<p>I definitely want to do premed. and be a doctor. PLME sounds like an easy ticket. MIT sounds hard to get a sufficient GPA for med. school. Yet doesn’t MIT have better science than Brown? Also, is Brown’s med. school pretty good? Any comments or opinions would be greatly appreciated!</p>
<p>Personally Brown is my number one primarily due to it's strength in neuroscience (which is one of my planned majors, the other being biophysics). I'm pretty sure MIT isn't as strong in neuroscience as Brown haha. I've heard both that Brown's med school is great and not so great, mainly that it's definately good, but not the end-all med school.
I myself want to be a doctor as well, and so I personally chose to stay away from MIT due to focus of the education there. But I think whether you go to Brown or MIT, you'd be prepared for the MCAT and admissions. That's only my opinion of course...heh</p>
<p>my cousin and his wife, both doctors doing their residencies at top universities both agree that getting into brown PLME means pretty much being set for life. getting an MD from brown means you'll match anywhere for your residency and providence is less than intense than oh say, NYC, where residencies can be a bit overwhelming.</p>
<p>Brown has a good medical school, but getting in hardly means you will match anywhere. </p>
<p>MIT is a better place if you want to do science all the time, and little or nothing else. Especially in the hard sciences, the opportunities are greater. However, for premedical studies, Brown offers a far wider range of courses and classmates. the trade off is fewer world class scientists, but closer interaction with professors. </p>
<p>If you are accepted to PLME, you do have the option of applying to other medical schools.</p>
<p>I am in the same situation. I know I want to become a doctor for sure and I have been accepted to PLME. But I was also accepted to my dream school, Stanford University. It will definitely be a hard decision. </p>
<p>For MIT, I think it depends on what exactly you want to study undergrad. Brown and MIT are strong in different departments, so maybe you can decide based on that.</p>
<p>FYI, Brown Medical School is ranked 15th in primary care and 38th in research.</p>
<p>Does anyone have any thought regarding PLME vs. Stanford?</p>
<p>"I'm pretty sure MIT isn't as strong in neuroscience as Brown haha"</p>
<p>Now, I love Brown neuroscience, largely because I will be graduating with a degree from that department, but this probably is not true; MIT is a very, very important leader in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science.</p>
<p>I know a current freshman at Brown who chose Brown/PLME over MIT last spring. If you'd like I can put you in touch with her - just so you can compare notes with someone who was in the same situation.</p>
<p>Send me an email.</p>
<p>the Brown PLME seems to be a very strong draw. it's the most selective undergraduate program in the country and the only one that wins more cross admits with Harvard than it loses. of those accepted to stanford, yale, and MIT, the PLME usually wins more than 80%, and it's close to 100% for all other schools.</p>
<p>most prospective plme's have very difficult decisions to make (i chose brown over yale)--particularly because you are seemingly planning for the next 8 years of your life. still, it is comforting to know that most of the students you are with made similar choices</p>
<p>dcircle, do you mind if I ask you where you got those facts/statistics from? I think that's really interesting....</p>
<p>Depends on HOW sure you are about medicine (the surer, the stronger the PLME draw), and HOW sure you are about your dream school. </p>
<p>If you got into Brown PLME and into Stanford, it is pretty safe to assume you will do well enough in college and on MCAT (sort of a grown up version of the SAT I and SAT II's) to get into medical school. So, although med school acceptance is assured with PLME, you are really not taking much risk by going to Stanford and doing a regular premed. In other words, there is not that much at stake. You can major in whatever you want, and change your mind about medicine, at either place. You will be a very strong medical school candidate from either place, with a definite place at Brown from PLME.</p>
<p>I suggest you put premed aside and ask where you want to go to college. East vs West coast, Providence vs Palo Alto, relative size of undergraduate population to overall student body, weather, sports, those sort of things. This will be an important four years of your life, and you cannot possibly go wrong at either university.</p>
<p>Congratulations.</p>
<p>the stats aren't published or advertised, but are calculated each year by the admissions office </p>
<p>two plme students from each med school class participate in the admissions process each year and are given the opportunity to review applications as well as this type of data. as a result, it's common knownedge amongst most PLME's</p>
<p>argus: can you give me the contact info. of the Brown freshman who chose PLME over MIT? Thanks!</p>
<p>I heard getting into med school is extremely tough, and since anything could happen while you're in college, guaranteed admission to Brown's medical school sounds like a GREAT deal!</p>
<p>i got PLME and am also trying to decide.</p>
<p>while afan's right that plme's will do probably do well in college and on the MCATS...to me the question is, do we really WANT to go through all of that if we are lucky enough to avoid it?? or is that being lazy? I try to think of it as not lazy but allowing ourselves to pursue even more in college that we wouldn't be able to if we were constantly worrying about keeping up that gpa and doing well on MCATs.</p>
<p>If anyone has more input on whether Brown's medical school is really all that great, I'd like to know that too.</p>
<p>If you do PLME, you should tak ethe full premed requirments anyway. If you decide you want to go to medical school somewhere else, you will need them, and they are useful in their own right. So you would not be avoiding the course work, just the application process. The MCAT's are certainly worth avoiding, as is the pressure and expense of applying. However, if you are in PLME, as well as places like Stanford or MIT, you are a very safe bet to get into medical school.</p>
<p>On the other hand, MIT may not be such a good place to be a premed. Sakky will give you the details, but MIT students do not have nearly as favorable results in the medical school applications as you would expect for students of their character. Sakky blames this on the difficulty of getting high GPA's, but I don't think that is the problem, since the students admitted to med school from MIT have very high GPA's. I think the issue is the perception that these people, by interest and personality, are better suited to research science or engineering than to clinical medicine. In any case, check out the MIT statistics to see the problem.</p>
<p>the strength of brown med is pretty well summarized here
<a href="http://bms.brown.edu/students/match/%5B/url%5D">http://bms.brown.edu/students/match/</a></p>
<p>i don't know a single 4th year that didn't get one of their top three residency choices</p>
<p>The clear choice here is PLME, for a number of reasons.</p>
<p>well afan, maybe you said it yourself, "since the students admitted to med school from MIT have very high GPA's" -- maybe that's the very reason they were admitted. and since this is such a difficult feat to achieve, it makes it all the more daunting to do premed @ MIT.</p>
<p>and regarding PLME vs. other top schools (whichever they may be)
take PLME and never regret it, lol</p>
<p>why do i say this? i've seen one too many people make the "wrong" decision. my sister got into brown PLME but decided to go to UC Berkeley since it would be near home and much much cheaper ($ was an issue for us). She figured, "if I was really meant to go to med school, I can get in the long way." While in theory that works, going to a school like MIT or Cal or Stanford is going to make it all the more difficult to get that high gpa and get into med school. If med school is the ultimate goal, then PLME. Even if you are kinda shaky, I still recommend Brown since it's a great school for undergrad, you are not losing anything, and after all, PLME is a non-commitment (you can essentially back out after the first 4 years). </p>
<p>Your call, but that's my advice.</p>
<p>Do you think money should be an issue as it was for your sister?</p>
<p>should money be an issue? that's dependant on either your personal financial situation or your financial aid packages. is one school giving you significantly more money? PLME is 40,000+ for 8 years, after all.</p>