<p>Is pre-med at Cornell as cutthroat as they say? Is S better off at say, Binghamton where he has a btetter chance of getting a higher GPA?</p>
<p>Pre-med is not cutthroat at Cornell, but it is definitely challenging. In my opinion, if acceptance to Cornell is a high reach for your son and he gets admitted, I wouldn’t do pre-med at Cornell. It is better to go to BU and get a 3.8 than a 3.0 at Cornell. However, if your son is very intelligent and can get above a 3.7 at Cornell, it would be much better to attend Cornell. </p>
<p>One thing that you should really consider is that your son may change his mind about pre-med. In that case, Cornell would be a much better option.</p>
<p>Thanks for the insight. I think Cornell is a reach but not a high reach. SATs 1400, gpa 95/100. I heard about the curves in the pre-med classes and when he visited, current students shook their heads when he told them he planned on pre-med. as far as changing his mind about pre-med, it’s been a lifelong dream so unless he doesn’t get accepted into a med school, that’s not changing. With his stats, do u think he can make it? What gpa does he need to maintain to be accepted into a US mes school? (Of course witha decent mcat).</p>
<p>I have heard of cases of people transferring out of Cornell because of lower GPA. I don’t know if it is much harder at Cornell or a case of Cornell being a reach in the first place or a combination of both.</p>
<p>On the other side, I have had a premed in first semester tell me it is not that hard and the kid was planning to major in three different areas. :p</p>
<p>check out the accepted/applied stats at Cornell:
[Cornell</a> Career Services: Applied/Accepted Charts](<a href=“Medical and Health Careers | Student & Campus Life | Cornell University”>Medical and Health Careers | Student & Campus Life | Cornell University)</p>
<p>the premed classes are hard, but clearly you do not need to have a perfect GPA to go to medical school.
I was a biology major and knew plenty of people who started out premeds. some of them are now in med school, or are solidly on that track, while others simply couldn’t do the work and have changed their career plans. I would advise people that while I really love Cornell, I think it’s a bit risky to come here if you’re very set on becoming a doctor.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Not at all. 3.5+ is easily attainable if you put in the work. 3.7+ is manageable and 4.0+ is difficult but still doable.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No, unless he’s going to get 3.0 or below here.</p>
<p>A 3.0 is disastrous for medical school admissions, and will severely limit your chances. Try to get 3.6+ to be in decent shape. Your son needs to gauge his abilities and talk to some current pre-meds. An undergraduate GPA is very important for medical school…even if he goes on and does a post-grad program later on. </p>
<p>Medical schools barely take into account the prestige of the institution or rigor. Getting a good GPA is the most important thing, no matter where you come from. Now I am not saying your son isn’t smart, and it definitely is manageable to get great grades at Cornell I am sure.</p>
<p>If your son has excelled in his science classes in high school, has good study skills (see here if he doesn’t: [How</a> to Become a Straight-A Student: The Unconventional Strategies Real College Students Use to Score High While Studying Less: Cal Newport: 9780767922715: Amazon.com: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/How-Become-Straight-A-Student-Unconventional/dp/0767922719/]How”>http://www.amazon.com/How-Become-Straight-A-Student-Unconventional/dp/0767922719/)), and plans on working very hard in college, a 3.5+ is easily attainable at Cornell. Premeds at Cornell are not competitive / cutthroat - also, most of them eventually find out a way to balance work / fun (they just tend to work a bit harder than the average student).</p>
<p>Insanemom, I had basically the same stats as your son when I graduated from high school. I graduated from Cornell with above a 4.0. Premed is not easy, but it’s not cutthroat. If your son puts in the time (and if going to medical school is really a life-long dream, as you say, I’m sure he will), it’s definitely possible to do really well. The classes are challenging but manageable. They should be challenging, though, because the point is to prepare for medical school. On that note, I guarantee you that Cornell will set your son up wonderfully for success in medical school (I’ve found my first year to be pretty easy after being premed at Cornell).</p>
<p>Also, many of my friends at Cornell were premed, and many of them are at top medical schools now. We all worked hard, but we all also managed to have a great time in college :). I wouldn’t change a thing about my experience.</p>
<p>It’s very difficult to be premed at Cornell. The acceptance rate of cornell premeds into allopathic medical schools is pretty bad in comparison to other ivies. The website will say like 66% it’s actually lower than that. The premed advising here is pretty horrible also. There was also 1 year of not having a premed director because Judy left, they just got a new one recently. </p>
<p>To get into a good medical school you’re gonna need high gpa 3.6+ and high MCAT. Going to an easier school will probably take less time to do well in courses and thus leave more time for MCAT studying/research/ECs. Highly motivated and talented students will excel no matter what, but I will say going to a harder school will make the ride a lot rougher. You’ll definitely be sacrificing time in other aspects of your life to do well at Cornell. It will probably be more stressful. </p>
<p>The advantages of going to cornell: Competitive environment can serve to motivate your son. Prestige (not that it matters a whole lot), life long connections with highly driven people, and opportunities to do a lot more academically. </p>
<p>Getting leadership/ extracurriculars you want are difficult since there are so many kids. For example, I have research experience from high school and I applied to about 40 labs that I wanted to research in and I got into 0 of them. I also applied to CUEMS many times and even went as far as getting EMT-B certified and still didn’t get accepted. </p>
<p>I advise your son to look into more than just the premed aspect of Cornell. The atmosphere/location plays a huge role. I didn’t realize how tired I’d get with the weather/my surroundings. The social life is pretty lame unless you’re in a fraternity.</p>
<p>This conversation is making me reconsider going to cornell for a premed major</p>
<p>Sounds like ap1234 has just personally had bad experiences. His experiences, though, aren’t typical. By the way, Cornell’s med school school acceptance rate is really high compared to most other schools. According to HCEC, “Seventy-four percent of those Cornellians with a GPA of 3.4 or better were accepted to medical school in 2010.” It’s really hard to get into med school with anything lower than a 3.6 (and that’s not so easy either), so the fact that nearly 3/4 of students with a GPA of 3.4+ were accepted is really impressive. If you have good grades from Cornell (3.7+, which is absolutely manageable), you’ll almost definitely get into med school. As a premed, I knew a lot of other people applying to med schools. I don’t know a single person that didn’t get in. Moreover, I only know a few people that didn’t get into highly ranked and well known med schools (but even they got in somewhere).</p>
<p>@qwer0987 are you a premed student @ cornell??</p>
<p>I was. Graduated in 2012, now I’m a first year med student.</p>
<p>I think there are many pros/cons to being premed at Cornell. Although there are obviously some negatives such as the more challenging workload, Cornell also offers many amazing academic opportunities and a stellar community, which might not be available at another smaller institution. Although it will certainly be difficult (what isn’t these days), succeeding as a premed is certainly doable at Cornell. Although I wasn’t a premed, I had several premed friends who all eventually ended up getting acceptances into med school.</p>
<p>Wow, to all the above who responded to my question, thanks!! Except I think, no I know, lol, that I’m more confused then ever! Anyone else who wants to add to this discussion, welcome. I’m hoping this continues to be a question after march 28th at 5PM!!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Experiences like this aren’t typical. I had no research experience or certifications of any kind, and I still got a research position with literally the first professor I asked (in the biology field). If you go talk to the professor in person, they will usually hear you out, as opposed to email where they might not even read it and usually don’t reply. Some labs don’t take freshmen or even sophomores, but many do. Just go talk to the professor. It helps if you already know them (especially if you took a class of theirs and did well), or if you get the chance to talk to them beforehand at something like a CURB (Cornell Undergraduate Research Board) dinner, but even if not, it’s not that hard to find something. Many of the professors don’t even ask for a GPA, so it’s not as though I had an advantage other people did not.</p>
<p>I agree with Zenzic. Emailing can be hard because most professors are busy, but speaking with them should do the trick. Also, you have to realize that there are tons of professors at Cornell doing research in the sciences. I don’t know of anyone who wanted to do research and wasn’t able to. You might not get to do the exact type of research you want, but for medical school admissions purposes, it doesn’t matter. Medical schools understand that you’re limited as an undergraduate in terms of which lab you get into, and in terms of what projects you’re placed on within a lab. In other words, one type of research that’s more directly related to human medicine is not necessarily better than research in basic science that’s more peripherally related. My undergraduate research wasn’t related to medicine at all, but I got asked a lot about it in all of my interviews. My interviewers thought it was really interesting, and I think it really strengthened my application.</p>
<p>Inferior is a subjective term. If Hofstra is able to support the student’s aspiration of becoming a doctor better than Cornell, then Hofstra would be the better school for him. But you do make a good point in terms of back up.</p>
<p>The GPA game is very very important for medical school admissions, and though they MAY take sligh rigor/school into account, don’t expect a major difference. a 3.75 from Hofstra vs a 3.7 from Cornell is comparable. But a .1+ difference in GPA is too big to be balanced by school name. It’s the truth; same thing for different majors as well. It’s a numbers game.</p>
<p>If I was in your sons position, I would go to Cornell. I know my work ethic and abilities; I would work my but off for that 3.7+. I’m sure your son can do the same, but it’s totally up to how confident he is in himself as a student (especially a science student). He’s not at any inherent advantage at Cornell though; if he is a hard working kid then he can get into medical school no matter what undergrad he comes from!</p>
<p>There are pros and cons to cornell premed. I remember when I was on this forum last year trying to figure out if cornell was the right premed school. Just know this: Cornell can work to your advantage in the admission games and to your disadvantage. There are kids here that do well and get in to top med schools and kids that don’t get in anywhere. For the kids that don’t get in anywhere I really do think if they went to another school they would’ve had a better chance. For the kids that got into top med schools, they probably would’ve gotten at least accepted into a medical school if they had gone elsewhere.</p>
<p>All in all its riskier to come to cornell and try premed if you are not sure of yourself. It can be a challenge. My final suggestion is this: If you want to get into any medical school (at least 1) you can do this from any college. If you really want to get into top medical schools/have rigorous academic preparation/cutting edge research/ be in a competitive environment/ go to cornell. But I assure you, you won’t be at any significant disadvantage if you didn’t go. My biggest complaint is that here at cornell I have to work a lot harder than I would have at another school for the same end goal:medical school acceptance. Yeah I definitely challenged myself and learned a lot, but other aspects of my life had to take the backseat because of this. </p>
<p>I’m also an engineer. I usually take 17-20 credits a semester so I’m bogged down with a lot of coursework. And I should clarify the 40 research positions I applied to were all in BME. The only place I have interest in researching. I imagine if I wanted to do some uninteresting research in the nutritional sciences department or some biology lab it wouldn’t be as difficult considering there are more of these labs. </p>
<p>One final note don’t be fooled by people on CC saying its easy to get 3.7 + gpas. It’s certainly not in engineering and it is still difficult as a bio engineering. A science gpa of 3.7 can be difficult at Cornell. I recently received some national society collegiate scholars letter and it said less than 10% of students at cornell are nominated for membership and the only membership requirement was a 3.4 GPA. I don’t know how accurate this letter was but that means a huge chunk of kids have less than 3.4 GPA. The median in most premed classes are Bs, which equate to a 3.0. Which is a pretty bad for medical school. What this means is that you have to be doing better than 50% of the cornell premeds to get over a 3.0 GPA in your premed science class ( intro bio, chem, physics, orgo). Just something to keep in mind. If your high school GPA and standardized test scores are better than the median you can consider yourself in the top 50% of cornell’s class. How accurate is this? Who knows, but if you are in the bottom 50% you should expect a tougher battle and maybe even choosing an easier school for premed or risk getting Bs at cornell or even lower. Hope this helps.</p>