How hard is it to maintain a good science GPA at U of M? I’m seriously considering it now after I attended campus day, but I’m worried that it would be too difficult and I would be stuck with a degree in biology or something and not get into medical school. My other main option is Miami University (Ohio), who has offered me enough money to become cheaper than Michigan and also offered me a lot of assistance with med school applications and internships and the like. It all comes down to whether or not I can get into medical school at Michigan, or if it is easier to head to Miami and probably have a higher GPA. Do med schools take into account the difficulty of the undergrad school?
Based on my experience here (currently finishing up my fourth semester), it’s not “too difficult.” I’m a ChemE, so I’m not too familiar with the higher level LSA science classes, but I’ve gotten an A/A- in every intro science class I’ve taken here [Bio172 (Intro MCDB), Chem210+211 (Orgo 1+Lab), Chem215+216 (Orgo 2 + Lab), Chem261 (Quantum Mechanics] without much effort.
It’s definitely doable if you either put in the work, are competent, or both.
Is it hard to have a social life at that point? You seem like a smart person who put in the work and I like to think I’m capable of that but were you able to still have fun?
Yeah absolutely. Freshmen year first semester, I worked 10h/wk, did research 9h/wk, and still had a lot of spare time (watched a lot of Netflix that semester lol).
Second semester, still did 9h/wk of research and pledged a fraternity.
Third semester, did research 6h/wk and drank almost every weekend.
I haven’t really put in any significant amount of work in my classes (averaged <2 hours a day) until this semester lol.
Hey, so I was very worried about the exact same thing when I started at U of M, but I graduated with a 3.87 (I was a science major btw) and am now in medical school. Hence, I actually have some legitimacy when it comes to this topic (i.e. I’m not just some rando who pretends to know what he is talking about).
Anyways, there is no cut-and-dried answer to your question, but it is something to worry about, unfortunately. I know many people who started off as pre-meds and slowly got “weeded-out” due to the rigor of the classes at U of M and their resulting sub-par GPA (well, sub-par for med school cause it is so competitive). And by “weeded-out,” I mean they switched from pre-med to something else when they realized that it was gonna be a 1 in a million chance of them getting into med school. Or people make it through but graduated with sub-par GPAs and are having a very difficult time getting into med school.
I’ll use the example of my friend whom I’ll call Jack. Jack was in your position initially in that he was deciding between U of M and MSU (I know you said Miami, but you get the idea) He choose U of M and graduated with a 3.3 science GPA. He is not a slacker nor a huge partier nor into lots of drugs or any of that nonsense (basically, he can’t say his GPA was low because he was addicted to cocaine all four years of undergrad and it hindered his performance). On the contrary, he was a smart, hard-working kid who was involved with extra-curriculars and had a part time research job through most of undergrad. The point is that his GPA is too low for virtually all med schools, and he would still have a tough time getting into DO schools with that GPA. He applied to many med schools for the 2015-2016 and only heard back from one school (that told him he was on the waitlist…and he never heard back from them again). He is re-applying once again right now.
To cut to the chase, I am 100% confident that his GPA would have been higher if he went to MSU instead (also he did very well on his MCAT, so you can’t say that he is just a dumb kid lol) I’m not trying to be a pretentious U of M grad, but the fact is that U of M is more academically rigorous than MSU (and most other institutions) I can honestly go on and on all day about people who transferred to U of M from somewhere else and them telling me how much harder it is at U of M compared to other schools.
So, worrying about how hard it is to have a good science GPA is a real issue. Another example I will use is people from my major. I was a microbiology major and there were about 53ish of all of us in total. Of those 53, only me and one other girl got into med school right out of U of M (the vast majority of those 53 were pre-med btw). Talking with many of the other 53 students, it seems that the consensus was that many are doing a gap year of research in order to boost their applications due to mediocre science GPAs.
I know that this is all anecdotal, but U of M does not give a survey to all incoming freshman who are pre-med and then following up with them regarding GPA, if they got into med school, etc. So I would love to give you some hard numbers like X amount of students started off as pre-meds and only Y amount were still pre-med their junior and senior year and Z amount dropped out due to reasons related to grades. Like I said, it is unfortunate that U of M does not collect any data like that cause I really think it would be beneficial to incoming freshman who are thinking about pre-med. I’ve heard of stats like only 1 out of 10 freshman who start as pre-med actually matriculate to med school. But obviously you can’t believe these random sources for stats, but it is honestly probably not a bad estimate. Again, I really wish U of M would keep stats sorta like these. I can’t give you actually stats from a reliable source, but blame U of M for not keeping these stats, don’t blame me hahaha.
Sorry for such a long-winded response, but I this is an important topic that deserves a thorough answer. It may actually benefit you to go somewhere that is “easier” so that you can maintain a top-notch GPA for med schools.
Lastly, what exactly do you mean when you say “get into med school at Michigan?” Do you mean actually go to U of M’s med school after doing undergrad there or do you mean how hard is it to get into med school when you go to Michigan for undergrad? As for your last question, I have only spent many a hour wondering about that myself. In the eyes of the admissions committee, is a student from U of M with a 3.5 GPA less qualified than someone who went to some other crappy state school and got like a 3.9 GPA.? You can maybe post that question on student-doctor.net, but I doubt you will get a clear answer. And if you were to ask admissions committees themselves, I once again doubt they will give you a clear answer.
Seriously, your last question really opens up Pandora’s book about the not-so-transparent things of med school admissions (for instance, I got a 32 on my MCAT but I did not take one of those expensive MCAT classes and I worked 40 hours a week the summer I was studying for it and I still had a social life and went out on the weekends. However, a buddy of mine got a 34, but he studied like 80 times more than I did. He didn’t work, didn’t go out, took one of those expensive MCAT classes, and studied for like 10 hours a day for 4 months…I only studied for 3 months btw. The point is: sure, he did a little better than me, but I studied a million times more effectively and efficiently than he did. Honestly, with how much he studied, he should have gotten like a 44!!! The moral of this short story is that on paper he looks better than me, but the fact that I could study a mere fraction of the time that he did and still almost do just as well as him speaks volumes about my study habits, work ethic, intelligence. In all honestly, I am better qualified since I was able to study so much more effectively, but admissions committees don’t see that…they only see his 34 and my 32. Sorry I know that was off-topic a little, but hopefully you get my point that its hard to know how admissions committees interpret things and can read between the lines).
I know this is really long, but I hoped it helped. I am happy to answer any more questions.