Rutgers Honors College/Pre-Med

Colleges and Universities A-Z Rutgers University
1

Hello all, I was recently invited to the Rutgers Honors College at the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences. They select 500 of the top students, and the workload is rigorous: there are mandatory interdisciplinary honors seminars, forums, etc. But I believe the environment is enriching, and they provide an immense amount of opportunities when it comes to resources, internships, and volunteering/shadowing (in fact, these components are graduation requirements). But the classes are difficult, and I may not be able to accumulate the best possible grades I can.

As a pre-med student, the notion that GPA and MCAT scores are of utmost importance is swaying me away from taking part in the Honors College. Also, I was originally planning on commuting my first year, but the Honors College requires its first-year students to stay in their special designated building (which is very beautiful), and my parents are not financially comfortable with investing so much money into the accompanying meal plan.

Should I do the Honors College? Or should I stick with doing regular, non-honors courses to heighten my chances of getting a high GPA? And do honors classes even benefit a pre-med student?

2

Hey Congratulations. Quick question what are your stats for getting invited to Honors college?

3

Apparently the honors classes aren’t necessarily GPA ruiners. Because the honors sections of courses are more difficult, they tend to be curved more. Furthermore, you have more attention from professors and are surrounded by the brightest in your school, so if you do not understand material, you have others to depend on which is a valuable resource in of itself.
And of course it is better for premed. You get access to research opportunities not available to other students, better housing freshman year, as well as more personalized attention from professors (which will go a long way in getting research opportunities and letters of rec). Also, you will be better prepared for the MCAT by taking harder classes. I myself am probably doing premed in biomedical engineering at the honors college in the fall, which is one of the hardest workloads to go into medical school, but I am also more prepared for the MCAT.