<p>Hello potential adviser,
im planning to apply for undergrad in the fall, and I've had my mind set on a pre med major for years. I could use some advise on where to apply/enroll. My credentials are probably good enough to get in just about anywhere, but I've read some discussions(/heated debates) about what the right path to medical school is.</p>
<pre><code> On one hand you have the people who believe going to a top-echelon school is going to set you up best to apply for med school, providing you have decent grades and MCAT scores.
On the other you have those who think your better off sticking with a middle of the road institution,which will still give you a good education, but where you will get better grades easier and have less competition (and thus a higher rank).
Hopefully some of you out there can point me towards one of these categories over the other, state why, and give a few schools that match the criteria. I'll accept any advise, but hopefully you'll be writing from experience, and I dont mean to turn this into a debate, so please dont critcize or pick apart another post.
<p>collegekid, Many colleges -- both big research universities and small liberal arts colleges -- have excellent track records in getting their graduates into top medical schools. There is no right path for everyone. You have to seek the right fit for you.</p>
<p>Medical school acceptance is precipitated primarily on grades and recommendations. Where you are likely to get the best grades and recommendations depends on the type of teaching style and environment that you are the most comfortable with. </p>
<p>Here are a few websites that layout how Williams helps students achieve their med-school goals. The focus on personalized attention and the intensity of academic support are significant. Williams happens to be the school that I am most familiar with; however, my guess is that you would find this kind of support system at many LACs.</p>
<p>Collegekid06, rank has never mattered for the purposes of med-school admissions. In fact, most colleges won't even compute a rank. After all - think about how unfair that would be. Rank is already a bit unfair to calculate in high school, because people take different classes with different teachers who grade differently. But think about how unfair it would be in college. How can you fairly rank a guy majoring in Electrical Engineering against a guy majoring in some creampuff easy major? Is an 'A' in EE worth the same as an 'A' in that creampuff major? Should it be worth the same? Should people who deliberately major in something just because it's easy be rewarded with a boost in rank?</p>
<p>sakky: that's why schools not only look at rank, but also at what type of courses the students have taken.</p>
<p>At my HS, a couple of ppl ranked ahead of me have taken "creampuff" courses like Strength Training, where ppl get A's for pumping their muscles and writing down in a notebook how much they lifted that particular day, and endless basic basic courses like all non-honors while I've taken all honors and 4 AP classes. The adcoms do look at the courseload, and the standard denominator amongst applicants are standardized test scores, like the MCAT</p>
<p>I do agree with you though, an A in strength training should not equal an A in say, AP Calculus BC</p>
<p>thank you for the advice momrath.<br>
sakky, are you sure med schools dont at least find your approximate percentile among students from your college who apply to med schools?</p>
<p>They compare you to the rest of the applicant pool. Most med schools have a coefficient that they multiply your GPA by depending on what school you went to. Of course, those are kept secret.</p>
<p>oohhh ok. It's a little reassuring to know that they at least take your school into account, but it still doesn't mean the adcoms compensate fully for the difficulty of your classes.Thanks jamesah.</p>
<p>the "best" school depends on you. Some people like the personal guidance and support they get at a LAC. Others are comfortable in the impersonal environment of a large U, and these can be substantially less expensive if you go to your state system. </p>
<p>Admissions depends on the interview, grades, MCAT, and an unswritten requirement is volunteer work. You should volunteer soon if you haven't done so already to make sure medicine is right for you. Participating in research while in college is also a plus.</p>
<p>I think your choice should be guided not just by med-school but by the college experience. A LAC is not like a big U, which may be obvious, but nor are all U's or LACs similar to each other. College is a unique time in your life, a time to grow and explore new things, meet new friends, perhaps spend a semester abroad, etc. Pick a school that offers the best fit for you in terms of what it offers, the type of students it attracts, location, etc. If you pick just based on med-school and you hate every day there it won't be a pleasant experience, and add to that the fact that many people who start college with the intention of entering medicine (there is no major called "pre-med" by the way, its just a label you apply to yourself) and end up switching to something else for any of a number of reasons.</p>
<p>On average, are there better research oppurtunities at an LAC or big university: and which one offers researchs ops for a larger percentage of those who want them.</p>
<p>there is no "average"; you'll have to inquire at the schools you care about. Biology, for example, is a major offered at virtually every LAC. </p>
<p>Since LACs don't have grad students and have smaller classes where profs know you, it seems like the odds are good for getting hands-on research experience. But on the flip-side, many LACs aren't as research-intensive as a big U and many can't afford the same equipment as a larger U.</p>
<p>At the big U they have big-time research, but they have grad students and the first priority is educating those budding PhDs. So undergrads may be less welcome in the labs. Not only that, but its more difficult to get to know profs personally so that they are willing to work with you.</p>
<p>But these are gross generalizations. Some LACs pride themselves in the research opportunities they provide to undergrads, and the same is true of some U's. You're going to have to talk to students/faculty at the schools you're considering and find out the scoop.</p>
<p>Yeah, to reiterate all that has been said, you could be at MIT, Tufts, Wellseley, or UMassBoston and Harvard will pull from all of them, it's not so much the school as it is you and those test scores.</p>
<p>My advice is to go to non-ultra competitve top schools, this rules out Chicago, Cornell, JHU, MIT. Go to harvard, yale, stanford, dartmouth, brown, penn, etc.</p>
<p>slipper, when i visited Penn, i got the impression that it was VERY competitive and in fact, a student i spoke with who got 5s easily on AP CHEM, BIO, Physics C, said Penn was 5 times as hard with the sciences. He said the pre-med started out with 900 students and ended up the next year with 400 students. 500 were weeded out just through chemistry and he said, that only about 200-250 students end up applying to med school. If that's not a weed-out, IDK which is.</p>
<p>slipper, are you saying that schools that are harder to get into (like harvard,yale), are less competitive than schools like chicago and jhu. And how are you "measuring" how competitive each of them are.
And a question to college1988 and the general audience as well; can you dub yourself a "premed" student if you are majoring in something else, because 900 students is just massive. in other words, can you call yourself a premed student as long as you take the five or so required classes.</p>
<p>you can major in anthing and do pre-med. It is just a set of required pre-reqs that you must take. You could be an art major or german language major and take the required classes + MCATs.</p>
<p>1 year of General Chem
1 year of Organic Chem
1 year of Biology
1 year of Physics
1 year of Calculus
usually 1/2 of an advanced biology such as biochemistry or genetics</p>