<p>Hi. UPenn is my first choice college and I was wondering how others would rank its pre-med/Med programs. I personally feel that it is excellent but from a lot of people that it's not all that great. Could anyone give their input? I still feel it is a great place for medical education.</p>
<p>Pre-med. Not really sure. There is not a set pre-med program, at least I don't believe there is.</p>
<p>Penn's Medical School (like most of Penn's grad schools) is elite. Top 3. Take that for what its worth.</p>
<p>Penn is one of the very best places you can go for pre-Med and med school. There are three things you should consider: academics, advising and research/service opportunities.</p>
<p>Academically, Penn offers several excellent options for pre-med education. Popular choices are bioengineering, BBB (biological basis of behavior), chemistry, biology, etc. All of these programs are large, with significant resources and eminent faculty members. </p>
<p>Penn offers great advising resources, primarily based in the College. Check:</p>
<p>Career</a> Services, University of Pennsylvania</p>
<p>You easily get formal advisors in your undergrad departments and from Career Services. You can also get informal mentors in Penn's health science schools. All of those schools (Medicine, Dental Medicine, Nursing and Veterinary Medicine) rank in the top 5 nationally overall and in NIH funding. Those high rankings have been consistent for the last 10 years. Only UCSF, Johns Hopkins and maybe Harvard has such breadth, scale and excellence in as many areas of the health science. </p>
<p>Finally, research and service will enrich you and help your applications. Penn has pushed hard for undergrad research (look up CURF at Penn), and the One University policy allows you to actually take classes at all of Penn's schools (Penn's bioengineering program, the Nano-Bio Interface center, and health care administration at Wharton should be on your radar screen).</p>
<p>Penn's clinical operations are extensive. The urban environment will offer you lots of chances for internships and service opportunities; Penn has extensive trauma center operations, lots of health care community outreach and is open to student driven initiatives and ideas.</p>
<p>Penn should be at the very top of your list. Best of luck to you.</p>
<p>As a current med school applicant, I would argue that Penn is the single best place to go for pre-med (though I believe a case can be made for duke as well). The most important things to look for in a premed program are the strength of the premed advising and the accessibility of research/hospital resources, and penn is exceptional in both. Penn also has a very high success rate when it comes to premeds applying to med school coupled with a relatively low average GPA among applying premeds, which can be interpreted as med schools looking favorably upon a Penn education. The premed environment at Penn, while certainly competitive, mostly lacks the cutthroat atmosphere that plagues certain other prominent premed schools.</p>
<p>That said, the premed attrition rate at Penn, as well as at just about any other schools, is incredibly high. Everyone and their mother will seem to be premed when you first get to campus, but that number falls off a lot even after just one semester. However, about 300 Penn students (including alumni) apply to med school each year, which is a very large number even considering Penn's size. Penn is a destination school for premeds, not only because it has an incredibly strong program in that area (program meaning advising/academic/research infrastructure, virtually no schools have a 'premed major' and it's a bad idea to major in that even if one is availible) and the overall strength of the school and the relative diversity of the curriculum allows one many options should you change your mind about what you want to do, which is the case for most premeds.</p>
<p>There are many great opportunities for pre-meds at Penn, perhaps better than any other campus. I'm talking about research experience, becoming an EMT, etc.</p>
<p>But the classes are very competitive. I have some friends whose transcripts are filled with B-'s and C+'s.</p>
<p>But yeah, Math 104 and later Physics tend to weed people out.</p>