<p>I'm a High School Junior and have me eyes set on a career in medicine. UChicago is definitely one of the universities I'd love to attend. </p>
<p>Does anyone know what pre-med at Chicago is like? Is it harder, easier, than other universities of UChicago's standards/prestige? Also what about grade inflation/defaltion, what classes are like, and if it is hard to maintain a high (>3.7 GPA)?</p>
<p>Thank you!</p>
<p>The short answer is, unfortunately - no one seems to know. UChicago hasn’t released any data that speaks to its med school placement prowess (or lack thereof). Anecdotal posts from current UChicago students indicate that pre med seems do-able, but there doesn’t really seem to be any accessible hard data out there vis a vis UChicago’s closest peers (i.e. Columbia, Duke, etc.).</p>
<p>But would you know about their advising and class difficulty or size? </p>
<p>Thank you though</p>
<p>What we do know is that there aren’t many pre-meds here relative to other schools. Compare graduate data from Penn that’s been floating around a lot lately with the numbers from UChicago CAPS:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/undergrad/reports/Class2011CareerPlans.pdf[/url]”>http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/undergrad/reports/Class2011CareerPlans.pdf</a>
<a href=“Home | CareerAdv”>Home | CareerAdv;
<p>While 25% of the Penn class of 2011 who went on to graduate school went to MD programs, this was true for only 12% of graduate school-bound students in the 2011 UChicago class. It depends on the schools you’re considering along with UChicago, but generally more “pre-professional” schools like Penn and Duke will have a lot of pre-meds, and the more “intellectual” schools will have less. I’m not saying one is better than the other, it’s just something you should keep in mind. I’ve spent some time at Penn and the pre-med culture there is very different. You have a lot of time to find out what you want, though. Don’t worry about it too much now, and stay open to new paths/ideas.</p>
<p>Dunbar:</p>
<p>That’s a great point. Out of Penn’s Class of 2011 heading straight to some sort of grad school, nearly 50% go into med, law, or business training. (As you note, 25% go straight to medicine).</p>
<p>Interestingly, at UChicago, only 12% of the Class of 2011 heading to grad school go to med school. Further, for UChicago’s class of 2010 and 2009, even FEWER students headed straight to med school (10% for '10, and a remarkably low 5% - 5%! - for '09). </p>
<p>Moreover, the academic slant can be seen for UChicago students - every year, about half the students heading to grad school go to PhD programs or masters programs. While the Penn numbers are vague, it seems as if significantly fewer students are entered phd or masters programs straight out of college.</p>
<p>Finally, dunbar, you mentioned that the pre-med culture at Penn is very different from the one at UChicago. What do you mean by this?</p>
<p>There was actually another thread on this somewhere in this section. Indications point to UChicago not being one of the better ones for pre-med because it is known for a degree of grade-deflation. While getting into med school is certainly do-able from Chicago, it’s not an easy ride.</p>