<p>Not to tred old territory or anything, But I was wondering about Vassar from a bio/premed perspective. I think I want to go premed, but I still want room to explore other interests (which is why I'm considering LACs). While I know Vassar would enable me to have such an experience, I want to know how strong the premed track is at Vassar. If this is going to be my career, I want to choose my college carefully. </p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Anyone? Please?</p>
<p>I’m thinking about Vassar biology too (but to be a biologist, not to go into Med School)</p>
<p>Anyways, I live down the street from Vassar and know some bio majors who seem to really know their stuff. They did some student teaching in my AP Bio class talking about their research projects, it all seemed top-notch.</p>
<p>That’s really all I can say though, I’m hoping someone else can come in and give us both a little more concrete info.</p>
<p>Any good LAC can prepare and get you into med school. You don’t even have to be a bio major. If you like Vassar, go there, and make it work out. 2 MDs in my town went to Vassar undergrad.</p>
<p>Just out of curiosity, I think Vassar only gives B.A’s, would this hurt people like me and Frenchy in terms of grad/med school opportunities? (I’m looking to go into research science and Frenchy presumably wants to be a doctor)</p>
<p>I went to Vassar and am now in med school. If anything, Vassar enhanced my application - especially since I wasn’t a science major. And I have a far more well rounded education than many of my classmates, which I think will make me a better doctor.</p>
<p>In general, being pre-med should not influence your decision on what college to go to, or what to major in. As long as you take the handful of pre-requisit courses for admission to med school, you will be fine. Go to the school you love. Period. Major in what you love. Period.</p>
<p>That said, Vassar is a great place to be pre-med, because there isn’t an intense pre-med atmosphere where people are highly competitive with each other and uncooperative. Yeah, you may know who is thinking about med school, but it’s not the kind of place where there is intense pre-med culture, and people are only taking certain science classes because of med school. People tell horror stories about organic chemistry being full of med students trying to outdo each other, and how it is a huge weed out class. Organic chemistry at vassar is just another (albeit difficult) class. It’s the same small class size, the same cooperation, and just as many people taking it because they are interested, not because it’s required. This is highly unusual - even at small liberal arts colleges. </p>
<p>There is no disadvantage having a BA from Vassar. The science courses are the same level of difficulty as any BS program. No one will think twice about what your degree is. the LACs almost uniformly give out BAs. (technically, Vassar gives you an AB degree, since it’s in latin… but no one puts that on their resume…)</p>
<p>Vassal has very good med school acceptance rate.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t put any marbles in med student acceptance rates. Vassar doesn’t play tricks with their statistics - but they also don’t publish them, as far as I’m aware.</p>
<p>Lots of schools will try to inflate their “acceptance rate” by doing the following:
-use required pre-med courses to “weed out” students from applying to med school by making them especially hard or grading them on a very steep curve, assuming that if students do poorly, they won’t want to apply to med school anymore since they will be poorer candidates. This is typically done with organic chemistry. Vassar doesn’t do that. Orgo is hard enough without making it cut throat and promising that a certain percentage of students will fail. yuck.
-discourage students from applying to medical school if they don’t think they are as competitive.
-actively try to prevent students from applying to med school if they don’t think they have a good enough chance by refusing to support their application with the required committee recommendation letter. It is extremely hard to get into medical school without one.</p>
<p>like i said earlier, pre-med at vassar is really a low key behind the scenes kind of thing for most students. you study whatever subject you study. if you happen to also be applying to med school - great! there isn’t the pre-med culture at the school you hear everyone complaining about.</p>
<p>@ kdspuhler: the difference between a BA and BS does not matter for med school, and if your school only offers BAs, grad schools won’t care either, because a distinction isn’t being made. only if a school offers a BA and BS in the same major is the degree type then taken into account (and even then not really)</p>