<p>I'd love to hear input from current Stanford premed students about their experience at Stanford. Is the workload bearable/do you still have time for a social life/how is the overall quality of life? </p>
<p>Also, if possible, how would you compare Stanford to Brown PLME? </p>
<p>Those of you not at Stanford feel free to comment as well :)</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>My S is a stanford student. Stanford is a very collaborative school. The school truly believes that students should work together and help eachother out. I’m certainly being biased but I think its much better than Brown. However, from what I understand one of the few programs at Stanford that is highly competitive is the premed majors. They are under a lot of stress to constantly maintain a 4.0, or close to it GPA, which is needed for med school. My S is not a premed student, but thats what he would tell you. </p>
<p>Personally, while my S was in highschool he definitely contemplated going the premed route. He loved the sciences so it only made sense to think about this major. However, most people we met (doctors), all said the same thing. Never go to a high ranking school for premed. It just makes it harder to secure the necessary 3.8 or more GPA that you need and the medical schools will not give you much credit for attending Stanford’s premed over ABC college. At the end of the day med schools look at three things: GPA, MCAT’s and letters of recommendation. The GPA and letters of rec are easier to obtain by attending a smaller, less competitive school. In a small school is easy to make connections with the professors and truly get to know them. Hence they can write you a very personal letter of recommendation. I’m not saying that you can’t get that at Stanford. As i stated orginally I have nothing but great things to say about that school, but the student body is brilliant. So at the end of the day, you are going up against uber smart kids, making it more difficult to be the few who will get the A in the class when the grades are curved.</p>
<p>Doesn’t the Brown PLME program allow for direct entry to med school if you do well? If so, that would be a huge advantage, IMO…if you’re certain you want to be a doctor.</p>