I’m interested in chemistry and maybe med school. Im looking for a college that is collaborative with good work life balance.
Can you tell me if chem/orgo are terrible weed out courses at WF? Is this a heavy premed school?
Whats the social scene like? I am not interested in any school that’s a grind (JHU, CM).
Not sure I understand the question.
You can ask 10 different students this question at any college and get a variety of responses. I know recent grads from both JHU AND CMU who described their experiences as heavily collaborative, lots of team based projects, and they seem to have had terrific social experiences as well.
Ditto “weed out”. If you have had a strong math track and solid study habits, even orgo can be manageable. if you expect to be able to party every Thursday night and sleep through the TA’s review session Friday morning, you will likely find Orgo a “weed out” course at any college in the US. Weeds out the students who expect to sail through it without breaking a sweat.
What are you actually worried about? In general, colleges with a solid track record of kids getting into Med school have challenging courses BUT strong advising to make sure that you are getting tracked into the right section and fulfilling the med school requirements while also majoring in what you are actually interested in.
Do research on Wake Forest by visiting, attending a class, talking to students, and reading niche reviews, CC and reddit threads.
Orgo is a difficult class no matter where you take it, and it’s difficult regardless of where students at a given school fall on the collaborative to competitive continuum. At WFU you would have some classmates who are extremely focused on getting strong grades and prioritize academics above all else (that will be the case at many schools).
Learn about WFU’s advising and process here: http://prehealth.wfu.edu/ It’s important to note that although it sounds like WFU prehealth advisors write a committee letter to all students applying to med school, they do rank those applicants. You should verify all of this by directly contacting the department (at any school you are considering). Some schools won’t give committee levels to every applicant, meaning they gatekeep who can apply to med school. A med school app with no committee letter from the undergrad school (if it’s a school that does committee letters) is dead in the water. Many schools do offer committee letters to all, and don’t formally rank them, while some schools don’t even do committee letters…choose one of those schools. IMO.
The social scene is dominated by Greek Life. Over half the females are in sororities. So know that going in, and how that may or may not fit with what you want your college experience to be. With that said, students who don’t participate in Greek Life can and do have plenty of social options.
My oldest just graduated from Wake and is in the process of applying to med schools. She did receive a committee letter and told me there were differences in the types of letter (e.g. Very High, High, Recommend, etc.) produced by the committee.
If you like Wake maybe look at William and Mary and Richmond, too. Im mostly familiar with WM as both of mine are there. Great prep for premed. Organic is tough anywhere, though.
As others have said, it depends in the student and the school. In general, at most schools, Orgo (and other premed courses) are on a curve. Ideally, you want to be above the mean/ideally in A- range(which also varies on the school). I know SAT scores are far from perfect, but those and other standardized tests can give you an idea of generally where you fall at a college: for premeds, it makes sense to pick a college where you are definitely in the top half if not the top 25%. Test optional has made this harder to figure out, but if you aced APchem and ap physics and calculus in HS (5 on the test, etc), and are above the median/ close to the 75th% of a school, you should be able to pull out an above-average grade in orgo as long as you put in the work. However, if you got Bs and 3-4s in those APs in HS, then it is best that you find a school where you are significantly above the 75th%ile. There is a Malcolm Gladwell talk on this whole concept of going where you are a relative star, and it really makes sense for premeds.
If you are a 99+%ile scorer without much prep, got easy As and 5s, took every hard class you could and still found high school Stem easy, you will be challenged but will likely succeed at any college—even the most difficult/“cutthroat “-reputation ones in the country (but it still will be harder than HS by a lot).
This topic was automatically closed 180 days after the last reply. If you’d like to reply, please flag the thread for moderator attention.