<p>Can anyone give me more information about the premed program at Rice? Is it very difficult and competitive? How much free time do premed students get? Any information would be very helpful!</p>
<p>I feel like I might be the only one answering questions here, at least from the students' perspective...</p>
<p>Anyway, pre-med, as you might know, is not a major at most schools including Rice. So, everyone who is pre-med is also something else. A lot depends on what else you are. Like being pre-med and electrical engineering <em>might</em> be more difficult than being premed and psychology, for example.</p>
<p>Overall, the difficulty of pre-med mostly depends on your preparation and choices that you make. For example, if you have the opportunity to take AP science at your high school, do it. Even if you do not get credit for it, you will be so far ahead that the pre-med classes will be much easier. If you have any opportunity for independent or advanced study in any of the areas that you will need for pre-med, take advantage of them. Also, you may consider not using the credit that you could have gotten from AP. For example, I took AP chem at my high school. I was sick during AP week, and didn't take the exam. I could have gone into honors general chem (because I had a strong background in high school chemistry), but I choose to do regular general chem. This was a great choice, since the course was challenging, but not too hard for me at all. (This is especially true if you are Rice/Baylor, and far less true if you are a chem major.)</p>
<p>As to competitiveness - I am so glad to be away from the competitive spirit of high school. No one at Rice cares what you got on your last exam. If you are having trouble, expect offers of help and study groups. If you are doing well, people may come to you for help, and you should be prepared to give it. People at Rice cooperate, because they know that there will likely come a time when the roles are reversed and they will be in need of help.</p>
<p>Free time - this depends a lot on each individual student. I know pre-meds who party all the time, play intramurals, are hugely involved on campus, etc. And I know pre-meds who study A LOT. In some ways, this also depends on your preparation. I had more free time than other people I know because I wasn't spending hours each night learning chemistry. But it also depends on your personality. If you don't like partying, studying can be a good excuse for a while, but you'll have to find a new one eventually, as there are plenty of pre-meds who get out. The pre-meds who party simply make that a priority. Everyone has the same amount of time in a day, and you just have to figure out what's important to you. For example, Saturday nights I don't usually stay out too late because I have a comittment to volunteering at Texas Children's on Sunday morning. But if I wanted to have a late night each saturday, I could either change the day I volunteer, or not volunteer at all. No one is forcing you to do anything. Pick what's important to you and do that. And don't be afraid to change your priorities.</p>
<p>Does anybody know the percentage of Rice applicants who apply to medical schools actually get into one? I would believe that percentage would be pretty high.</p>
<p>Yeah, it is. I remember reading that it's like 96%.</p>
<p>is it difficult to pursue both premed and an engineering degree at the same time?</p>
<p>does Rice take its premed program and its students very seriously? how popular is premed on campus and how is the advising system for health professions at Rice?</p>
<p>Q1: I'm not really qualified to answer this, so I won't, other than to say that people definitely do it, and i would guess that it's not easy. You might want to send an e-mail to one or all of : the pre-med advising office, the department that you ar considering majoring in, the student admissions council (<a href="mailto:sac@rice.edu">sac@rice.edu</a>) which could put you in touch with a student currently pursuing this.</p>
<p>Q2: Pre-med is VERY popular. I have found advising only so-so at this point, but then again, being Rice/Baylor puts me in the minority and I have different needs from the vast majority of pre-meds at Rice. Plus I haven't had a huge amount of contact with the pre-med advisers since i'm only a freshman. The Rice Pre-Med society is pretty active and they do some cool things, so you might want to look into that. Also Rice EMS is very active. But yes, they take it pretty seriously.</p>
<p>Copy from another post...
I know the premed acceptance rate @ Rice is about 90%...
"There are many no-name schools that have premed acceptance rates of 90% and up.</p>
<p>Of course the major problem is that almost all of these schools are basically prescreening candidates. Only applicants who make it through the entire premed process will be able to apply, and so many schools aggressively weed out the weak candidates through their premed classes. If you can't complete those classes, then you're no longer an applicant. Furthermore, many programs will only provide the "dean's certification letter" or other such memorandum that med-schools require only to their strongest premed students. If you don't have that letter, you can't apply. So many schools will review the transcripts of their premed students, and if the schools think you're not going to get in, they will simply not give you the letter. </p>
<p>So after doing all that, it is clearly no surprise that a very high percentage of whoever is left will get admitted."
Posted by sakky</p>
<p>IS THIS TRUE AT RICE?</p>
<p>Yes and no, from my limited experience. </p>
<p>Yes, there are people who find the pre-med classes too difficult, and decide not to pursue medicine. Yes, there are people who come in pre-med and then take philosophy and absolutely love it, and decide to do that, or some else that they had never considered.</p>
<p>No, the classes are not designed to weed you out, in my opinion. Professors are hugely supportive and will make every effort to see that you are successful, including e-mailing with you when you are having difficulty, holding class review sessions, meeting with you one-on-one during office hours, etc. Although there are still some people who drop pre-med because they can't take the classes, this is not the norm. Much more common are people who drop pre-med because they have found another passion, and I think schools should encourage that. Also, students at Rice are competitve with themselves but not with each other. I've heard horror stories (which may or may not be true) about students that had their notes stolen by other students, students who had their lab work contaminated by other students, etc. By and large that doesn't happen at Rice.</p>
<p>Maybe, they will refuse to write letters, I don't know about that. But I can't imagine that it happens often. Rice students are well-prepared for medical school, if they have followed the directions (take the pre-med classes, volunteer, do research, etc). Also, something to consider is that imagine that you had requested a letter for medical school at your college and you were denied because they wanted to keep their stats high and they didn't believe that you would be accepted. You would, of course, not go to medical school. But, you probably wouldn't have gone to med school anyway, which was the whole point. So it doesn't really matter for the individual applicant to med ical school. Granted some mistakes may be made, which is why schools don't have 100% acceptance rates. But the point is that the denial of letters is much more important from the statisical point of view, than it actually matters in reality. </p>
<p>So maybe you shouldn't trust those stats, and maybe you should. I think it's irrelevant and you should ignore them. Here's what you can focus on instead - Rice is great for pre-med.</p>
<p>ive heard many people talk about grade inflation being rampant in ivy leagues....does this exist at Rice?</p>
<p>no, it doesn't. You can EARN A's, if you are willing to work for them. But no one is giving them out for free.</p>
<p>And in news from pre-med advising, my psych prof from last semester is becoming the new pre-med advisor. And she is just great. I think this change will really improve pre-health advising at rice.</p>
<p>that sounds great...also, do most people who do premed at Rice major in the sciences?</p>
<p>Sorry, just one more thing that I wanted to make clear - you will not have more opportunities for internships, volunteering, or medical research anywhere than you will at Rice. Being a pre-med across the street from the texas medical center is just fabulous in so many ways. It is THE reason to come here if you are pre-med.</p>
<p>Probably, since most pre-meds nationally are science majors. But lots of pre-meds at Rice aren't science majors. I'm probably going to be a cognitive science, policy studies double major - both in the school of social science.</p>
<p>(hooray! post #300)</p>
<p>jenskate, when you applied to Rice, which school did u apply to? and also, do most premed students have a backup career plan in case they dont get into med school?</p>
<p>I applied to natural sciences. It no problem to switch (although I have yet to formally do that). I don't know if most have a backup plan. Well, not all the pre-meds who apply do have a backup i'd imagine, but that's probably fine, since about 95% get in somewhere. The ones who came in pre-med though sometimes switch into something else, and then they go from there. (to bed now, have to be at Texas Children's Hospital to volunteer in 7.5 hours!)</p>
<p>That brings up an interesting aspect of being Pre-Med at Rice. The largest medical complex in the entire world is right next to campus (Texas Medical Center). You will have more opportunities to do "medical stuff" while a student at Rice than you would anywhere else (including Johns Hopkins, where the hospital is miles away from the campus).</p>
<p>That is so true, breeze. And it's actually something that I never even thought about when I was applying. Kudos to you for appreciating this now!</p>