PreMed & Engineering: Chance Me

Colleges and Universities A-Z Cornell University
1

<p>I'm a female Asian-American trying to major in biomedical engineering under a premed program. I speak Korean and English. I come from one of the best public high schools in Connecticut.
(I'm fully aware that some of my scores/GPA is not the best.) But I've heard that Cornell more than any other Ivy focuses a lot on things outside academics (ECs).</p>

<p>GPA: 4.2 weighted
Class Rank: top 10%</p>

<p>SAT I: Reading 580 (Horrendous, I know. I'm definitely taking it again.), Writing 740, Math 800
Out of 1600:1380
Out of 2400:2120</p>

<p>SAT II: Math I 770, Math II 720, US Hist 670, Biology 650 (Unsure of what to send)</p>

<p>APs Exams Concern: I've taken loads of AP classes but I've only gotten 3s, I'm thinking of not sending them in?</p>

<p>Classes:
I've taken every single AP/honors course I could: Bio, Physics, US History, English Language and Composition, English Literature, Calc AB, Psychology, Chemistry </p>

<p>Recommendations:
AP Physics teacher
Honors Pre-Calc teacher
Tae Kwon Do instructor</p>

<p>EC:
Tae Kwon Do (10 years, black belt), regional medals
National Youth Leadership Forum in Medicine (summer of 2009)
Asian Culture Club (all high school)
Latin Club (frosh, soph, jun)
French Club (frosh, soph, jun)
Key Club (all high school)
Big Brother/Big Sister (jun, sen)
National Honor Society (jun, sen)
Job: work a lot as a secretary at my mom's business
Operation Smile: (jun, sen)
National & State recognition/awards in Latin
The National Society of High School Scholars (all high school)
Volunteered one summer at a hospital</p>

<p>Comments:
Hoping Tae Kwon Do earns me serious bonus points because I've been doing it for a long time and it's a unique sport. In several of my ECs, I hold an officer or some sort of leadership position</p>

<p>Please give me back some honest feedback!</p>

2

<p>Your SAT scores, although low, meet with the average of incoming Cornell students–not stellar. SAT II scores suggest grade inflation (and as you are leaning towards premed you should probably send in Math II over I). “Filler” ECs like Asian Culture Club, Key Club, NHS, etc. are not very substantive unless you can note significant accomplishments within these organizations. Tae Kwon Do will own you “bonus points,” but I wouldn’t know about “serious.” Cornell is likely a reach.</p>

3

<p>There is no biomedical engineering major at Cornell! The department only offers Ph.Ds, M.Engs, and a minor for undergraduates. And there is no such thing as a pre-med program. You just need to take the courses that all med schools use as pre-reqs. </p>

<p>However, as a female applying for engineering, you’ll have a pretty good chance. However, you’re standardized test scores are a little low.</p>

4

<p>meetasi, that just killed me. Cornell was my dream school. No, really, thanks for letting me know. Good thing I knew before applying.</p>

<p>There really is no pre-med program in any school? I know all you have to take is the pre-requisites but I thought it guaranteed classes for you? I don’t really know…</p>

5

<p>Guaranteed classes? I don’t think that matters that much. And I don’t think having a pre-med program should really affect where you apply. You can go to medical school from basically any college in the country ans long as you satisfy the requirements of taking chem, bio, orgo, physics, and calc. I’ve never heard of people majoring in pre-med. Pre-med usually means you have the intention of going to medical school once you graduate.</p>

<p>I don’t really understand how that should affect what college is your dream school. No matter the school, you should be able to get into the basic pre-med classes…usually they’re the biggest classes on campus.</p>

6

<p>No, I know that premed is not a major obviously. But I always thought that premed was something you had to get into. I thought it was like a program that you had to go under if you wanted to go into medical school. I saw no other reason why colleges listed their pre-professionals (prelaw, premed, etc.) next to their majors.</p>

<p>Of course that affects what school is my dream school. I loved Cornell but I’m obviously not going to apply if it doesn’t have the major I want to go into.</p>

7

<p>hold up TKD. besides some state schools which do offer pre-med majors/programs, i cant think of a well regarded private university that offers a premed major. premed is simply a set of courses you take in order to satisfy medical school requirements (gen bio, gen chem, physics, orgo, some math, some english, some advanced bio). You can do that with any major (although most premeds are drawn to the bio major for natural reasons). You can definitely do premed here (as i and the other billion premeds will tell you).</p>

<p>-it is not a program that you apply to or are accepted into.</p>

8

<p>Wow that cleared so much confusion for me. Sorry for being a total noob haha.</p>

<p>But because Cornell does not offer biomedical engineering as an undergraduate major, I’ll think twice on applying. I really love this school though.</p>

9

<p>Not to mention biomedical engineering is offered at maybe 3 schools? 1 of them actually being good (Hopkins).</p>

<p>You will soon realize that a) biomedical engineering is such a ridiculously narrow subject that you cannot possibly get a good foundational grasp as an undergrad in engineering by majoring in it.
b) You can end up working in BME after you have a degree in MechE, Materials E, BioE, ChemE. It’s offered as a minor in BioE, ChemE offers a specialization in BiomolecularE, while Materials E offers a track in Bio and bio inspired materials.</p>

10

<p>Yeah it’s not offered in a lot of places. And Hopkins is not just good, its debatable as the best biomedical/bioengineering school in the US.</p>

<p>My college list is: Yale, BU, Brown, University of Southern California, University of Connecticut, University of Rochester, George Washington University, Tufts, RPI, WPI</p>

<p>But I’m not trying to be an engineer with only a BS, biomed engineering is just something cool I wanna learn about. I’m off to medical school afterwards. Does that by any chance sound like a bad idea, someone please give me advice before I ruin my noobish life.</p>

11

<p>We need norcalguy here, but I will tell you that sounds absolutely terrible. I got into Hopkins BME and it was the other place I was debating going to school. Have you looked at the curriculum? It’s balls to the wall all the time.
You will be so burned out after 4 years at hopkins I doubt you would ever want to study medicine.</p>

<p>Also, your college list so SO all over the place, it’s disconcerting. The one defining characteristic is whether they OFFER BME. Yet most of those schools just suck at engineering (most of those even suck at BME).</p>

<p>Are you sure engineering is what you want to do? I’m afraid you might not really know what any of this entails.</p>

12

<p>First of all, you got into Hopkins BME? DAMN. You must be insane.
I am not applying to Hopkins because yes, the curriculum is really not to my liking.
I really wanted to go somewhere with an open program but Brown and URochester are really the only decent big schools with engineering.</p>

<p>Sorry, my credentials as you can see aren’t the best so I’m not applying to just the best colleges in the US. (By the way, I’m just applying to UConn cause it’s my state college and I’m poor.)</p>

<p>I said this in the previous post, engineering is NOT what I plan to do. I wanna get my MD and practice medicine. But as an undergraduate major, it just seems like a cool major to get into. It’s just a cool topic I want to learn about before I go to medical school. And hey if I happen to like it, maybe I will get my masters in BME instead. (My educational plan in a nutshell.) Again, tell me if I’m being a total noob and about to ruin my life.</p>

13

<p>Your chances aren’t bad at all, even for a good school like Cornell. Your biggest down is your SAT scores, and even that is still within regular range. I would suggest taking the ACT, as you could probably score a 33. </p>

<p>It’s great that you want to go to med school, but I just want to be realistic with you. a) you may end up hating medicine or b) you may not get into med school. Med schools don’t care what major you are, and they REALLY only care about GPA and MCATs. So you want to make sure to have a major that both isn’t terribly prohibitive in terms of grades, and will give you a firm base if you end up not doing medicine.</p>

<p>I think that BME as a topic is really interesting too, but as I said, I would open up your college search and look for slightly less BME focused programs. I told you 3 other ways you can learn about BME at Cornell without necessarily being in BME. One of them would probably give you everything you wanted and more for BME and prepare you for med school and still be a solid foundation if you decided against medicine (BioE).</p>

<p>I would suggest rethinking your college choices. As I said, your chances are better than you think, and I think you could get into a top college. Especially if you need financial aid, the top tier private universities which offer need-based aid are probably your best bet financially. Because places like GWU are notorious for being stingy.</p>

<p>Also, neither URochester nor Brown are considered large schools, and places like Yale/GWU couldn’t be more different in terms of size/location/campus culture. Have you really sat down to think about what you want out of your college and college experience?</p>

<p>I really really don’t want you to feel like I’m berating you, but I just don’t want you to have this very specific ideal in mind and attach to it so much that you overlook a better match for your needs simply because it doesn’t have “The BME Major.”</p>

14

<p>Oh god I’ve been so worried about that (MCATS and GPA)
Because I’ve been wondering if it’s just better for me to go to my state school (UConn) cause I know I’ll excel there GPA wise and it’s cheap and I know that in med school, you don’t get nearly as much financial aid. But as for MCATS, if I went through a tougher curriculum at a better school, wouldn’t my MCAT score be more likely to be higher? (Yeah, I’m in quite the dilemma here.)</p>

<p>But I also would love to go to a good school, just cause I got decent grades in high school. If I went to UConn, I’d feel like I’ve busted my balls for nothing these past 4 years.</p>

<p>To me they’re big enough schools. I just call them all big schools cause really no small schools would ever have BME unless maybe it was a tech school.
As for the college experience, I rather go to a school that’s is strong in engineering. If it’s in a cool place, it’s a plus. I’m not too picky at all about it.</p>

<p>No, not at all!!! I really need you to be honest with me. I really appreciate that you’re actually taking so much time to give me such detailed responses. I need someone that knows more about this to help me plan.</p>

15

<p>I’m going to be very honest with you. Your grades, especially your APs do not look good. While it says something positive that you’ve tried to take as many APs as possible (That’s something I personally did in high school), the fact that you’ve never gotten above a 3 is something that any college will notice.</p>

<p>Furthermore, the fact that you went to a “top” high school can hurt you especially in this area. For instance, I went to a moderately good public high school with a medium class size. I had friends with 12+ APs not get in to Cornell. It was an interesting note that once I was here, most of my classmates had between 0-5.</p>

<p>However, the Engineering admissions knows that they will teach you in depth, and very well. You won’t be at a disadvantage to other students in terms of what you know. Your freshman year here is what will equalize you.</p>

<p>That said, keep working hard, and DEFINITELY apply. If it’s your dream school, then apply. It won’t hurt you.</p>

16

<p>Should I not submit my AP scores to Cornell and/or any college? I’ve been considering that.</p>

<p>Last year from my school, there were about 20 that applied to Cornell, 1 got in. Year before, 13 applied, 5 got in.</p>

<p>I’m still really scared. I really need to have a good GPA (plan to go to medical school afterwards) and I feel that because I’d go into engineering I’d be at a disadvantage?</p>

17

<p>You don’t have to report your AP scores on the application, and you won’t get any credit after you get in with only 3s. So yeah, just don’t send em.</p>

<p>It’s better that you took so many APs, regardless of what score you got on them.</p>

<p>You are definitely at an advantage for getting into engineering as a female (but at a slight disadvantage for being asian). But yes, you may be at a disadvantage later trying to get into med school.</p>

<p>As I said, you need to have a thoughtful and honest conversation with yourself about what you want out of all of this. I’d be happy to help you with the entire process, it’s not easy.</p>

18

<p>Because of my situation of trying to go to medical school one day and wanting a good undergrad GPA, I’ve also thought of just going to the best school I can get into (preferably Cornell) and just try it out. If I cannot pull the desirable grades, I’ll just transfer to my state university? But would those grades would come with me?</p>