Pre-med advising at Wash U/Case Western/Vanderbilt/Davidson/Creighton/Tulane

College Search & Selection
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My son wants to major in Biochemistry/Chemistry with a minor in English or Math while on the pre-med track. We are looking at schools with good “hand-holding” throughout the whole medical school process. I have a few questions concerning pre-med advising at the schools listed on the discussion title:

  1. Are students assigned a personal pre-med advisor that will get to know them during their undergraduate years?

  2. Do these schools have a committee that writes a cover letter for you, or do students have to get their own recommendations from the professors?

  3. Following up on #2, do these committees hold interviews to gauge the readiness of a medical school applicant?

  4. How strong are Davidson, Creighton, and Tulane in Biochemistry/chemistry?

My son is looking for collaborative environment, especially in a competitive and grueling track. Advice from current/past students or parents is appreciated. Thank you!

2

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good “hand-holding” throughout the whole medical school process.
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Well, few schools, if any, do a lot of premed “hand-holding” thoughout the entire 4 years of undergrad and this is why:

PreHealth advising offices generally serve all the premeds, predental, prevet, etc, students. The offices usually only have maybe 2-5 staff members (and many only have 1-3).

Every new school year, a school has a very large number of incoming freshmen claiming to be premed (or preXXX). By the time the first semester ends, a bunch have been weeded out because of modest/low Bio I and GenChem I grades. By the end of freshman year, a bunch more have weeded out. After sophomore year and the Ochem classes, a bunch more have been weeded out.

Schools generally have to efficiently direct their very limited pre-health advising resources to the juniors and seniors. These are generally the students who’ve gotten thru those first two years with GPAs that are professional-school worthy. Of course, there may be a bit more weeding after some of those juniors take the MCAT.

If a school has a large number of premed/dental/vet/etc students applying each year, then the resources are going to be directed to those students.

Just to give you an idea, I looked to see how many med school applicants of some of these schools have EACH YEAR:

Wash U …393
Vandy…280
Tulane…224
Case…196

and this is after all that weeding that went on during the first 2-3 years! So, you can imagine that each of these schools is going to have to direct their limited premed attention towards the 400-800 juniors and seniors they have that are the most likely going to applying to med school. (Plus the predental, etc students)

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Do these schools have a committee that writes a cover letter for you, or do students have to get their own recommendations from the professors?


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If a school writes Committee Letters, then the student STILL has to get their own 4-5 prof recommendations. The CL is not in lieu of getting LORs. The LORs are forwarded to the advising office, the advising office then usually holds the Committee Interview with the applicant, and then the Committee takes the LORs and their feelings from the Interview to write the Committee Letter. The CL typically sits on top of the LORs and gets sent to AMCAS.

Go to each school’s premed advising website to see if they write CLs.


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Following up on #2, do these committees hold interviews to gauge the readiness of a medical school applicant?

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Typically, the Committee will (or should!) tell the applicant whether they are ready (or not ready) to apply. Some schools will refuse to write a CL for an applicant who isn’t ready. Some schools will write for every applicant, but obviously the strength of the Letter will be affected by the strength of the applicant.

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  1. Are students assigned a personal pre-med advisor that will get to know them during their undergraduate years?
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Maybe a few schools do this, but I’ve never heard of this. Often the “newer premed advisers” are assigned to the Frosh/soph students, and again, not a whole lot of hand-holding is done.

Usually, the most seasoned premed adviser(s) is/are assigned to the juniors and seniors.

word of caution…I don’t think any school is really doing serious hand-holding, nor should they be. There is a certain expectation that a student demonstrates maturity and ability to survive med school because he/she did NOT need their hand held. Someone who needs their hand-held for 4 years probably wouldn’t do well in med school.

That said, I would highly advise any premed or parent of premed to take advantage of the info in the CC premed forums and for the student to join their undergrad’s premed honor society.

…Even JHU mentions on their website that a number of their premeds (and their families) don’t listen to their advice and do what they want anyway. Lol.

5

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4) How strong are Davidson, Creighton, and Tulane in Biochemistry/chemistry?

My son is looking for collaborative environment, especially in a competitive and grueling track. Advice from current/past students or parents is appreciated. Thank you!
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All of those schools are certainly strong enough for any premed. Med school doesn’t require the level or quality of science courses that - say - a PhD student would want to prepare for grad school. (And those schools are fine for grad school applicants as well).

As for competition…

Any undergrad that has a lot of premeds, particularly if many are from "unlucky states,’ will likely have a competitive atmosphere.

Less than 50% of MD med school applicants get accepted. That stat is scary, along with the knowledge that so many Frosh/soph premeds get weeded out and never get to the point of applying!

(Mother of a 4th year med student)

6

I’m not seeing how many Creighton students apply to med school each year, but it may be safe be similar to SLU, since they’re both Jesuit univs with med schools.

SLU has about 195 med school applicants each year.

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Thank you @mom2collegekids for taking the time to answer my questions.

8

WUSTL has what, 1500 graduates per year (including engineering and business majors)?
So 393 med school applicants would be a fairly large percentage of the graduating class.
They claim a 78% acceptance rate for WU arts & science applicants.
(https://prehealth.wustl.edu/Documents/Handbook2017Online.pdf)

How much true weeding out is there?
Some students simply change their minds. I wonder how many premeds schools like WUSTL and Vanderbilt admit who can’t handle organic chemistry. Maybe a student good enough to get in should be more concerned about net cost than either advising or weed-out?