<p>If I get into Berkeley and take the pre-med road, will it be equivalent to suicide? I keep hearing about how difficult the courses are, how everyone gets C's and B's because of the ridiculous curves, and how everyone has 3.0's... I need at least a 3.8 GPA for med school. HOWEVER, I want to do research while maintaing the gpa, and socializing. Is this possible to do at Berkeley? How many hours of studying would i need to put in to it to maintain a 3.8+? As an indicator of my intelligence, I have a 2210 sat i.</p>
<p>No matter what people tell you, remember that whether or not you get X GPA ultimately depends on you, not the university you attend.</p>
<p>I recently talked to a Berkeley alumni and she said she got a 3.0 and 32 on the MCATs. She REALLY wanted to go to med school and it didn’t work out. She was in denial for a long time but finally accepted it. She mainly did it for her parents. While she got into schools in the carribbean, she didn’t want it that bad. She ended up going to USC’s Keck School of Medicine and majored in public health their for grad school. She is now an epidemiologist and makes a good amount of money. not rich, not poor. </p>
<p>It really depends on YOU. You definitely can have a social life as long as you take 1-2 science classes a semester and not like 5 all at one time. You just have to know your material, and know when to go out. A lot of people study together in the day and go out at night. It’s possible if you’re not crazy and taking 21 units.</p>
<p>Also, you CAN get over a 3.5 gpa and still get into med school. Just know, everything else matters…extracurriculars, research, mcats, etc.</p>
<p>It is definitely possible to get a 3.8+ or even a 4.0 as a premed. However, the reason most premeds here DON’T is because they don’t plan their semesters well (ie, overload on classes), don’t put in enough effort, don’t have great study skills, and/or don’t choose the right major for them. Really, the exam curves here are not that bad. Also, I think hard work trumps intelligence in most premed classes. I think that as long as you are reasonably smart and a hard worker you will be fine GPA-wise.</p>
<p>hard work, and a bit of luck 
<a href=“My Fair Lady With A Little Bit Of Luck - YouTube”>My Fair Lady With A Little Bit Of Luck - YouTube;
<p>I’d suggest that a reason why many premeds are not successful in getting into med school is partly because a large portion of premeds are only premeds because they have no idea what they want to do.</p>
<p>Berkeley’s not that bad if you plan carefully. Last semester, I found out the hard way what my limits are, and how to not overstep them. I suggest, if you do decide to come here, to start out easy, and increase your workload every semester forward until you realize what your limits are. After that semester, ease up, slow down, think about what didn’t work, and get back on the horse if you’ve fallen off.</p>
<p>Also, be careful about using credit units as a measure of workload.</p>
<p>On a relative scale, lab courses tend to be more work than the credit units indicate; non-lab courses tend to be less work than the credit units indicate.</p>
<p>(This is assuming you get into and pick Berkeley, which I fully support!) Make sure to pick a major that you are interested in and can handle. Do your research before you commit, and know what sorts of classes each one entails. Don’t pick a hard science if you didn’t like it in high school and lack confidence in your ability (I think that’s obvious). On the flip side, my opinion is also that you shouldn’t let your talents go to waste by picking a supposedly easier major that doesn’t quite fit you. For example, don’t major in integrative biology just because you think you’ll get a better GPA, despite the fact that your passion and talent is in, say, EECS. Ultimately how well you do is a function of your drive to succeed, which is directly related to your interest in the program.</p>
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<p>I agree. Unit number is usually not indicative of how much work is necessary to receive a good grade, premed classes especially.</p>
<p>Bio 1AL is a perfect example. It was 2 units but it was the most work I have every put into any class ever…because it was that damn hard. In Chem 3AL/BL it was easy to get an A but the amount of time that I put in to get that grade was far different from the amount that I did for either 3A or 3B (which I got the same grades in). Physics lab and Bio 1B…those are just useless busywork :D.</p>
<p>Overall if you’re looking for an easy time for a good GPA, get a scholarship to a good CSU or a mid to lower tier UC and kill it with a 3.8. It is undoubtedly easier to get a 3.8+ at one of those institutions than at Cal, UCLA, or UCSD.</p>
<p>I am an MD who graduated from a U.S. medical school (Drexel) and did my residency and am in private practice in California. From what I learned going through the AMCAS process and talking with classmates in medical school and colleuges in residency and medical practice as far as medical school admissions are concerned nothing is more important than GPA. No matter how prestigious an undergraduate school you attended, no matter what you majored in, no matter how many ECs you have and even no matter how high your MCAT scores are, if you apply to any medical school in the United States with an undergraduate GPA of less than 3.4 you have essentially no chance of acceptance at any of those medical schools. A CSU graduate with a GPA of 3.8 in Psychology and an MCAT store of 30 will probably get accepted at at least one U.S. medical school. If you graduate from Berkeley, major in Biology and get a 38 on the MCATs but have a GPA of only 3.3 you will not be accepted anywhere.</p>
<p>@redsoldier</p>
<p>I think you should choose to major in IB if you think it’s easy so that you could get a high GPA. Besides, most premed students ought to like IB. Many of the courses overlap with medical school courses, such as anatomy, physiology, and specialized physiology classes. Also, you get to take the math 16 series instead of the 1 series or Math 53/54/55 if you’re doing EECS. If you’re good at math, you’ll do well in the 16 series. If you’re not so good at math, you’ll do better in the 16 series than 1 series.</p>
<p>Berkeley. Where dreams come to die.</p>
<p>Berkeley - Where your best isn’t good enough.</p>
<p>Berkeley - Where you don’t need sex because the school f*#ks you everyday.</p>
<p>Eh its an alright place.</p>
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<p>This is not entirely accurate. If you are a minority, you are allowed to be stupider than non minorities or high performing minorities (indicated by the GPA) and still receive medical school admission with a sub-par GPA.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.washington.edu/uaa/advising/downloads/gpamcat.pdf[/url]”>http://www.washington.edu/uaa/advising/downloads/gpamcat.pdf</a></p>
<p>check out meharry and howard </p>
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<p>This is incorrect. They would stand a very good shot of getting into medical school.
<a href=“https://www.aamc.org/download/157590/data/table25-hbn-mcatgpa-grid-0810.pdf[/url]”>https://www.aamc.org/download/157590/data/table25-hbn-mcatgpa-grid-0810.pdf</a></p>
<p>I’m a bit weary of taking admissions advice from practicing physicians because getting into medical school is such a different game these days than even 5 to 10 years ago. Besides the fact that admissions is so much more difficult now than ever before, the application process, testing of the MCAT, and prereqs are a lot different from the past.</p>
<p>Berkeley, where your GPA last semester is half of what is used to be in High School.</p>
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<p>i loled for like 20 seconds after reading this</p>
<p>sometimes I wish I were black, hispanic, or American Indian. Shoot.</p>
<p>Berkeley - Where you don’t need sex because the school f*#ks you everyday. </p>
<p>haha, i love this quote</p>
<p>it is so unfair that minorities get so much attention, particularly for engineering, etc.</p>
<p>To be clear, pre-med requirements are not unreasonable at Berkeley. They really just are not that bad. The science majors tend to do be what people find difficult simply because you are squishing all the med school reqs in your first years to fit in six more upper div science classes. A possible solution is to do a non-science major and take the ten or so pre-med reqs on the side.</p>