I’m looking to pursue pre-med for undergraduate in Uni, and I’d really appreciate it if someone could explain how pursuing it works at UChicago. Which school do I apply to and what courses should I be pursuing? Is UChic even a good place to study pre-med? What’s special about it?
Hi! If you plan on pursuing premed at chicago you don’t apply to a specific school, the college is liberal arts so all undergraduate applicants simply apply to the college. Because of this, there is no “premed” major, most premeds are bio majors on a premed track, which basically means you take the classes for a bio major + whatever you need for med school. It’s a lot of work, and most students start their first year. Chicago is an excellent place for premed because you’re going to graduate with an excellent liberal arts eduction and an excellent premed education, and grad schools know how hard they work us here at the college. It is one of the most academically rigorous colleges you can attend (if not the most rigorous), and grad schools know this. Doing well here says way more about your work ethic and ambition than doing well at comparable institutions does.
^ I know UChicago is a great institution but saying it is a great place for pre-med is a bit disingenuous no? Med schools will look at your application very objectively, valuing a higher GPA over all else. In this regard UChicago may be a disadvantage with its rigorous academics and relatively low average GPA.
^ I’m not premed but my understanding, based on what I’ve been told as an undergrad applying to law school, is that grad schools as a whole know that uchicago students will generally have lower GPAs because of the rigor, and thus the relatively low gpa becomes less harmful. Also, I know plenty premed 4th years with 3.8+ so it’s entirely possible to have a high GPA as a premed.
^ehhh, I think that might apply more for grad schools if you’re going for a PhD where GPA is, at most, equally important as research, but med schools tend to be pretty explicitly GPA-based. I would definitely take the idea of GPA leeway for uchicago kids with a really large handful of salt.
I know premeds with 3.8+ GPAs, sure, but the premeds I know are generally way more worried about their grades than p much anyone else I’ve met. You can be a premed at uchicago; it’s not necessarily a bad idea, in that our biology department and hospital are of fantastic quality. It just might be better for your peace of mind and emotional stability to do it somewhere that doesn’t curve premed classes like Gen Chem to a B-.
On the less subjective and more concrete side, in answer to your question about how you pursue it: There’s some extra classes that premeds take that a regular bio major wouldn’t; off the top of my head there’s an extra English class, a third quarter of Physics, and at least a few other extra requirements (edit: the full requirements are here: https://bscd.uchicago.edu/content/pre-health-professions). If you’re doing premed and not a bio major, then there’s a sequence of bio classes designed for premeds (described in detail here: http://collegecatalog.uchicago.edu/thecollege/biologicalsciences/#spanpre-medsequencefornonmajorsspan ). Plus you meet with the UCIHP career advisors/plan med school stuff through them; I’ve heard decent things about them, and apparently the career office in general has improved over the past few years.
It is doable in U Chicago, but you have to be at least in the top 40% of the class. It is the same in any other schools as a premed. You need not to be on the top but a 3.6 is achievable. In D’s class, there are few top students were selected for UChicago med school, they took in their own UG graduates more than any other school applicants. Nevertheless, in order to get in ANY med school, you need to keep on top of your grades a 3.6 and an above average MCAT is almost a must .