<p>I've tried to find their pre med students acceptance rate into medical school but I haven't come across one. If anyone knows it I would be very grateful - Northeastern has been on my radar for a while but I've hesitated applying because I don't know much about their pre med program/ acceptance rates.</p>
<p>We don’t have any pre-med major. We have bio, chem, health science, physics and a bunch of combo and specialized majors. </p>
<p>There are advisors that help students who think they want to go to medical school, but there are a lot of students that don’t ever contact them. So there’s likely no possible way to know the acceptance rates- since how could you even know how many students applied/wanted to apply but failed MCAT/got in?</p>
<p>well I don’t mean a pre med major I mean students who take the pre med classes and apply to medical school. Rates are definitely published for every school I’m looking at, it’s Northeastern’s that I can’t find.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t pay attention to acceptance rates for medical school, and I’d bet the people over in CC’s pre-med forum will echo this. I think med school “acceptance rate” numbers are generally BS, as they’re usually published by schools with pre-med committees that assist in medical school applications. These committees will generally decide whether or not a student is qualified to apply, and will support those students. And these are the students who are included in Med admission rates. So when a school says “93% of our applicants were accepted into medical school!”, they really mean “93% of the students we selected as qualified applicants were accepted”. Which, duh. If the applicants weren’t qualified, the committee wouldn’t have helped them out. </p>
<p>Browse the CC pre-med forum for what you should look for in a “pre-med” school. But here’s a little spoiler: DON’T base your college decision on which school you think will be best for “pre-med”.</p>
<p>Reasons? Well, first of all, everyone and their mom is a pre-med when they first get to college. Of the 200 kids in my freshman bio course, I’d guess that 15 ultimately wound up applying to medical school (and most of them probably got in), because pre-med has a stupidly enormous drop-out rate. Many are weeded out (thanks, Chem II, Organic II), and many just realize they don’t want to be doctors. </p>
<p>Second, getting into medical school is not about where you went to college. It is about what you did in college.</p>
<p>But, ok. Wanting to know if Northeastern is a good choice for a pre-med is a valid question. First, what’s important in med admissions is your GPA. And yes, you can obtain that at Northeastern. Second is your MCAT score. NU courses will adequately prepare you for the MCAT, but tons of studying is going to have to happen as well. Third is your extracurriculars. Here’s where NU actually does have some advantage-- co-op. Many pre-med kids say “wahhh I’m not doing co-op because I wanna go to med school and that’s soooo many years of school! I can’t put it off another year”, but this is a terrible outlook. Taking an extra year, filled with three full-time, quality work experiences, is a huge boost to your application. It also gives you extra time to squeeze in all that shadowing and volunteering nonsense that medical schools want you to do. Finally, to get into medical school you need a bajillion letters or recommendation. This is another way NU’s co-op can be advantageous. It sets you up with co-ops, some of them at world-renowned institutions like Brigham & Women’s or MGH, and the people advising you in co-ops will be able to write you very solid recommendations.</p>
<p>So there you have it. I did not apply to medical school because I don’t like being miserable. But my northeastern friends who did make it to the age of 22 without giving up the pre-med thing, were all very competitive applicants (they also worked their ass off for 5 years). I have friends from a broad range of schools who are now medical students. They are not there because of where they went to school, they are there because they excelled both academically and extracurricularly.</p>
<p>Pick a school where you will be happy (which means you are more likely to do well), pick a school with plenty of opportunities. Go there, get involved, stay motivated, stay focused. Don’t pick a school based on fudged numbers of medical school acceptances. (And check the pre-med forum for other opinions).</p>
<p>(And Neuchimie is right. Plenty of students consider themselves “pre-meds”, but then get mediocre grades or bomb the MCAT. These students don’t ever wind up sending in their info to pre-med advisors, and therefore are not included in most of these numbers, even though they hoped to go to medical school and didn’t make the cut.)</p>
<p>Thank you very much for the informative answer!</p>
<p>That was an awesome and thorough response.</p>
<p>I’ve got one addendum - I would personally argue that the 5 year program can actually be beneficial over the 4 year program. Most qualified applicants do not apply in their junior year of college, aiming to matriculate as soon as they graduate. (I found the percentages at some point, and it was in the 30% range, I think.) Basically, it’s really hard to get all of the classes you need and have time to study before taking the MCAT and get good experience for applying all in 3 years. That’s why it’s very common to apply senior year and take a gap year.</p>
<p>5 years gives you more time and more experience. I originally came to NEU planning to do 4 years but have decided to switch to 5 in large part because of this. Co-op also gives you a chance to find out if that’s actually what you want to do. I came in planning to go into research, then veered toward pre-med, and am now stuck somewhere thoroughly in the middle. But between co-op and volunteering at a hospital, I’ve got plenty of chances and time to figure out what I’d like to do.</p>
<p>That said, Northeastern does have a solid pre-med advising program and pre-med club. You have to take initiative to stay on the pre-med track, but it’s definitely an option. And if you are at it for awhile and decide pre-med isn’t your thing? There are really great research opportunities here as well, so there’s flexibility.</p>