<p>I want to go the premed track, but I love science! Recommendations?</p>
<p>Go to both accepted student events (if you can) and pick where you like better! Hard to go wrong, really.</p>
<p>I’m puzzled as to why this is a “but” – it’s certainly possible to be premed and love science! (Actually, I wish the world had more premeds who love science.)</p>
<p>Well, I love MIT (the science and quirkiness) but I’m worried about my GPA if I go there since GPA is so important for medical school admissions.</p>
<p>i think we should dedicated a thread about pre-med at MIT. one that will mention stuffs such as GPA deflation, advising, UROP, coursework, etc.</p>
<p>aznjunior, I worry about that too.</p>
<p>However, MIT has a 94% acceptance rate for medical school.</p>
<p>I talked to many pre meds at MIT, and they pretty much all said the same things: “pre Med at MIT is hard, but not impossibly hard. Also, you should realize that pre med is going to be hard at any top school. If you are serious about being a pre med, you will have no problem at MIT.” take if for what you want.</p>
<p>I would personally pick MIT over Yale if I was you, but that’s just MY opinion.</p>
<p>I think you can’t go wrong with either school. If you are serious about pre med, they will both provide you amazing opportunities. Visit the schools and see which you you liked best.</p>
<p>I’m deciding bet Duke and MIT</p>
<p>and I am going with MIT. and the reasons include but are not limited to:</p>
<ul>
<li>premed will be hard anywhere. so, the workload cancels out. if you are afraid of heavy duty coursework, what will you do at med school?</li>
<li>UROP. opportunity to do research as a Freshmen? not quite gonna get it at other schools</li>
<li>MCAT prep. the GIR’s plus 2,3 additional classes will def prep you for MCAT.</li>
<li>Boston/Cambridge vs. a small town that would not exist on the map if the school wasn’t there</li>
<li>Cross-registration at Harvard. just in case you want to get a feel of the easy workload on the other side of Cambridge.</li>
</ul>
<p>a cliche but overlooked advice. just go where you feel your heart belongs. definitely, you can’t make the wrong decision. it’s just a matter of “fit”.</p>
<p>Ahh, these were my two top choices. But I was waitlisted at one. So now its UChicago vs MIT vs Harvard. I feel so typical, deciding between the two Cambridge schools.</p>
<p>Hmmm. I was planning to decide based on visit if I got in. I think that maybe, had I gotten into Yale, I would have felt the weight of “What about Art History?” a question which my Y interviewer asked me. So for me, I guess it’s “Am I more humanities or more sciencey?”</p>
<p>When I was/am thinking about premed, I’m always thinking about MIT though. So I guess if I were you, I’d go with MIT.</p>
<p>I’m not just saying this to lower Yale’s yield. </p>
<p>
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<p>I don’t want to discourage you from MIT, but I disagree with several of your points, which I have numbered.
- No, pre-med will not be hard everywhere, at least not MIT hard. I’ve taken pre-med classes at MIT and at another top 10 university. No comparison in terms of grades or workload.
- You can do research anywhere as a freshman. MIT has more research groups than anywhere and its research may be more top notch, but this is not really crucial to the undergrad experience–especially for a pre-med.<br>
- MCAT is not that tough. Any good school with prep you enough to get a near-perfect score if you study hard. Plus, you need to make sure that you are exercising your mind in terms of verbal ability so that score doesn’t go down.
- You can only cross-register for classes that MIT doesn’t offer, at least for credit. This usually means humanities, which are typically harder at Harvard.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I assume some people don’t apply that would have due to GPA. This is probably true of other places as well.</p>
<p>Also, some people may get into a medical school that is not as good as the one they might have gotten into. However, if you do well at MIT, it may help you though. </p>
<p>Anyway, I do think pre-med is manageable, but a lot of the things I’ve seen here seem wrong to me. If you have confidence and a lot of ability, you can do it. If you feel MIT is for you, my advice is to go there. For the first 2 years, I would not do other activities during the academic year except to relieve stress (e.g., no pre-med EC’s.) You can tell pretty quickly once you get into your major what your grades will be like. If your grades are marginal after a year to a year-and-a-half even in your chosen major, you may think about transferrring. It’s not the end of the world even in this scenario. Also, as someone mentioned, there is no benefit to overloading yourself. I knew a bio major that only took one technical class per semesterr after the first year, and it was easier for her to do it well as a result.</p>
<p>The other thing: don’t let people tell you that you need to major in engineering to distinguish yourself. Major in what you want, even if it is bio or chem. </p>
<p>As I said, I don’t want to discourage you from MIT, but just go into it with your eyes open.</p>
<p>
You can cross-reg for anything for credit, but it’s tougher to get requirements fulfilled if you cross-reg for something that MIT offers – e.g., you can’t really expect to fulfill a GIR by taking it at Harvard, but you can certainly take organic chemistry there and have it count toward a course 7 degree. I think this option has become more popular in the last few years, and it really has become rather easy to cross-reg, from what I understand.</p>
<p>Yeah, what I meant about taking it “for credit” was being able to fulfill a requirement. Getting credit for organic chem at another university is fairly standard, but I think this is because it can be taken during the summer. I doubt that they would let you take Harvard orgo during the normal academic year instead of MIT orgo. Same goes for other requirements for one’s major. </p>
<p>A friend of mine fulfilled a GIR (physics E & M) by taking it at U. of Chicago during the summer. At the time, it would have been pass/fail at MIT because the whole first year was pass/fail, so I think there was less scrutiny about doing this. Also, plenty of people passed out by getting a 5, so there is somewhat less scrutiny about the GIR’s I think. It wasn’t the easier path to get an “A” in a U. of Chicago class than to pass an MIT E & M class in which half the people aren’t studying. </p>
<p>Again, my guess is that you can only replace requirements by taking them during the summer, and of course most things aren’t offered during the summer. I guess one good thing for pre-meds is that pre-med requirements are typically offered during the summer.</p>
<p>Thank you so much Collegealum314 for you input!!
they are really insightful.</p>
<p>could you explain more on these? thanks!
</p>
<p>and just wondering, which school did you go to?</p>
<p>actually, my reasons i listed are not the only sole factor in my decision to go to MIT. i understand that premeds will face a tougher challenge at MIT than most if not all other schools. and i was just throwing the cross-registrationg at Harvard into the mix for the humanities-oriented pre-meds.</p>
<p>IMO, Harvard and MIT has the absolute advantage on other elite schools just because they are located at Boston/Cambridge. maybe UPenn too because it’s in Philly. i say this because academic-wise, HYPMS and other elite schools are pretty much par. but college is more than that. i know many people who will argue that the schools make up for the small town but c’mon how can the college make up for what an epic city can offer? just saying…</p>
<p>I went to MIT. </p>
<p>A friend of mine that was a bio major only took one science class a term when she was on grades. I’m guessing she placed out of 3-4 GIR’s coming in, and bio isn’t a major with a ton of requirements, so it was easier to space out her classes.</p>
<p>The premeds that did the best that I knkew described themselves as doing nothing but studying the first 2 years. That means not spending time writing for the newspaper, or doing a ton of volunteering during the academic year, student government, or varsity sport. This is more important in majors where you really build on a few fundamental classes. For instance, for physics or chemE or EE, you have to really master the first few classes to be able to do the higher classes well. If you get an A in 10.213 (thermo for chem E), your life will be a lot easier your last 2 years. For bio, you may be able to be more balanced and not have it affect your grades because learning is a bit more lateral than vertical inasmuch as it is not as crucial to build on previous classes. If you get a B in one of your first bio classes, it won’t keep hurting you in advanced classes.</p>
<p>You still want to do stuff to relieve stress, like maybe playing a match of tennis once a week, or occasionally working out, spending time blowing off steam with friends. However, you don’t want to be doing stuff which you can’t blow off if you’ve got to study. A varsity sport can lock up 3-4 hr per day during the week, for instance, and it’s hard to blow off practice. </p>
<p>If you can do well, there are advantages to going to MIT beyond learning more. EC activities to fill out your resume’ are easier to pick up. If you want to write for the newspaper, you can just do it. It’s not like at Harvard where there is cutthroat competition to get on. Varsity sports are not as competitive to get on. Leadership activities are easier to come by because MIT people aren’t that focused on them. Also, living groups are a source of leadership/volunteering activities that don’t happen as easily at other peer universities. However, for many reasons, I still don’t recommend frats notwithstanding the fact that some leadership activities sponsored by them could fill out your resume’. </p>
<p>Also, if you do super-well, there are ways to get into a niche’ to make yourself attractive for med school. If you get into medical engineering or bioinformatics after graduation, you will have a niche that you can get into a place like Harvard with. And then you won’t need to be Superman with EC’s. For instance, if you get a perfect GPA in EECS and then get a masters in the Harvard/MIT Medical Engineering program, I think you can get into Harvard Med School with only a moderate amount of EC’s. In contrast, when I asked what the ideal candidate was at Harvard Med, the dean of admissions told me “A 5.0 GPA with an olympic gold medal.” 5.0 GPA sounds high, but in truth the best students don’t usually have better luck in admissions once you reach a certain threshold (about 4.7/5.0). So the thing about Medical Engineering is something to think about. You can be purely academic (other than some hospital volunteering everyone has to do)_ and still have a good shot at the top place. And you won’t have to join a frat or put up with that. MIT is hard, but it’s much easier if you don’t have other stresses draining your time and energy. </p>
<p>If you actually want to do some EC’s as part of your college experience, I would suggest stretching out your time here a bit, taking fewer classes a term, and starting that EC the third year.</p>
<p>Because of pass/fail, if you find yourself really having trouble with MIT, you can transfer out before you do a lot of damage to your record. Also, even on grades, if you are doing badly (“C” or below), I would drop the class. So, through dropping classes and because of first semester pass/fail, you can preserve your GPA while you’re deciding if you can handle MIT.</p>
<p>Why do you not recommend joining a frat?</p>
<p>^Well, there is a long answer for that. </p>
<p>The short answer is they monopolize your time (especially during pledging). Also, during pledging (which can be 6 months) you are not running your life. If you are someone with high goals, there often is pressure to ease off your classes. There also can be hazing, the mentality where they want to break you down and build you up as a pledge class. One guy I knew in a frat explained to me that stressing out the pledges helps with bonding. My thought was, “Damn it, this is MIT. I think we’ve got enough stress to bond.”</p>
<p>This is a controversial point-of-view though. You will find a lot of people who say frats are the best thing ever. These people are rarely the super-high achievers though. One guy I knew who was pro-frat described living at a frat and maintaining your academic integrity to guerilla warfare. And he thought this was a useful skill to develop for later in life. Again, my thinking is you don’t need garbage like this when you are going to the hardest school in the world.</p>
<p>If you want a non-dorm living experience, join a living group. There is one frat without a pledge program (Zeta psi?) Or if you pick another one, make sure it is one with a negligible pledge program. </p>
<p>The sororities are fine.</p>
<p>Collegealum, I can’t thank you more for your contribution.</p>
<p>in your opinion, would the same GPA at MIT vs. HYPS be a plus?
I plan on doing Course 7.</p>
<p>how do double majors, minors from MIT look in the CV? are they really worth it?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I asked whether MIT was an advantage over Dartmouth to an MIT premed counselor, and she said “no.” I think with HYPS, the answer is probably most often “no.” </p>
<p>MIT is accorded a special respect that is unquantifiable, though. For instance, Harvard Med school will sometimes make exceptions for MIT grads with super-low GPAs. The Dean of Harvard Med school admissions was an MIT undergrad and Harvard Med alumnus who only got a 3.8/5.0 GPA as a bio major at MIT. </p>
<p>I’ve heard this from independent sources that Harvard Med school admissions sometimes make exceptions for MIT grads. I knew another MIT alumnus in bio who had a GPA about 4.0/5.0. It took her 7 years and an additional degree, but eventually she got into U. of Michigan Med school. MIT’s grade deflation and competition is well-known. I don’t think that person would have gotten into U. of Michigan with a “B” average from Harvard or Stanford. </p>
<p>If it is an advantage, it’s not completely predictable and not something you can necessarily count on.</p>
<p>To answer your other question, I don’t think double majors or minors help your candidacy for med school.</p>
<p>One thing I also heard was that Harvard Med will “drool” if you get published in the journal “Science.” This is more probable at a school like MIT because the profs are better (though Harvard and Stanford have a similar level of faculties.)</p>
<p>However, my feeling is that publications in most journals will be considered the same if they aren’t “Science” or “Nature”.</p>
<p>Thank you sooo much for your answers!!! However, I am more confused than ever. My ultimate dream is to get into Harvard Med…</p>
<p>I’m interested in course 9. So since it isn’t engineering, I think I can get a pretty good GPA.</p>