<p>What do you think is the toughest pre-med... based on</p>
<p>1.) Weeder courses which have harsh grading, curves, that really eliminate students out of their pre-med major</p>
<p>2.) Tremendous Grade Deflation</p>
<p>3.) Pre-Med lifestyle and Atmosphere</p>
<p>Juss throwing a few out there: Cornell, JHU, Duke, UChicago, Penn....any more opinons on how you would compare these schools</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins is probably the toughest from what I've heard.</p>
<p>Premed is tough at just about any school. Even schools that are heavily grade inflated have little grade inflation in their science courses.</p>
<p>John Hopkins, WashU, Duke, and Washington are ones that come to mind.</p>
<p>JHU Duke Harvard Wash U Rochester etc.
I think most top private schools have it bad</p>
<p>I would throw in MIT especially, since it seems everyone has to take premed courses, premed or not...I guess its not really premed and instead just pre-getting-an-MIT-degree</p>
<p>JHU is notorious for the "weeder" mentality. Many come in pre-med, but many do not stay pre-med--competition is stiff.</p>
<p>I think the same can be said for Cornell and Duke.</p>
<p>Is Duke REALLY that bad? I mean it doesn't have that bad of a pre-med does it compared with Cornell? Would you put it on par with UPENN?</p>
<p>I think Cornell has the least grade inflation, so its probably the hardest of those</p>
<p>When I was there, a senior pre-med tried to downplay the competition as being difficult but not cutthroat among students. I am not sure whether I buy that--this was at a time where individuals were deciding which school to attend.</p>
<p>In general, being a pre-med at top university is difficult regardless of the institution you select. Be ready to work like never before.</p>
<p>But yeah, JHU and Cornell probably have it tougher due to the prevalent grade deflation.</p>
<p>I was unaware that the UPENN premed milieu was as vitriolic and vicious as the others. I always thought Upenn (in general) to be very placid. There are myths at every school when it comes to premed, but those myths inch more and more towards truth at places like JHU, Duke, and WUSTL IMO</p>
<p>How do you compare Northwestern PRE-med to Duke Pre-med..? Those are two ED colleges I have in mind to decide between? I guess in terms of the questions posted above...refer to grade inflaton and course rigor and med school acceptance rate (w/o the screening process)?</p>
<p>UPenn pre-med is HARD. I have talked to several pre-med students--regular admits and transfer students--who said that being a pre-med was extremely difficult. "It is reflected in our GPA, believe us."</p>
<p>Duke pre-med: The intro science courses are especially difficult. I think curved to a C+/B-. So many Duke students come in as pre-meds so the intro courses--particularly chem and bio courses--weed people out.</p>
<p>Also, the math courses--specifically Math32 from what I was told when visiting Duke--discourages many pre-meds by damaging their GPA--word of mouth. I would not worry too much considering you only need a year of Calculus with a lab.</p>
<p>Obviously the premed core classes are going to be arduous. However, I was referring specifically to the ambience engulfing these students. I believe the OP was too. In my defense, many of my friends are going/have gone to Penn and they assured me that there was a spirit of civility about them even though their lifestyle was quite tumultuous due to the work. However, I hope this interpretation was not a mere caricature.</p>
<p>Ah k I see. Unfortunately, I am not aware of the specific nature of the UPenn pre-meds.</p>
<p>A lot of students attend JHU and WUSTL thinking that the prestige and strength of their med schools will trickle down to the undergraduate program. This leaves you with schools that have disproportionately large numbers of premeds. The weed-out courses are super tough with harsh curves and student competition becomes fierce.</p>
<p>Besides those two schools, I'm sure that most of the top private schools have tough weed-out courses. I attended Cornell and took all of the weed-out med school reqs before deciding on a career other than medicine. The curves were set to (if my memory serves me well) a B for intro gen. chem, and a B- for both intro bio and organic chemistry. Organic chemistry is the main weed-out course that will either make you or break you. They have a Intro Bio lab course which is separate from the regular Intro Bio course. For each section of about 20+ students, they hand out only 2 or so A's while the rest have to settle for some variant of a B or a C. norcalguy will probably give you more accurate information regarding these figures, but the point is to demonstrate that grad deflation is prevalent and the weed-out courses truly are designed to weed out those who don't have either the smarts or the work ethic to cut it in a medical school program.</p>
<p>I won't comment on the pre-med lifestyle because my views are very cynical, many people would disagree with me, and there is no point in tainting your unadulterated minds.</p>
<p>I don't know what the situation is like at other top schools but I assume it's similarly tough as Cornell. If you are smart and have the motivation to work hard, then you will make it out alive.</p>
<p>cornell, JHU, and WUSTL obviously suck to do pre-med if you want to succeed and have at least some time to go to the bathroom and shower. How about Duke and NWESTERN?</p>
<p>I think it would be even worse at those places...since there are more distractions</p>
<p>Duke has limited grade inflation, moreso than Cornell, so its probably easier comparatively...but I'm sure its just as hard and not very different
I don't know anything at all about Northwestern's premed/natural science program</p>
<p>thethoughtprocess and Majayiduke09 are definitely right no matter what. </p>
<p>Why?</p>
<p>Because they are my Duke comrades and I love them. :)</p>
<p>UC Berkeley and UCLA meet those three criteria very well.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Duke has limited grade inflation...
[/quote]
[quote]
Is Duke REALLY that bad?
[/quote]
[quote]
those myths inch more and more towards truth at places like ...Duke
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Uh, really? I don't know about that. What are you guys talkingabout? Average gpa of all students at Duke is a 3.4. 85% of Duke premeds who apply to med-school get in somewhere. The average successful Duke premed has a cumulative GPA of about a 3.55, which is not THAT much higher than the average GPA of all Duke students. Seems pretty good to me. So what exactly is the evidence that Duke is a premed crucible? </p>
<p><a href="http://www.gradeinflation.com/duke.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.gradeinflation.com/duke.html</a>
<a href="http://www.aas.duke.edu/trinity/prehealth/appendix/%5B/url%5D">http://www.aas.duke.edu/trinity/prehealth/appendix/</a>
<a href="http://www.aas.duke.edu/trinity/prehealth/appendix/trendsgraphs.doc%5B/url%5D">http://www.aas.duke.edu/trinity/prehealth/appendix/trendsgraphs.doc</a></p>
<p>
[quote]
most of the top private schools have tough weed-out courses
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I would actually argue that it is really the top PUBLIC schools that REALLY have the tough weedout courses. </p>
<p>For example, take a gander at the GPA's at the following top public schools.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.gradeinflation.com/virginia.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.gradeinflation.com/virginia.html</a>
<a href="http://www.gradeinflation.com/berkeley.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.gradeinflation.com/berkeley.html</a>
<a href="http://www.gradeinflation.com/wisconsin.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.gradeinflation.com/wisconsin.html</a>
<a href="http://www.gradeinflation.com/illinois.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.gradeinflation.com/illinois.html</a>
<a href="http://www.gradeinflation.com/carolina.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.gradeinflation.com/carolina.html</a>
<a href="http://www.gradeinflation.com/texas.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.gradeinflation.com/texas.html</a>
<a href="http://www.gradeinflation.com/gtech.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.gradeinflation.com/gtech.html</a></p>
<p>True, that data shows only cumulative gpa information, not premed-specific data. However, I think we can agree it's probably true that if the school gives out lots of low grades overall, then it will surely give out lots of low premed grades. I've never heard of a school giving out grades in premed classes that are higher than the average for that school, with a possible exception that I will get to later.</p>
<p>Some of you might be thinking: Hold on sakky, the private schools are more selective and so their students 'deserve' to get higher grades than students at public schools. To that, I would say that the premise is not necessarily true. For example, I would argue that a place like Berkeley is roughly as selective as is Duke. USNews ranks Berkeley's selectivity as being comparable to that of Duke. Yet Berkeley grades harder than does Duke.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.gradeinflation.com/duke.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.gradeinflation.com/duke.html</a>
<a href="http://www.gradeinflation.com/berkeley.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.gradeinflation.com/berkeley.html</a></p>
<p>The 2 schools that immediately come to mind as possibly THE 2 toughest places to go for premed are simple - MIT and Caltech. These are the two schools at which the premed courses may actually be easier than the average course at that school. I don't know if that's true, but what I'm saying is that if there are any schools where that might be true, it would be at MIT and Caltech.</p>
<p>wow that was thorough.</p>
<p>whats berkeleys grades curved to? and is it really as selective as duke, since it has slightly lower admissions standards since its a state school?</p>