<p>I'm thinking of going into med school after college, and I know that USC is a great engineering school. So I was wondering if the premed program there is strong?</p>
<p>Can you be more specific on what you are looking to know?</p>
<p>“Pre-health” is just a set of classes required for matriculation and for preparation for the entrance exam. There isn’t a specific program per say and you can major in anything you please.</p>
<p>The “premed” program at USC is very competitive. You will need to work extremely hard for an A. Those who have a high GPA and MCAT scores, as well as related work or volunteer activities with in the field do very well with Medical School selection as well as their performance one in Medical School.</p>
<p>I am also thinking of pre med at USC, but doing a biomedical engineering major</p>
<p>Oh boy! Am I glad to see this post. If only I had come on here and done the same when I was in your place…
Now I can share my experience with you.</p>
<p>I’m a junior, biology major at USC, premed. I got a 31 on the ACT and pretty much got all 5’s and a few 4’s on AP exams… I got into all of the UC’s (including Berkeley and UCLA), USC, and Northeastern. I knew from the start my ultimate-goal was to become a doctor, so I chose USC because back then, I though:
“Oh, the curves at Berkeley and UCLA would kill me. I better go to USC because its the next best thing and being a private school, surely they’ve got to be a little more generous with the curve and grade distribution… and that’s what I need… a high GPA from a decent school in order to get me to medschool… and USC has a some sort of a social life. sounds perfect.”
In addition, I got enough financial aid at USC to match what I’d pay at a UC. A no brainer, right?</p>
<p>Well, let me tell you… Talk about grade deflation.
The small, tiny tiny detail I overlooked when picking my college, was that being a private school, USC kind of weeds out the “riff-raff”, where as public (California) universities of supposedly the same caliber do it to a lesser extent (this makes the curves a little easier). As a result, the science classes are extremely competitive here. They told us something the first day of Bio120 (the intro bio class) that stuck with me and is absolutely true. They told us to look to our right, look to our left, introduce ourselves, and that out of our group of 3, only 1 would actually stick with premed til graduation. I think I have one or two friends that are still premed… The vast majority have dropped. I’ve seen several friends’ exams from the equivalent classes at Berkeley, UCLA, and lower tier UC’s… The exams here are designed to be a notch harder. Our exams are mostly all free-response and with the exception of a few classes, they don’t test from the book. They expect everyone to know the book back and forth, and they’ll throw new application-type questions at you that you’ve never seen before. Now I’m just rambling, but long story short:
-premed here is TOUGH
-people here are damn smart, and the curves will be very challenging, and are meant to weed people out
-know what you’re getting yourself into
-expect to work a little harder for your gpa</p>
<p>With all that said, USC’s average MCAT scores are perhaps a bit higher than other schools… but still… if I had gone to UC Irvine or UCSC or a similar school and put the same amount of effort I put in here, I would have had a better gpa. I’m not saying its “easy” at other schools-- not by any means, and premed is hard anywhere… But I’m comfortable saying it’s a notch harder at USC than at other public schools of this caliber. I’m not trying to show off or brag about my school, I’m trying to advise incoming premeds of what I wish someone had told me.</p>
<p>And lets face it… if you’re premed, undergrad doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t matter that you have a “X University” label on your degree. It matters that you get a good gpa and are able to do well on the MCATs so you can get into medschool. Admissions officers don’t care if you came from USC or UC Merced. If you have a 3.2 from USC and Mr.Merced has a 3.8, guess who’s getting in (assuming similar MCATs)? Plus if you don’t have financial aid, youd pay a fraction of the cost elsewhere.</p>
<p>Make your decision wisely, and good luck! study hard!</p>
<p>EDIT: PS, if your major is BME, its a little harder even.</p>
<p>newsflash: premed is a tough road anywhere. There are no shortcuts.
It is true that a student will likely have to work that much harder for an A if they have standardized test scores in the middle 50% of their peers. I would not suggest, however, that college applicants who are potential premeds aim at colleges for which they are clearly overqualified. A possible exception is an offer of a substantial merit scholarship along with special classes or research opportunities. Best bet is to find the right match where the student will be happy and productive</p>
<p>^^goodparent.</p>
<p>Interesting post ekar18061, thanks for taking the time to post and good luck!</p>
<p>Will USC pre-med program give a good advice and better chance in research to their students ?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Do you mean like finding research? I’m pretty sure they’re gonna steer you in the direction of essentially telling you to read the summary of various professor’s work, find one you’re interested in and email them about asking to join their lab. Then they’ll say here is the list of research grants you can apply to to get funding and/or Directed Research as a class. The are plenty of opportunities but you have to seek them out for the most part.</p>
<p>Since USC is a good graduate school, there could be a competition on the research funds between undergraduate and graduate students. Do they assign research grants enough for undergraduate students especially for pre-med students ?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Graduate students are on a whole different level when it comes to things like this so I wouldn’t worry about that at all. Here is a list of undergraduate funding opportunities that almost anyone can apply to (some obviously have certain requirements. However, most people start on a volunteer or work study basis and then after having some footing, then apply for compensation in the form of grants or scholarships. </p>
<p>[Research</a> & Discovery | Undergraduate Education](<a href=“http://undergrad.usc.edu/research/]Research”>Research & Discovery - Undergraduate Education)</p>
<p>WarChant, Thanks for the info.</p>
<p>Lots of great input already in this thread, and I just wanted to chip in my own thoughts/experience with being premed at USC. USC prides itself in enabling close interaction between faculty and students. Research opportunities are abundant and there are a couple of undergrad funding grants that you can apply for every semester. The Pre-Health Advisement Office led by Dr. Kenneth Geller works really hard to make sure every premed student is informed, well-prepared and successful as a med school applicant. They put on events and workshops covering a wide array of relevant pre-health topics almost every week. Premed is tough at every school and a competitive GPA is not guaranteed by any means, but USC treats your education seriously and you really do gain a lot here if you’re willing to work hard.</p>
<p>Is there any requirement to stay in pre-med program ?</p>
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</p>
<p>Pre-med or in broader terms, pre-health is merely the set of classes required for admission and subjects tested on the entrance exam (MCAT, DAT, PCAT, OAT, etc.), there is no actual program. However, people do “drop out” per say after doing poorly in the intro or weeder classes and change their major or pursue different career goals.</p>
<p>Hello ekar18061:</p>
<p>Do you have any data on how many USC students get into UC or top 20 medical schools in the last 2 years?
Any stats like average GPA and MCAT for those schools?
Thanks.</p>