<p>which is the better choice for a pre med student? which sends more grads to top med schools?</p>
<p>You can't go wrong with either of them. They are both excellent schools for pre med. Go with whatever one is cheaper for you.</p>
<p>I dont know what it's like at Notre Dame, but I've heard the grade deflation and competition at Berkeley will make it VERY difficult to get a high gpa.</p>
<p>I'm not sure about Notre Dame's medical school acceptance rate but Cal is known for tough weeder courses and difficulty to attain high GPA. Cal's med acceptance rate hovers just above the national average at around 60% and has been declining over the past few years. Look it up.</p>
<p>I really hate talking about my own school on these boards because it makes me feel like I'm advertising/marketing, which I'm not trying to do at all, but rather just state facts.</p>
<p>Notre Dame had 84% of its pre-meds from the class of '07 accepted into medical school. About 20 people per year go to Georgetown Medical, 25 to Loyola-Stritch, 8 to UNC-Chapel Hill, 27 to Indiana U Medical, 13 to Tulane<em>, 10 to UMichigan</em>, 6 to WashU<em>, 4 to UChicago</em>, 8 to Northwestern<em>, and maybe 1 a year to Harvard</em>, JHU<em>, Stanford</em>, and 2 per year to Yale* and UPenn*. (I put an asterisk next to schools listed as "Distinguished" in the med-school matriculation list that the ND admissions office gave me...there are about 20 "distinguished" schools).</p>
<p>Now I'm no expert on Berkeley, but the fact that it is a public school and very large will inevitably lead to cutthroat competition and grade deflation, especially given the intelligence of its top students.</p>
<p>Notre Dame, from all that I've heard, is an unusually collaborative school, where its students seem to work together more than compete with each other (at least more so than at other schools). Notre Dame also provides a more personalized college experience I feel, since it has about 1/3 as many students as Berkeley and has one of the best career/advising centers in the nation in addition to the #1-rated intramural sports program and some of the best campus food as well as a strong sense of community fostered by the residence hall system on campus. </p>
<p>But now I'm starting to sound like a Notre Dame ad, which is not my intention. If you want any more info about ND pre-med, there is a great thread by PrincessND (a med school student at UChicago) where she answers everyone's questions; this is in the University of Notre Dame specific forum. </p>
<p>As for the matriculation data, if you want any more, i'd be happy to give you the number of people going to ____ medical school if you have anything specific in mind.</p>
<p>Sorry for writing so much, and I hope I left you feeling at least slightly more enlightened about Notre Dame's pre-med program's success. I could go on about the Science PreProfessional Major, Arts&Letters PreProfessional supplement, or simply the science major tracks for applying to med school from ND, but I think you're just looking for a basic overview at this point. Besides, my knowledge is limited since i'll only be a freshman next year.</p>
<p>Good luck, and hopefully someone can tell you about berkeley on here too.</p>
<p>^wow, thank you so much for that very informative post. Just one question: how many grads matriculated at Duke Med last year? Thanks again for you advice.</p>
<p>for Duke, 7 people were accepted there from 2001-2005, so about 1.4 per year.</p>
<p>MIT.........</p>
<p>PA of Berkeley is 4.8
PA of ND is 3.9</p>
<p>You might want to consider that as well.</p>
<p>that's probably just because Berkeley has much better grad programs that are inflating their pa score</p>
<p>This Cal grad thinks Notre Dame may be the better choice SIMPLY because it's smaller, you'll have better access to professors/labs and maybe, just maybe it's less cut-throat. Not that ND students aren't competitive, it's just that at Cal, so much of the competition is due to its size: the weed out courses are tougher because there is more people to weed out!</p>
<p>Berkeley because then you can go to UCSF for med school much more easily</p>
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Berkeley because then you can go to UCSF for med school much more easily
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<p>i'm not sure how true this is, but my current physician went to berkeley-->UCSF, which is pretty damn impressive. i think if you know that you have no intention of leaving california and want more regionally-focused opportunities, you may have a slight edge going to berkeley over nd. however, i personally don't think it's worth giving up the breadth of nation-wide opportunities available at notre dame, since if you find that pre-med is not your thing, it's much more difficult to experiment with classes/majors at berkeley than at notre dame simply due to the fact that it has to cater to the needs of so many more students and will thus make fewer special exceptions. also, ND probably does better at placing a higher percentage of its students in highly-ranked medical schools throughout the nation, not just primarily in california.</p>
<p>I would advise against choosing an undergraduate school based on PA score, especially for pre-med, which is heavily GPA-dependent and varies according to the individual student, not the school. Pre-med students from crappy state schools end up at JHU and Harvard because they are motivated and have talent. I'm fairly sure med school admissions committees don't judge applicants based on the perceived prestige of their undergraduate institutions; this isn't Wall Street investment banking.</p>
<p>In short, Notre Dame = more personalized feel than Berkeley, even though Berkeley may have MORE top caliber students simply because it's so damn big.</p>
<p>Go with your gut on this one. Don't trust people who tell you what to do without clear reasoning (e.g. the PA guy's post...he's probably in HS just like you and doesn't really know anything).</p>
<p>I'm already doing an internship at ucsf so i've already considered that</p>
<p>They are both great schools and you really can't go wrong with either one. I would expect premed at Berkeley to be harder though due to the competition and size of the classes.</p>
<p>I'm out of state at Cal btw, so tuition is same at both.</p>
<p>PA scores in USNWR are for UNDERGRADUATE disciplines. I must admit though at ND you will definitely get a more personal education and an 84% admit rate is very impressive. Best of luck to you. :-)</p>
<p>
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10 to UMichigan*
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Indiejimmy, your numbers may be admit data, not enrolled. There were only 4 ND students in the Class of 2008 (same for 2007).
[url=<a href="http://www.med.umich.edu/medschool/admissions/life/diversity.htm%5DUMMS%5B/url">http://www.med.umich.edu/medschool/admissions/life/diversity.htm]UMMS[/url</a>]</p>
<p>Still, very impressive stats. ND consistently sends 4 students to UMMS each year which has a total class size of 170.</p>
<p>I think that you need to consider the social differences between the two schools and decide where you would most fit in and be happy. Notre Dame is considered to be fairly religious and is always ranked in the top five in student polls as far as religious atmosphere on campus. It is not a Jesuit school, like BC or Georgetown, which are both quite different than Notre Dame as far as religious instruction. It is also much more conservative than Cal, and the students tend to come from a higher economic base--many come from very wealthy, conservative Catholic families. I do know people who are not Catholic that have been very happy there, however--and I really feel that there is no discrimination against those who are not. I have been told that the dorms all have chapels where mass is said each morning, but I don't know if this is true. It is also in a very quiet are of the country in a very small city where most of the activities are on campus. Cal is, of course, Cal--lots of diversity--ethnic, economic religious, political, racial--it is in a busy city in a busy area of the country--lots to see and do both on and off campus. You have to decide which environment you would be most happy in--there are benefits to both--and there is a big difference.</p>
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since if you find that pre-med is not your thing, it's much more difficult to experiment with classes/majors at berkeley than at notre dame simply due to the fact that it has to cater to the needs of so many more students and will thus make fewer special exceptions.
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<p>That definitely isn't true. While I do think ND would probably be the better option for pre-med--simply because Berkeley is a harder school, in terms of rigor, grade deflation, and competition--it would not be a "better" option if the OP decides he does not want to do pre-med. Berkeley does not require its students to declare their majors until the end of their sophomore year, and encourages broad exploration of courses, majors, and programs. L&S even has a 14-course "core" (with the university requirements, reading/composition requirement, breadth requirements, etc.). Switching between schools will generally be easy, with the exception of engineering, which is selective. Berkeley offers some 3,500 courses for its undergrads (and another 3,500 courses for grads, which advanced undergrads can have access to), and top departments in virtually every discipline. In the last NRC ranking, Berkeley was at #1 for breadth and depth of study, with more top-10 departments than any school, and ten #1 departments. US News ranked Berkeley in the top 10 in all its disciplines ranked. Gourman's undergrad rankings and THES discipline rankings support this. So you know that no matter what area you plan to study (and Berkeley's known for its breadth--some 330 degree programs offered, I believe), you'll be studying in a top department (with top faculty, top grad students, top research and facilities, top peers, etc.). In that sense, Berkeley has the advantage.</p>
<p>However, if pre-med is the focus, then ND has the obvious advantage. Of course, if cost isn't an issue, you should definitely just choose the one you like more. Many intended pre-meds end up choosing not to do pre-med at all (which happens not just at Berkeley), and if you really do want to do pre-med, you can get through all the difficulty.</p>
<p>And no, this isn't a plug for Berkeley. :)</p>
<p>There must be some sort of quota at MMS for Notre Dame students.</p>