<p>Hi Guys,</p>
<p>Can you please share your advice/guidance on what premed is like at Princeton? Is it super competitive, with all I've heard about the grade deflation? How are the classes? Access to hospitals and volunteering? What opportunities are there? Do lots of premeds get into top med schools?</p>
<p>Do share!!!</p>
<p>Yes, it is super competitive. Yes, there is grade deflation, however med-schools receive some blurb explaining that with transcripts. Princeton students have a great rate of med school acceptances. (google that.)</p>
<p>There is only one small hosptial in Princeton. However there are many profs doing important research on campus with whom you can work/intern.</p>
<p>If you are mostly interested in working in hospitals, consider Harvard, BU, BC, ot Tufts as the Boston area is teeming with teaching hospitals.</p>
<p>I would not say that Princeton is any more competitive than comparable schools. While the work is difficult, most students are collaborative, and enjoy working with their peers.</p>
<p>As to the hospital, the University Medical Center is a new facility that recently opened. It is about a 10 minute drive from campus and I believe transportation is available for volunteers. While other locations (i.e. Boston) might offer better hospitals, the UMCPP does ofter numerous shadowing/interning/volunteer opportunities. Here’s a link to the hospital website
[University</a> Medical Center of Princeton at Plainsboro | Princeton HealthCare System](<a href=“http://www.princetonhcs.org/phcs-home/what-we-do/university-medical-center-of-princeton-at-plainsboro.aspx]University”>http://www.princetonhcs.org/phcs-home/what-we-do/university-medical-center-of-princeton-at-plainsboro.aspx)</p>
<p>In addition, as fauve has pointed out, you can also work with professors on campus.</p>
<p>If you know for certain that you want to go to med school, better to go to State U. Grade deflation at Pton is a source of anxiety. Nobody cares where you went undergrad in the medical profession.
If not sure, Pton is fine if you can put up with the, hmm, let’s say, unusual social construct of the institution.</p>
<p>any other comments? advice on what classes to take as a premed frosh?
what ECs to do in college (obviously something i must enjoy doing, but what are the options for ECs that med schools are looking for? which ones are unique to princeton or just plain awesome?)</p>
<p>[What</a> Extracurricular Activities Should I Do? | medaholic](<a href=“http://www.medaholic.com/what-extracurricular-activities-should-i-do/]What”>What Extracurricular Activities Should I Do? – medaholic)</p>
<p>OP–my son is Pre-med at Princeton. He’s a sophomore. He works very hard, but he has very good grades so you can do it too. Here’s a link in case you haven’t found it yet. Hope it helps answer some of your questions.</p>
<p>[Health</a> Professions Advising](<a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/hpa/]Health”>Health Professions Advising)</p>
<p>I think their med school placement is 93%ish, so I mean they’ve sorta had great success with medical school applications.</p>
<p>so pretty much the med schools know about princeton’s deflation?
what should a princeton pre-med consider doing for ECs? @VA Mom - what is your son doing outside of classes?</p>
<p>Med schools are fully aware of Princeton’s grade deflation. There seems to have been more publicity given to Princeton’s grade deflation than publicity given to how low the overall national college graduation rate is or other more critical educational issues. Med schools know what the equivalent of a 3.5 at Princeton is at Harvard or Yale. They also know the difference between a 3.7 at Minnesota and a 3.7 at Wisconsin, or at any other school where they get a significant number of applications. They also can tell if you got a 3.5 in a challenging curriculum at Princeton, or took the easiest courses you could take and got a 3.5.</p>
<p>Grade deflation should be the least of your worries about choosing whether to attend Princeton or not.</p>
<p>By the way, you can major in anything and go to med school. My doctor majored in African Studies, and a Religion major from my class is now an orthopedist.</p>