<p>Hi,</p>
<p>Which of the pre-med programs at each of these schools (rochester, berkeley, ucla, northwestern) is the best? I read somewhere that med schools don't look at college ranking when they select students...is it just better to choose a school that is easier then? Berkeley doesn't have a pre-med program...how does that affect applying to med school? how much do profs recs matter -- would it be worth going to a private school to get to know the profs better? Would UCLA be better than Berkeley because it has a graduate med program and a hospital nearby? What is the acceptance rate to med school from each of these schools: rochester, berkeley, la, northwestern?</p>
<p>what does it ultimately come down to??</p>
<p>thanks for your help.</p>
<p>Go somewhere where you'd be happy to be. The place you went for undergrad doesn't really matter. What does matter is how well you did while you were there. </p>
<p>Pre-med isn't actually a "program" or a major, just a set of classes that fulfills the general med school pre-requisite requirements, so no, going to Berkeley won't hurt you. </p>
<p>Letters of recommendations are very important in that they allow med school admissions to see who you really are and what your personality is like, since the other stuff on your application will largely just be numbers and lists of activities that you did, which might be impressive, but won't actually show what kind of person you are. Because of this, you want to get them from professors or other people who know you pretty well, so going to a private institution could help you there, but as long as you go to office hours and ask insightful questions, you can still get to know the professor at a public school quite well. </p>
<p>UCLA and Cal are both very good schools, and you'll probably find little difference between the two in terms of pre-med stuff. UCLA has a hospital pretty much on campus, so I'd assume it'd be easier to get hospital volunteering there. I remember reading somewhere that UCLA generally sends out the most med school applications than any other US school.</p>
<p>You can find the acceptance rates of these schools at their websites with a quick google. Personally, I'd take the numbers with a grain of salt, though.</p>