<p>I just had a couple of questions about premed at berkeley for any current or past students:</p>
<li>is premed at berkeley cut throat or do the students generally collaborate?</li>
<li>is it really hard to get into classes that you wish to get into?</li>
<li>do berkeley premeds get placed into very prestigious med schools (i.e. HMS, duke, JHU, etc.)?</li>
<li>what is an approximate percentage of berkeley premeds who apply and get into med school</li>
</ol>
<p>any help will be appreciated</p>
<p>thanks</p>
<p>-ZB</p>
<ol>
<li>from what i've heard.. it's definitely cut throat. when i think collaborative i think of LACs. now this is from hearsay.. so take with grains of salt.</li>
</ol>
<p>1) No. And that's a very big N-O.
2) Not really, the classes everyone needs are made really big and lots of people drop so its pretty easy to get off the waitlist.
3) UCB students seem to do well enough in overall medical school acceptances, though they seem underrepresented at very top schools: <a href="http://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/top20.stm%5B/url%5D">http://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/top20.stm</a></p>
<p>However, I don't know what the class sizes are for the very top medical schools so maybe only 1 or 2 people going to HMS every other year as a decent admit rate. Take the stats worth a grain of salt, Berkeley lets a lot of people in and a lot of people apply that don't have the stats for the big schools anyways as a reach. Also the statistics don't reveal individual information or who decided not to respond to the survey.</p>
<p>4) The link I sent you is the stats the career center gives and the only one I know of, maybe someone else can help you.</p>
<p>Personally, I felt as a previous pre-med student that it was too cut-throat because they were too many students applying for various positions. In addition, classes seem to take an inordinate time to study for because you're competing with classmates in a quota system and the tests did not seem to create a nice middle heavy distribution (with few 90% to really show who knows their stuff). Many of my MCB classes have top heavy distributions with the mean being a 70 or so and a very top heavy bell curve. The difference between an A and A minus may only be one question or mistake. As such because tests seem to punish stupid mistakes and don't seem difficult enough to create an even distribution, I found the classes harder than they should be. </p>
<p>I have no idea what the curriculum at other schools is like so Berkeley may not be unique in this area.</p>
<p>As such, since Med Schools want well-rounded applicants, I feel that academics and lab work will take an inordinate amount of time at Berkeley compared to some other schools that are less cut-throat and have more even distributions test wise. I feel that this is the reason Berkeley does not seem well-represented at the top.</p>
<p>I again emphasize the last part was mostly opinion.</p>
<p>so in your opinion, do you think berkeley is a good place to do pre-med? or should i look elsewhere</p>
<p>I feel that you have to worry too much about your grades due to uneven testing and teaching at Berkeley. The less your teacher has taught the class the less structure they will have and if they create a test with a top heavy distribution (mean of 70 to an 80) then a stupid mistake will hurt your grade a lot. And in my classes I've had a lot of tests with top heavy distributions. As such you not only have to not he material but be well familiarized with the format of the test as not to fail as well.</p>
<p>Overall, I think a smaller LSAC for premed where it won't be so cut-throat, you'll get positions with professors easier, and you'll have time to do more activities than just studying.</p>
<p>But I was only a premed for like 3 semesters and didn't go that deeply into it; I may have wrong impressions about what the admissions process is like.</p>
<p>From berkeley's medical school stats: career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/top20.stm</p>
<p>Going to berkeley seems to offer no advantage even though the undergraduate math/science department is fairly tough.</p>