<p>If MIT is your first choice and Rice is in distant second place, and if your parents are willing and able to pay for MIT (even though you have a generous scholarship offer from Rice); then I think you should go to MIT. You will be happier if you go to your dream college and you will always wonder what you missed if you go to Rice.</p>
<p>However, if you are ambivalent or if Rice is a close second, I would pick Rice for cost reasons. Rice provides an excellent education and access to a top-flight medical program. There is no reason to spend that much money if the choice is close.</p>
<p>Have you visited each college and really thought about what it would be like to attend? The weather is very different at these schools. Do you prefer cold or hot weather? Do you know people that will be attending each college and have you thought about living arrangements and roommates? College can be a big adjustment for students and sometimes attending your dream college isn't as important as it originally seems.</p>
<p>Finally, don't worry. No matter what you decide, you will probably be happy because it's not the college as much as what you put into it. Look at all the Rice and MIT students who are telling you how great their respective schools are, and they are right. Both MIT and Rice are excellent universities. So make an informed decision, give college your best effort, and don't look back. Some of your most exciting years are just around the corner.</p>
<p>Without a doubt Rice. You're an absolute moron to go to MIT and face grade deflation, turning down money to one of the best pre-med programs in the nation.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Why does Sakky badmouth MIT as a place to be a pre-med then?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Because it's not as good as the placement rates at MIT's peer schools - being HYPS, which routinely have placement rates around 90%. </p>
<p>Personally, I think that this is something that MIT ought to reform. MIT should be really trying to help those students who want to go to med-school. MIT premeds do fairly well, but probably due to the sheer academic prowess of the students, not because MIT does much to help them. At those other schools, not only are the students strong, but the schools seem to go out of their way to actively help them get in, mostly through grade inflation. I'm not saying that MIT should necessarily practice grade inflation, but one thing MIT could do is expand the policy of exploratory grades in order to give premeds the ability to shield more of their bad grades from the med-schools.</p>
<p>It wouldn't necessarily help, though -- I know the Careers Office recommends that premeds not take premed courses on junior/senior P/D/F, which I assume is because medical schools get grouchy about it.</p>
<p>My personal theory is that the major part of the unsuccessful premeds are engineering majors, and specifically course 10 (chem E) majors. There are so many course 10 premeds in my classes, and I can't imagine their GPAs are that good -- course 10 is notorious for being difficult and having a lot of required classes.</p>
<p>Sakky, have you ever asked the careers office if they keep statistics on medical school acceptances by major? I was going to stop by the office today, but I forgot.</p>
<p>Noted that the MIT GPA is in 5.0 scale. I don't know how the convesion is done to the AAMC 4.0 scale.</p>
<p>MIT's class of 2005 total applicants GPA average is 3.6 and the accepted applicants GPA average is 3.7. The average GPA from any other school total applicants is much lower.</p>
<p>Snapshot of MIT's Class of 2005 Premed Students</p>
<p>Many factors are taken into consideration in the medical school application process. This is evident in the diversity among MIT applicants, and their acceptances.</p>
<p>The following data on MIT applicants was reported by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC.)
Total Number of Applicants
(Includes Undergraduate, Graduate,
and Alumni Applicants) 185
Total Number of Undergaduate
Applicants 70, 37.8%
Female 56%
Male 44%</p>
<p>ACCEPTANCE RATE
Total MIT Acceptance Rate 73.5%
National Acceptance Rate 48%
Undergraduate Applicants 75.7%
GPA Undergraduate Applicants
Total Average 3.6/4.0*
Accepted Average 3.7/4.0**
Range of Acceptances 3.0-4.0**
Range of Denials 2.6-3.6**
MCAT- Undergraduate Applicants
Total Average 33.5
Accepted Average 34.0
Range of Acceptances 24-43
Range of Denials 19-37</p>
<p>**These figures are based on the AAMC 4.0 scale, rather than the 5.0 scale used at MIT."</p>
<p>
[quote]
It wouldn't necessarily help, though -- I know the Careers Office recommends that premeds not take premed courses on junior/senior P/D/F, which I assume is because medical schools get grouchy about it.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I'm not talking about P/D/F. I'm talking about expanding the exploratory policy. For those who don't know what that is, look here:</p>
<p>Basically, this allows sophomores to retroactively drop one class a term, after they have seen the final grade that they have earned. This is a great idea which I think should be available for all of your years at MIT (not just sophomore year), especially for all of those notorious premed classes like OChem. So if you take OChem and get a C, you can basically get a do-over by just dropping it and taking it again in another semester, or just not taking it at MIT at all and just doing it in a community college or at Harvard Summer School or something like that. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Sakky, have you ever asked the careers office if they keep statistics on medical school acceptances by major? I was going to stop by the office today, but I forgot.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That would be nice to see. Which gets to another idea which is for MIT to offer "pseudo-transcripts" for its engineering students who apply to med-school, where these pseudo-transcripts are basically greatly cleaned up and spruced up versions of your "real" grades. This is not substantially different from the notion of MIT having 2 transcript versions for each student, the internal one (which is generally only for consumption within the MIT community), and the external one (the one that is sent out when you submit a transcript request for a 3rd party), and where the external transcript conceals all of your freshman failing grades, etc. Why not come up with a 3rd transcript, just to send to AMCAS (the med-school transcript clearing-house service)? </p>
<p>The way I see it is, if the med-school adcoms continue to punish MIT premeds for taking a tougher curriculum, then MIT should do something to protect its students. If the adcoms insist on being irresponsible with the grading information that they get, then the answer is to simply deny them the correct information. Two can play at this game.</p>
<p>Hi...to the guy considering MIT vs Rice....</p>
<p>in all seriousness...HAAHAHAHAHAHA are you crazy?</p>
<p>I had a similar dilemma...I was offered early admission by a state school at age 15 and could have gone on to MIT, etc later...but I chose the WRONG option and went with the state school...</p>
<p>I want to study Sys. Biology, etc etc and even though I have lots of research exp..I'm having problems getting into good programs.!!! Profs told me that I look good until the last cut..wehn they'd rather take a kid from MIT, Cal Tech rather than my school!!</p>
<p>Anyway, if your only goal is to become <em>a</em> doctor, then go to Rice I guess you'll have an easier time there.</p>
<p>but if you want to do research and be inspired and taught by the world's best...then by all means go to MIT...</p>
<p>Hey guys, thanks for all your comments! I really appreciate it. After much debate, I have decided to go to MIT. I think MIT will prepare me best for a scientific career (even medicine), and in the meantime it has great research and classes as well. When I visited I felt much more at home at MIT than Rice. It was tough to turn down the money, but I had to do it.</p>