many if not most students who start off premed end up not even applying to med school, so you want a place that can give you a good Plan B.
@AlwaysMoving: Interesting insight. I have a nephew who graduated Tech & has finished med school. Doing medical research at Johns Hopkins now.
The most important factor in getting into a medical school is your GPA. Needless to say, Georgia Tech is much more difficult than most other schools including UGA. Simply put, every kid at Georgia Tech was in the top 10% of his high school class. 90 percent don’t stay there. my advice is to go to a strong state school and excel. Do well on the MCAT and you won’t have a problem.
In my opinion, neither UGA nor GA Tech are particularly great choices for pre-med as they are both fairly competitive admissions with no hospitals on their undergraduate campuses. Realize that U.S. medical school admission’s rates are only at about 50% nationwide, and that is NOT counting the tremendous amount of students on the pre-med track who never apply to medical school because they do not get the grades needed and switch what they are working on mid-way through undergraduate school or are counseled against applying to medical schools. You cannot really use the published “medical school acceptance percentages” because many undergraduate universities artificially manipulate them. For example, Duke University will not write department letters of recommendation for students earning below a certain science GPA, thus in essence the university decides which students will be applying to medical schools or not. They do this for their own benefit, to keep their medical school admission’s rate high for marketing purposes. However, not all universities do this - it is actually something to ask about before making a final decision of where to attend, if you plan on a pre-med track. My oldest is at a similar private to Duke which allows individual faculty members to decide for themselves if they want to write medical school recommendations, regardless of the student’s GPA.
In my opinion, there are two TOTALLY opposite routes you can go for pre-med. Either you want to go to a relatively easy university where you can keep your GPA up super high - in which case one of the other GA state universities, if GA is in-state for you, which has less competitive admissions works just fine OR (what my oldest daughter decided to do) you go to the most prestigious medical research university you can afford that allows undergraduates to work in hospitals and help with research, get their names on publications, get doctor recommendations, etc. to get a “leg up” on the types of extracurricular experiences and networking that might set those apart from each other who DO get the GPAs and MCATs needed for medical school admissions (Duke, Vanderbilt, John Hopkins, UNC, UT Austin, UVA, Michigan…). If you go route number two, do not expect to party much in undergraduate school - to maintain the GPA needed, you will be working HARD. However, in return you will have clinical/research experience that is harder to come by if attending a university without an affiliated research hospital nearby.
My oldest is attending a university with four hospitals on campus. Last semester she had a five minute walk from class to work in a medical lab a few days a week, and other days she attended a clinic with the doctor who runs the lab. This semester she is working within the pediatric hospital instead to get a wide variety of medically related experiences. She IS having to spend a tremendous amount of time studying to keep her grades up - in general you will need a 3.7+ science GPA to remain competitive, and her school curves many pre-med class so the average student earns a C+. This meant giving up on some activities, like joining a sorority. For her, she is happy with her choice and feels she should be well prepared to do well on the MCAT because the rigor of her classes is super intense, but honestly so is medical school so she feels this will best prepare her and give her medically related experiences so she is sure medical school is really what she wants to do.
Finally, ALWAYS have a “plan B” if on a pre-med track. In her case, she is making sure to complete some additional prerequisites to study physical therapy, just in case medical school admissions is a bust. She also has enough Chemistry she could work in a lab post graduation, but she’s found she prefers an environment dealing with patients to lab work - and that is precisely the advantage to attending a university with a hospital and medical labs on campus - you get to test out what you really like in a real setting.
With that said, medical school is a LONG and EXPENSIVE road, so you should NOT go somewhere undergraduate if it is a financial burden. If that is the case for you, option #1 of attending an easier in-state university and concentrating on GPA may be the best option.
GOOD LUCK!
I wanted to clarify that of course students get into medical school ALL THE TIME from both GA Tech and UGA - so it’s not that it can’t be done from those universities, it’s just not necessarily the EASIEST route from those universities.
@OldTimer1234 you do realize that UGA now has a medical school, also, right?
Are you referring to the one in Augusta?
@ VirginaBelle and @“Amberlanya Herwana”
From my research, there are 4 allopathic medical schools in Georgia (M.D. degree):
- Emory University School of Medicine
- * Medical College of Georgia
- Mercer University School of Medicine
- Morehouse University School of Medicine
There is only 1 osteopathic medical school in Georgia (D.O. Degree):
- Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine (Georgia Campus)
NONE of these medical campuses are convenient from UGA’s undergraduate campus in Athens. The one that is associated with the state university system, *Medical College of Georgia, is in Augusta - that’s approximately 1 1/2 - 2 hours from UGA’s undergraduate campus in Athens. That makes it completely unrealistic for an undergraduate pre-med student at UGA to conduct the type of research, shadowing, etc. that is occurring on some other undergraduate campuses DURING THE SCHOOL YEAR.
Are there plenty of people who become a doctor attending UGA undergraduate, of course there are! However, it means working on these extracurricular requirements over the summer and possibly even taking a gap year between undergraduate and applying to medical schools to attain the extracurriculars (shadowing and clinical experiences) needed as compared to universities I listed above where a student can walk between classes and a hospital or MEDICAL research lab within a few minutes.
If you are shooting for Medical College of Georgia, it accepts from ALL the GA state university campuses, and there are honestly easier choices to keep the GPA needed for medical school admissions up than UGA or GA Tech. Of course, you also need to worry about MCAT scores as well, and perhaps UGA or GA Tech will better prepare you for MCATs than some other in-state choices? I don’t know about that, because my one daughter who wants to be a doctor opted to go out-of-state. Her friend who wants to be a doctor, transferred from GA Tech to Emory after her freshman year because of the drawbacks I mentioned. I only bumped into this thread because my youngest daughter has UGA as her first choice for her undergraduate degree - Please do not get me wrong, UGA and GA Tech are both GREAT SCHOOLS, but there are some drawbacks you should be aware as far as what’s available on campus for those students following a pre-med track.
The reality is at some point you will be working REALLY hard to attain medical school admissions - it really depends what you feel will be the best choices for you, but I wanted to chime in so you consider all the information before making a final choice.
GOOD LUCK, WHEREVER YOU DECIDE TO ATTEND!
@“Amberlanya Herwana”
I want to correct. few misperceptions about what it takes to get admitted to med school.
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you don’t need to do research AT A MED SCHOOL during undergrad. In fact you don’t need to do research at all. Per AMCAS’ annual surveys of med school admission offices, research is the least important EC for a med school applicants. Stellar research with first author publications won’t gain anyone an acceptance to med school unless they also have physician shadowing, clinical exposure, non-medical community service w/ the disadvantaged and leadership. The only med schools that care about research are research-intensive med schools–and even those accept students without research experience all the time.
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you don’t need to shadow doctors at a med school. Any doctor (MD or DO) with any type of practice is fine so long as you include some primary care physicians while shadowing
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you don’t need to do your clinical exposure experience at a hospital, and especially not at an academic (medical school associated) hospital. Public health clinics/county health clinics, nursing homes, rehab hospitals, hospice centers, stand-alone surgical centers, Planned Parenthood, Healthcare for the Homeless, summer camps for disabled children, suicide or rape crisis hotlines, etc----these are all also very acceptable as sites for clinical exposure activities.
See: p 14 https://www.aamc.org/system/files/c/2/462316-mcatguide.pdf
tl;dr–you don’t need to attend a undergrad with an adjacent medical school in order to develop a strong application for medical school.
@WayOutWestMom and @“Amberlanya Herwana”
I apologize as there’s clearly been a misunderstanding about what I was attempting to express.
I ABSOLUTELY 100% AGREE with WayOutWestMom’s comment above!
I think the biggest factor in the misunderstanding is that, in my personal opinion, there is a huge difference between what is technically required to be accepted to medical school, and exploring IF one is cut out/desires to be a doctor prior to applying to medical school. Personally, I would not want my student’s first experience in a hospital to be in medical school. I want her to see people dying/the hours that the residents are putting in, etc. WAY BEFORE she is applying to medical school. I want her to talk to her lab P.I. about his struggles of balancing his medical research and clinic responsibilities versus his new baby at home. This is more about deciding IF the sacrifices and hard work that are required to become a doctor are something my daughter even wants to pursue well before it is too late to change paths in undergraduate school, than it is about medical school acceptance.
The original question is Duke versus GA Tech versus UGA for a pre-med program. I am not going to repeat myself, but my point is that there are pros and cons to these universities that should be noted/weighed before making a final decision. What I mention in the paragraph directly above is harder/less convenient to explore at Tech and UGA, and in my totally personal opinion those are drawbacks to those universities for undergraduate pre-med students. I also was honest about the drawbacks to Duke in my previous comments. I also talked about weighing experiences available on campus versus the finances needed to complete the schooling.
Ultimately, students gain entrance into medical schools from many different undergraduate programs and following many different paths to get there. The correct choice for an individual student is largely a personal and financial choice of what works best for her and what she values in an undergraduate experience. My opinion was ONLY meant to be just one perspective to think about before making a final choice.