<p>My contention is that UChicago never had difficulty attracting premeds in particular. There are enough premeds to go around at all top schools. Jhu taking some cross-admits from uchicago wouldnt have dampened enthusiasm for med school in chicago. Many premeds, though, dropped out because the climate was quite severe. </p>
<p>Back in my day, there was easily enough interest for 10% of the class to go to med school. 10% of my class would have HAPPILY gone to med school, and another 10% on top of that probably would have liked to have gone to med school. I doubt, though, more than 5% actually did. The same probably holds today.</p>
<p>Listen. I go here now. I am Premed. The weeding is not harsh. People do not get weeded at all by admissions reps or counselors at the college I HAVE NEVER HEARD OF THAT EVER HAPPENING in my talks with upper class-men or with my CCIHP advisor and I explicitly asked him if the university does that. Weeding occurs with regard to grades and GPA’s thats it. The kid who gets D’s all year in gen chem gets weeded out by him or herself. There is no administrative push at all.</p>
<p>Students do not have to work with CCIHP to apply for medical school. The 100 number is based on the number of students CCIHP worked with for that admission cycle. This means that about 70 students applied for medical school without working with CCIHP.</p>
<p>^ there is no reason anyone has to work with them. However, it is the responsibility of the center to keep track of who has applied. It is not like they are issuing committee letters.</p>
<p>Yes. CCIHP (the pre-med advising office) issues committee letters. Those who do not work with CCIHP do not even have to notify them. It is entirely voluntary.</p>
<p>No wonder so many people are being unaccounted for because they seem to be doing a bad job of keeping track of applicants. I have heard this about JHU but there are still 300+ people applying and being tracked and only those that are doing badly in the committee process apply from outside.</p>
<p>That’s good to hear the climate has improved. Just from an eyeball test, it’s weird to see that only 5% of any given UChicago class goes to med school. At the same time, according to aamc stats, 170 UChicago students (not 100) apply to medical school. </p>
<p>So, I’m not sure what’s going on, and why the numbers are fuzzy. </p>
<p>On a related note, I wonder if there is higher compression in grading at UChicago - meaning lots of people can get ~B+ grades in many classes, but doing well (e.g. getting in the 3.6-3.8 range to be very competitive in med school) could be more difficult. Could be interesting to see.</p>
<p>The AAMC data shows a lot more people applying from every school, not just Chicago. Instead of 150 applying from Yale (Yale’s number), it has 206, and it has 252 applying from Brown, not 180. Converting that into percentages of the class applying to medical school, that’s Yale 16%, Brown 15%, and Chicago 12%. So still a noticeable difference.</p>
<p>Like Cue7, I do start with the premise that a comparable percentage of entering students at those colleges are interested in medical school. The Gen Chem registration numbers I cited above support that. I also have personal knowledge of students being told by CCIHP advisors to drop the idea of medical school if they have more than one quarter of a B grade in one of the required courses. My knowledge isn’t recent, however, so it’s not necessarily inconsistent with sheltie13’s more recent experience.</p>
<p>The numbers being cited, whether the colleges’ numbers or the AAMS numbers, largely reflect the experience of people who entered college in 2004-2008, so it wouldn’t be surprising at all if things were different for those of you entering college this year or next year.</p>
<p>Please bear with me for dumb questions. Prospective parent here and just started looking into premed maze. </p>
<p>Poplicola mentioned in the other thread that o-chem was curved to C+ (regular track) and B (honor track). A grading curved to C+ means 50% of classes got C+ or less, correct? Assuming UChicago Chemistry dept used a consistent grading policy, one has to conclude that an awfully large number of premed kids had to be weeded out by g-chem or o-chem classes as recent as two years ago.</p>
<p>But then, wouldn’t a premed face the same challenge in Yale, Brown, Dartmouth, or any other top schools? Aren’t they also compared to their bright classmates and half of them has to be in the bottom half (and weeded out) no matter what? Or does Yale, Brown, or Dartmouth curve premed classes to a much higher grade, and as result, most kids got good grades and successfully go on to med schools? If so, what is the incentive for UChicago doing the opposite? I am pretty sure academic caliber of the student body is of little difference between any of these schools. I can understand it may be necessary for some large state colleges to weed out weak students, but UChicago with the kind of quality of its student body? Why?</p>
<p>JHS - I could be wrong but I am under the impression that schools get more accurate numbers when they use committee letters. Do Brown, Yale and others you mentioned use the committee process too? </p>
<p>C+ curving sounds very brutal for a premed class. If so few people are applying, what are they trying to prove?</p>
<p>The chemistry department does not use a consistent grading scheme. The grading scheme used in each class depends on the professors. Two of my organic chemistry professors curved their classes to B/B+. One of my general chemistry professors curved his class to B+/A-. If this is not grade inflation on steroid, I don’t know what is. Introduction to biochemistry is curved to high C+. The same course taken during the summer (taught by the professor who directs the laboratory component during the regular school year) is curved to B+/A- Evidently, grading varies widely among professors.</p>
<p>My recommendations to prospective pre-meds:</p>
<h1>1 Take biochemistry (BIOS 20200) during the summer</h1>
<h1>2 Choose your organic chemistry professors carefully and strategically</h1>
<h1>3 Do not take organic chemistry concurrently with other science courses</h1>
<p>One must remember Chicago historically did not play the “politically correct” grading scheme until recently. I remember when I took Organic Chemistry in '82, the famed Professor N.C.Y. reminded us not to get too upset with our scores since even James Watson (considered a genius) struggled greatly in the same class…he went on to win the Nobel Prize for the DNA.</p>
<p>Hey guys! I have been looking at the premed uchicago discussion for a while. I am a current student about to apply for the next cycle. I can’t speak for all of us but many premeds including myself are very content with the school. I am doing very well with the classes despite what people say about the grading policy. To be frank, classes are not graded very harsh. Yes, sometimes, you will encounter a professor who might be more hard on grading but you truly care about becoming a doctor, you will find a way. Yes, your GPA and MCAT are important but I focused on other things as well. Outside of classes, I studied abroad and participated in club activities and even went out 2 to 3 times a week. I am very thankful for the experience that UChicago provided me. But I am willing to help out who are prospective students who are considering to be a premed. (Also, I took all the necessary “premed” classes so I can give you tips on them too!)</p>
<p>I do see that there were a few people who had a terrible experience with the school in the past. I can let you know that UCIHP definitely changed for the best! UChicago now is vastly different from UChicago in the past. So another thing!!! please try to listen to current students and ask us questions!! You should also feel free to ask those questions to UCIHP directly as well.</p>
<p>Hi fbtk! Thanks so much for chiming in! It’s definitely appreciated. Are you currently applying for med school? Can you give any comments on weeding, and if you know of any fellow students who are no longer premeds, do you happen to know why? Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>I am. Weeding. We don’t really think of it as weeding. Actually, because of the sheer amount of stuff we do at the school (either it’s school work or extracurricular), I see a lot of students working together. Yes. like any other school, competition exists. But I also see a lot of cooperative work as well. I guess we have this “let’s survive together” mentality. But if there is weeding, I would say that gen chem is probably the reason. Most of the time, people just quit being premeds when they find out that the amount of work they put in is not worth it/they don’t really see themselves as being doctors. Being a doctor is a huge commitment and my friends really take the time to think through their decision. Also school exposes them to different opportunities as well.</p>
<p>Good to hear that current pre-meds are having a pretty good experience at UChicago. I’d still like to know what the actual numbers of grads going on to med school per year is, though. The 95-100 number provided by the current pre-med adviser seems a.) quite low and b.) underwhelming, given UChicago’s class size.</p>
<p>I am also curious about how many go from Chicago to Pritzker and how many have the inside track each year, i.e., go directly to med school after 3rd year.</p>