PreMed: UMich Honors vs UC Berkeley

Hi! I’m going to be a freshman in the fall (yay class of 2023!) and I’m still trying to decide between UCBerkeley and the University of Michigan (I have to commit soon, I know!!). I’m going to be on the pre-med track, majoring in biology. At Michigan I’d be in the LSA honors programs, but at Berkeley I would be able to pay in-state tuition. Does anyone have advice on what to pick/ is in a similar situation??

Which one is the least costly? Pick that one.

Instate at UCB since it will less costly than UM out of state.

Both schools are large universities with plentiful resources (and plenty of competition for those A grades too).
Neither school offers a pre-med committee letter.

It will sounds like an awful advice, but for premeds, here is my thoughts.
Since you got admitted in UCB, you should also be offered admission to UCD or UCI or other lower UCs. With a UCB admission, you will be shining in other lower UCs and that is what you need to get into med school. Be a shining star instead of become a middle of the bunch, that is what UCB normally turn a premed hopeful to.

My friends’ S did just that, he choose UCR instead of UCLA and got almost straight A and now is in Keck med school, he did not even accept the UCR EAP and applied out. Whereas my D choose a near IVY(instead of UC) and got clobbered in the first year, she did not get into any MD school and is graduating from a DO school. Mileage may very, you just have to make your own judgement.

Remember, a UCB bio/premed who cannot get into Med School, will be a sales person in a Mall, standing next to a UM bio/premed.

https://career.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/pdf/Survey/2018MolecularCellBio.pdf and https://career.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/pdf/Survey/2018IntegrativeBio.pdf suggest that UCB MCB and IB majors do things other than selling stuff at the mall, but the pay levels are not that high compared to other majors (see https://career.berkeley.edu/Survey/2018Majors for comparison).

@ucbalumnus

That is IF they can find a job. I know PLENTY of kids from UCB that are working in sales. I live less 10 miles away from it.

486 bio majors graduated from UCB, only 20 went for MD. It’s really tough. Probably a lot more non-bio majors get into medical schools.

@coolweather Hey okay wow that’s a scary statistic. Do you know if that includes kids who take gap years and the apply to medical school?

https://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/national lists medical school applicant and admit numbers from UCB.

Unfortunately, they no longer show a GPA/MCAT score grid of applicant and admit numbers like they used to.

But also, note that it is expensive to apply to medical school: https://career.berkeley.edu/Medical/AppCost

@koalaT100 Some correction here: 20 of out 226 responses (out of 486 surveyed bio graduates). Still tough (less than 10%). Overall UCB med school acceptance rate is 56%. This means there are non-bio majors from UCB going to med school. I am saying bio is not the best major for premed. I also think bio majors are not strong students.

Med school acceptance by majors:

https://www.zippia.com/advice/med-school-major/

Bio major has the lowest rate.

LSA honors will have better support for your med school aspirations
However

  1. can you switch majors (biochemistry, biophysics, bioinformatics, biostatistics are all ok if you really like bio) => ask each university directly
  2. what’s the cost differential and where will it come from?
  3. what’s your plan B? (all pre-med hopefuls need a plan B)

I’ll let the statistics wizards parse this out, but focusing on the major as cause/effect for acceptance appears to be misplaced. Per AAMC, most applicants are bio majors, and most matriculants are bio majors, too.
https://www.aamc.org/download/321496/data/factstablea17.pdf

It appears all majors are below 50% acceptance rates, and since it’s bio and all other majors in much fewer numbers, it’s difficult to tell someone to go major in humanities or math, for example. Those majors may have even more self-selection than bio.

It does appear that a bio major needs a solid Plan B, but that’s probably true for every pre-med, regardless of major.

20 out of 226 includes only MCB; there are 9 out of 104 in IB (integrative biology). So total of 29 to medical school out of 330 responding to the career survey from the two main biology majors.

However, assuming that every MCB or IB major applied to medical school is not realistic. Probably only about a quarter of them (about 83) earn grades high enough (A- or higher generally) to make applying to medical school realistic (although there may be some who apply unrealistically). Of that group, some may not be pre-med (yes, there exist non-pre-med biology majors), and some of the pre-meds may have decided not to apply after a poor MCAT score or loss of interest.

So the medical school admission rate among UCB biology majors is unlikely to be anywhere near as low as 9%. An estimate of 29 out of probably somewhat less than 83 would be more realistic and more in line with typical medical school admission rates.

Yes, all pre-meds need a plan B (since most pre-meds will need to use their plan B ), but biology is one of the majors where major-specific jobs as plan B is not all that great, due to competition from all of the other biology major pre-meds who did not get into medical school.

The majority of freshmen bio majors are premed. Then they are weeded out.

But much of the weeding happens before applying to medical schools, so the overall weed out rate from frosh to medical school is not comparable to the admission rate for medical school applicants (who have already been substantially weeded).

As a student in LSA, you don’t have to declare a major until 2nd semester of sophomore year. However, switching majors within LSA is easy at UMich, you’re just required to meet with your advisor.

Med school acceptance rates for UMich and UCB are the same.

I don’t think you should pay OSS money.

https://careercenter.umich.edu/article/um-graduates%E2%80%99-medical-school-application

As an LSA Honors student, you do get “concierge level” advising, registration, preferred housing in South Quad and other advantages. And Ann Arbor does give you more traditional college experience. Many students from our local CA HS matriculate to UMich.