<p>Which would be better for pre-med and getting into med school? Penn or MIT
Thanks</p>
<p>The school that can provide you with a better opportunity to achieve a high GPA (at least 3.5) and a high MCAT score (at least 30) will be better for pre-med and getting into med school.</p>
<p>If you are looking for the more rigorous school, I believe MIT is probably harder and might prepare you better (by about 0.1%) for medical school.</p>
<p>I'd say Penn.</p>
<p>I would vote for Penn because it's easier. </p>
<p>Don't get me wrong. If you think you're strong enough to get top grades at MIT, then I would choose MIT in a heartbeat. MIT is a better school than Penn. The question is, do you really think you're strong enough?</p>
<p>I got into Penn and MIT and I'm going to be a premed at MIT. My rationale was: a) research opportunities kick ass at MIT. b) right down the street from one of the best med schools - networking is pretty easy in cambridge.</p>
<p>but if you're not up to the rigor of MIT, which i decided was something I'd like to undertake, than penn is probably your better option.</p>
<p>I could go with your part (a) rationale. </p>
<p>It's your part (b) rationale that I find shaky. This isn't business-school we're talking about here. Networking is not a major part of either the medical student lifestyle or in med-school admissions. </p>
<p>Furthermore, I wouldn't really say that Harvard Medical is right down the street from MIT - unless we're talking about a really really long street. This is not like taking the T-line 2 stops on the Red Line from Kendall to Harvard Square. This is Harvard Medical School we're talking about, which is in a completely different part of town from the rest of Harvard. You either take the Red Line downtown and then transfer to the Green Line. Or I suppose you could take the CT2 bus from Kendall. Either that, or you will have to drive (which means you need a car, which means you have to put up with all the hassles of owning a car in Cambridge). Any way you cut it, this is not exactly a trivial jaunt.</p>
<p>It's in the same general place. It's closer there than if I went anywhere else. No matter what you say, networking can always help - the field you go into does not matter. There is no doubt about that. If you know people, it's much easier to get jobs/internships in the right places.</p>
<p>Well, I still maintain that it's a pretty weak reason to go to MIT just because Harvard Medical is in the vicinity. There are far more reasons for choosing a particular school than just because a particular med-school happens to be in town. After all, the long distance and consequent lack of networking doesn't seem to have hurt all those other premeds from far-away places who got into Harvard Med. </p>
<p>For example, in the latest year where information is available, 13% of MIT premeds who applied to Harvard Medical got in, compared to 15% of Princeton premeds who applied to Harvard Medical who got in. It seems to me that Princeton premeds didn't get hurt too badly by distance between Princeton and Harvard Medical. </p>
<p><a href="http://web.mit.edu/career/www/preprof/04acceptancedata.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://web.mit.edu/career/www/preprof/04acceptancedata.pdf</a>
<a href="http://web.princeton.edu/sites/hpa/2004.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://web.princeton.edu/sites/hpa/2004.pdf</a></p>