<p>I'm going to be a high school senior and I'm looking at colleges to apply to. I want to know the pros and cons of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Columbia for pre-med. Also, how are the research opportunities, internships connections, teacher accessibility, grading systems, MCAT preparation, etc. at these schools. </p>
<p>If you’re premed you shouldn’t care about the school - just go to the place where your GPA will be highest and where you’ll have enough opportunities to interact closely with professors. You’ll need strong rec letters (10 or so of them!) to gloss over any inconsistencies that might befall you during your college years.</p>
<p>I would very quickly rule out Princeton, because of the grade deflation, though you would find many opportunities to work closely with Profs there because of the tiny, tiny grad student population. It is really an undergrad institution. So your rec letters would be very strong (not necessarily positive, but definitely closely observed and well-reported).</p>
<p>Yale, closely followed by Harvard, has the highest grade inflation. By the Yale Newspaper’s reporting, I think a full 20-25% of Yalies get Latin honors, which cuts off at just above 3.9. Its a very easy school. Columbia, which is similarly strict with the percentages for Latin honors, cuts off around 3.75/8, depending on the year and departmental recommendations. </p>
<p>You might also want to consider whether or not you’d like to attend one of these schools for Med School or a residency. Harvard is notorious for its incestuous acceptance of its own undergrads for advanced degrees. But I also think that it reads Yale and Columbia applications very favorably. Yale has a decent, but really mediocre med school, so if you ever want to attend it, you’ll have to do it for undergrad. Columbia has a much finer Med School, but it isn’t well-located…I think it takes 30 minutes to get to the central, Morningside campus (where all of the administrative things happen) and a full hour to get downtown to SoHo, the Village, Union Square. Brooklyn, where you’ll find the things most closely resembling affordability and hipness for your mid to late 20s, lay at unfathomable lengths. Better get a helicopter.</p>
<p>I’m not an expert on med schools, but I did graduate from CU and am currently at H for a PhD…hope this helps.</p>
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<p>No. 30%. The cut-off for cum laude is about 3.8.</p>
<p><a href=“Latin honor cutoffs inch toward 4.0 - Yale Daily News”>http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2013/09/10/latin-honor-cutoffs-inch-toward/</a></p>
<p>OP: Note that Yale has a lower percentage of Math, Physical Science and Engineering majors than Harvard, Princeton, and likely Columbia, which makes it seem more inflated. I’d expect H, Y, and C to be similarly difficult, but P might have (on the whole) tougher Humanities and Social Sciences grading.</p>
<p>Harvard doesn’t have a premed program; I don’t know about the others. I think Brown does.</p>
<p>@compmom, see below : </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.ocs.fas.harvard.edu/students/careers/medicine/premedguide12.pdf”>http://www.ocs.fas.harvard.edu/students/careers/medicine/premedguide12.pdf</a></p>
<p>Harvard does have a pre-med program. </p>
<p>Here’s a more recent (and complete) version of the premed guide:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.ocs.fas.harvard.edu/students/careers/medicine/premedguide13.pdf”>http://www.ocs.fas.harvard.edu/students/careers/medicine/premedguide13.pdf</a></p>
<p>Depends on what someone means by a premed program - a degree or support structure to help students pursue medicine.</p>
<p>Almost every school provides some kind of a framework telling students how to pursue medicine in future which is what these links are for. However, a program would imply a diploma in premedicine which only one or two schools in the nation offer.</p>
<p>Got it. Simple terminology differences. Thanks for the updated link above. All the best of luck to the OP. </p>
<p>compmom is correct that there is no pre-med concentration at Harvard. The links posted above are helpful guides to ensure that you meet the requirements of various med schools, but as the speaker during freshman orientation stated, Harvard has sent students to med school from every one of its 48 concentrations.</p>
<p>Hi there egbdf24, I am so excited for you as you begin this process. I am an alumni of Harvard University and reading your post reminds me of myself when I too, was a high school senior. This is going to be a very magical time for both you and your family. My biggest advice for you is simple: first, you must get in to one of these universities. Good luck!</p>
<p>BTW: stay and school and don’t do drugs.</p>
<p>Here is a quote from the actual link posted:</p>
<p>There is no “premedical program” at Harvard. While it is important
to know and fulfill the necessary requirements for admission to medical school, it is
neither necessary nor preferable to commit yourself at this time to a tightly focused
curriculum directed at pursuing this particular profession.</p>
<p>Here is a link to Brown’s 8 year PLME program: <a href=“Program in Liberal Medical Education | Medical School | Brown University”>Program in Liberal Medical Education | Medical School | Brown University;
<p>@compmom, you are right. My response was based on a terminology mis-match. Apologies. </p>
<p>Understood and no need for apologies. Just trying to get the right info out there.</p>
<p>To the original poster: many high school students have career plans that change during college. A good percentage of them want to be doctors, partly because that is a category of work that is familiar, helpful and prestigious (at least to some extent). </p>
<p>I hope you read the quote from Harvard above. You can major in anything you want. Take advantage of college to explore: too much planning can limit you. And by all means volunteer in the medical area, intern or serve as a research assistant as part of that exploration. You may very well remain dedicated to the goal of becoming an MD, but there are many paths to it. The best doctor I know majored in English.</p>
<p>I hope you do not decide where to apply or where to go based on perceived grading policies. Location, size, curriculum offerings, extracurriculars, cost and “vibe” are good criteria.</p>
<p>Yale reports the highest percentage of undergrads gaining admssion into at least one med school, around 95%. These numbers game the system though in that the Yale undergraduate pre-med committee only recommends the few that have very high GPAs and high MCAT score (without such a rec it isn’t even worth applying to med school) As such, Yale has many fewer admits to med school than Harvard or columbia. Harvard tends to recommend almost all their students who wish to apply to med school. As such, they report a lower med school admit rate than Yale’s around 90%. Columbia, although I do not have the numbers at the top of my head, I believe rank with the other ivies. Around 80-85% accept rate and fairly lenient on recommending students. Princeton I do not know. </p>