<p>Hey, I've been admitted to Harvard but am having trouble deciding whether Harvard is the best choice for me in the long-term. I definitely want to attend medical school but would like some insight into life as a pre-med student at Harvard. If I choose another university I may have a better chance of being a top student, which is positive when I apply to competitive medical schools in the future. However, I don't want to give up this opportunity to go to such a great college. How difficult would you say it is to get A's in pre-med courses at Harvard, and how difficult is the competition? Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>First off, congratulations. Harvard has many students on the pre-med track. In fact, several of the houses have pre-med advisors and websites. The best way to get a direct answer to your question would be to email one of the advisors. I googled several of the sites for you. </p>
<p>[Pre-Med</a> § Lowell House](<a href=“http://www.lowell.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k69091&pageid=icb.page368527&pageContentId=icb.pagecontent856328&view=view.do&viewParam_directory=/Lowell%20Handouts]Pre-Med”>http://www.lowell.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k69091&pageid=icb.page368527&pageContentId=icb.pagecontent856328&view=view.do&viewParam_directory=/Lowell%20Handouts)
[Pre-Medical</a> § Winthrop House](<a href=“http://www.winthrophouse.net/icb/icb.do?keyword=k80873&pageid=icb.page442228]Pre-Medical”>http://www.winthrophouse.net/icb/icb.do?keyword=k80873&pageid=icb.page442228)
[Mather</a> Pre-med](<a href=“http://mather-med.unix.fas.harvard.edu/]Mather”>http://mather-med.unix.fas.harvard.edu/)</p>
<p>Thank you for these websites! Do you know anything about where typical Harvard students go for medical school?</p>
<p>I’m not a premed, but my concentration is probably >90% premeds, so I have some amount of insight.</p>
<p>Most Harvard premeds get into medical school. I don’t know what proportion get into the very top-tier med schools, but it’s certainly significant. I’m sure that we have better placement than second-tier schools. </p>
<p>Harvard is almost a stupidly easy place to be a premed. Special easy physics and chemistry courses are made pretty much exclusively for premeds (Physical Sciences 1 - 3, Chem 17/27) that focus almost entirely on biological/medically-related topics, are made to fulfill specific premed requirements, and even sometimes give/discuss MCAT questions. Grade inflation is huge in these kinds of classes, and in many standard bio classes (most class averages are curved to a B+). As an above poster said, every upperclassman house has premed advising resources. And the sheer volume of premeds in biology concentrations makes it pretty easy to steer clear of classes with harsh curves - you’ll hear talk about which classes are easy/hard, etc. </p>
<p>That said, almost all of the premeds I know here seem mildly to extremely unhappy with their academic life. All but a small fraction seem uninterested in most of the requirements, resentful of the work they’re expected to do, and entirely focused on the end goal of getting into a good med school (ie keeping a sky-high GPA) rather than on, like, learning the material. I’m not sure if this is specific to Harvard (probably not; I’m sure all premeds are stressed), but it’s worth nothing.</p>
<p>In summary: super, stupidly easy to be a premed here, between institutional facilitation and grade inflation. Just not sure you’ll be happy/content. </p>
<p>DISCLAIMER: I’m personally pretty resentful of many of the premeds I deal with, as they give a lot of my classes a very competitive and answer-centric atmosphere… So this may be biased.</p>
<p>Elanorci, thanks for the insight! I know pre-meds at any university are frustrated by their studies and primarily care about GPA, but I wonder if it’s even more intense at Harvard. Harvard’s grade inflation and easy pre-med courses sound promising, but shouldn’t that mean higher student satisfaction? Other schools have challenging science classes that pre-meds have to take, but their class averages aren’t nearly as high…</p>
<p>On another note, what about the social life? You said pre-meds’ academic lives are unhappy, but what about other aspects of college life? Thanks!</p>
<p>You might think that the easy courses would correlate with higher satisfaction, but interestingly I’ve found that not to be the case. I think part of it has to do with the overall experience of large premed requirement classes (as compared to just the grade you get). While many of the classes are easy, both in terms of the actual material and in terms of the class averages, the actual experience of the courses is EXTREMELY frustrating and unpleasant. </p>
<p>Oftentimes these premed/intro bio classes are extremely large and there is thus an enormous set teaching staff bureaucracy to help run the course. This leads to an extremely disorganized class, wherein the professors lecture, a “preceptor” writes the exams, TFs write the problem sets, and none of these things really accord with each other. There are a lot of organizational problems, which makes the classes an extremely frustrating experience. </p>
<p>So while most people end up with good grades from these classes and don’t have to learn difficult physics/chemistry/whatever, it’s just not a fun class to take. The alternative, of course, is taking a harder class with a less generous curve, enjoying your experience, and maybe having a lower GPA. </p>
<p>As for social life: I think it’s too varied to really comment meaningfully. There are a lot of different types of premeds, and some are satisfied with their social lives and some aren’t. I know premeds who party hard every weekend and love it, premeds who never go out, and everything in between. You might think that premeds would have less free time than other students and therefore might be socially disadvantaged, but everyone here is so busy with a gazillion extracurriculars that I don’t think premeds are universally the ‘busiest’ group. </p>
<p>Let me know if you have any other questions!</p>
<p>Ah… the frustrations make sense now. I guess I’ll have to decide whether the quality of a course is more important to me than the GPA when I choose my classes :/</p>
<p>I actually did think of another question: roughly what percentage of premeds, or science students in general, partake in research during their freshman year? Is there a program for undergrad research, or do students independently approach faculty and ask for research positions?</p>
<p>Answering your question, there is a summer program that is designed for undergrads who are interested in research in general. Its called the PRISE program, Program for research in science and engineering. In general a lot of my classmates who are premeds are working in labs right now (as sophomores). As for freshmen it is definitely doable if you want to. Probably not as easy fall semester as say spring semester, which involves asking for lab positions. And probably around 80% of pre-meds do either research or volunteer work say in Tanzinia/uganda/etc. There are TONS of labs here though, ranging from bio/chem research to clinical work over at the med school.</p>
<p>As for the courses. I highly advise against taking pre-med courses. Yes they are easy, especially ps1 or ps11, but I think they are much more unsatisfying than say the physics 15 series. And chem 17 doesn’t even have lab compared to chem 20. In general the desire for good grades (which is natural) is escalated to such a degree that the pre-med science courses really become boring and not enjoyable. </p>
<p>NOTE: not actually pre-med here, I study CS, but a lot of friends are pre-meds. Be wary especially if you aren’t sure to take a broader schedule freshmen year. Better to keep you options open. Hope to see you next fall!</p>
<p>Agree with what the above poster said. There are an enormous amount of research opportunities here, and most premeds do partake in them. I think the number who start doing research during freshman fall is pretty low, but that’s not because opportunities are unavailable – it’s just because most people prefer to have some time to get settled, get used to academic work, etc, before jumping into another high time commitment thing. </p>
<p>So I’d put the percentage MAYBE somewhere around 15 - 20%. It goes way, way up during sophomore and junior years. </p>
<p>It’s fairly typical for students to just independently email professors whose work they find interesting. Even with the programs that pay for/give housing for research (ie PRISE), you’re expected to find your own faculty member somewhat independently. But there are a lot of resources available to help if you aren’t really comfortable just randomly emailing some professor. There’s a woman named Ann Georgi whose job is to coordinate undergraduate life sciences research, and she’s EXTREMELY nice and helpful; she’ll gladly sit down with you, go over your options, help you draft emails, etc. Additionally, this is the kind of thing that your concentration advisor (once you declare a concentration, halfway through sophomore year) would definitely help you with. One final thing is that there are research courses like LS100 in which you’re not expected to have found your own faculty member in advance; they’ll give you a project, match you with someone, etc. (This is in contrast to the 91r/99r courses, in which you find your own faculty member and just get course credit for the research.)</p>