<p>Ok. So I want to study Pre-Med. You know... the usual.. become a doctor.. Yes.. One of those pre-med students.</p>
<p>haha ok so I know it's been answered, but now that I've been accepted to both: Which university is better for Pre-med studies so I can get into better graduate school?</p>
<p>Thank you!</p>
<p>UCLA- I think Berkeley is much more competitive and you will have a tougher time maintaining a decent GPA.</p>
<p>IDK, depends on what you want.</p>
<p>Research? Go Bears!
Actually applying what you learn in class? Go Bruins!
(That's how someone put it to me.)</p>
<p>I personally would go to UCLA. xD;</p>
<p>UCLA. Berkeley's premed courses are weeder classes designed to kick out students that cannot handle them. Seriously. I know LA is somewhat like that, but their class averages in their premed courses still end up higher than Cal's (I would cite my sources, but I forgot where they came from, sorry).</p>
<p>LA has more premeds than any other university, which means more competition
Cal has tons more research.</p>
<p>as a school, cal has a higher avg gpa than ucla. (check thecampusbuddy if you want confirmation.) also, a higher percentage of cal students get into med school (i recall cal is around 67% while ucla is at the national avg, 50%). of course, that could just be cal students are more motivated or whatever, but the fact is that a higher percentage of pre-med people at cal end up getting into med school.</p>
<p>thanks!
do you kno where the stats are for who gets into premed? the exact site?
ahh! =||||</p>
<p>bump........</p>
<p>I went to Cal for undergrad and UCLA for medical school. They are both great universities. In order to have a successful medical school application, you will have to earn good grades so . . . choose the place where you can see yourself being happy and studying hard. The sky is the limit if you come out of either with a strong GPA and good MCAT scores.</p>
<p>Cal definitely has more research opportunities. Also, since Cal is "ivy comparable" in terms of peer institutional recognition, maybe if you score a 3.8 + you can land yourself a spot at Harvard Medical School.</p>
<p>Berkeley does have a better percent admitted stat, I think it's 63% versus UCLA's 50%. But I'm guessing it's because more people got weeded out. I'd imagine Berkeley's a little more competitive but pre-med is competitive everywhere.</p>
<p>Berkeley's data is a tad bit misleading because it only includes data from recent graduates, as opposed to UCLA, which includes data from ALL applicants, including those who have been out of school for a while. Take a look at:</p>
<p>you'll see that there were more than 700 people who listed their undergrad affiliation as UC Berkeley. Same for UCLA. However, if you look at vicissitudes' links, you'll see that UCLA says that in 2005, 706 people applied. On the other hand, Berkeley's med school page lists only a little over a hundred people applying for that year. </p>
<p>Why is this significant? It means that some 700 - 100 = 600 Berkeley applicants are not accounted for in the Career Center data. If you think about it, the people who go to med school right after graduation tend to be the most qualified med school applicants since they only needed one try to get in anywhere. But there are about 600 students who've graduated and who are either applying for their second or third time, or who've completed a post-bac and are just now applying. UCLA's data includes this, but Berkeley's does not. thus, trying to compare the med school acceptance rates for Berkeley and LA doesn't make any sense.</p>
<p>What I think is most important is where you think you'll be happiest, as Kona1 said. The happier you are, the better your undergrad experience (not to mention your grades, which obviously matter very much for med schools) will be.</p>
<p>Ahh yes, that's true. Someone else brought this up with me a long time ago, and I forgot about it.</p>
<p>However, I don't think it significantly skews the data. And in fact, I think there are a few reasons to believe those who are applying a second time actually have an advantage:</p>
<ol>
<li>They've been through the process and know what the med schools are looking for.</li>
<li>They know what they're lacking and have compensated for it.</li>
<li>They have extra time to build up their portfolio.</li>
<li>They are more determined since they're applying a second time.</li>
</ol>
<p>Also, I question the notion that only ~100 people apply their senior year while ~600 are applying a second time or sometime after graduation. Since 65% are accepted, that means only 35% are rejected. So those who are applying a second time must be out of those 35%. How the heck can those people outnumber the first-time applicants 6-to-1? It also doesn't make sense to have most people wait a year or two after graduation before applying. My guess as to what's happening is, most of the people in the ~700 pool are first-time applicants, and Berkeley is simply missing a lot of data because not everyone provides feedback. And I think the 100-150 sample pool is large enough to be a fairly accurate representation of the whole first-time applicant pool. The "real" acceptance rate might be a little lower, but from 65% down to under 50%? Probably not. I still think Berkeley's acceptance rate is a bit higher than UCLA's.</p>
<p>However, this can be moot point if you consider what I brought up earlier, which is I think Berkeley's harsh environment might discourage more students from applying in the first place. If hypothetically you have 1000 students come into both schools as pre-meds, but UCLA ends up with 400 students applying and 200 getting in, versus Berkeley in which 200 students apply and 150 get in, well yeah the acceptance rate is much higher, but the chances that you go into Berkeley as a pre-med and walk out with a med scshool acceptance is actually lower. So yeah, I agree the data is flawed and should be taken with a grain of salt, but it's probably the best solid data we have on the subject.</p>