<p>My son accepted into UCB and CMU and he wants pursue premed to get admission into Top 20 medical schools. He got the Regents from UCB. </p>
<p>Aside from the cost of the schools, which school will take him to his goal successfully, assuming he will continue to work hard?</p>
<p>Both schools are excellent so the answer to your question is - both schools.</p>
<p>I think it’d be hard to turn down Cal+Regents for CMU but that comes down to cost (assuming Cal would be less expensive) and preference for the area, campus, etc.</p>
<p>This is a good problem to have.</p>
<p>Cal is a great school, but notoriously difficult for pre-med students because of their grade deflation. Today there is a thread on the Berkeley forum about UCB v Santa Clara University, where the applicant is pre-med, and they discuss some of the pros-cons of being pre-med at Berkeley. You might want to check that out.</p>
<p>I say Berkeley regents could give many benefits but like the posts above it is difficult to maintain 3.8+ gpa at Berkeley. But CMU is also difficult so academics are around the same. i would look into other thinga such as environment people social life etc for this decision.</p>
<p>The first priority is finding the best school and major that will lead to a good career if you do not get into medical school. Getting accepted at any U.S. MD medical school is a real crap shoot for any pre-med major. Every year thousands of high school valedictorians enter premed programs and of them, the number who will actually get accepted by a medical school is small.</p>
<p>Do not give up on your dream of medical school but you should have a good plan for what you are going to do if you are not among the fortunate few who actually get accepted to a medical school.</p>
<p>* Getting accepted at any U.S. MD medical school is a real crap shoot for any pre-med major*</p>
<p>That is the main point. Getting accepted to even ONE US MD school is a crap shoot. To aim for a Top 20 isn’t really being realistic. </p>
<p>ALL US MD Med schools are excellent. There are no “bad ones” …there are no “subpar ones”. They’re all VERY GOOD.</p>
<p>Also post your question on the PreMed Topics forum.</p>
<p>It’s better than 50/50 that he will end up deciding NOT to go to med school. (That’s independent of the question of getting in.) So, since both schools are just fine, you might want to use other criteria in the decision. Pittsburgh is a great town! Berkeley is nice too. Would he like to get away from home? Does cost matter? Does he follow sports? How does he feel about snow? What does he want to do for fun? (If surfing, Pittsburgh not so much…)</p>
<p>I agree with mini, I don’t think it matters much. My older son went to CMU. One advantage of CMU is that (as far as I know) there are no impacted majors. It’s a school where a large portion of students know exactly what they want to be when they grow up. (Comp Sci, Engineer, Actor, Artist, Architect especially), but it does offer the full spectrum of courses. Pittsburgh is a pretty nice town with five colleges and a decent music scene. My son is fine with snow, but wished it rained a little less!</p>
<p>We looked at Berkeley years ago, but decided it wasn’t worth it OOS. I remember one other thing I didn’t like about it was that housing wasn’t guaranteed for sophomores. In state with a Regents I think the decision is not nearly as obvious.</p>
<p>UCB doesn’t have a high acceptance rate to US med schools…I think it’s about 55% at best. And that stat represents how many applicants got accepted to at least one US MD med school. </p>
<p>That said, I don’t know what the acceptance rate is at CMU. I think of that school as a techie school like MIT. </p>
<p>And, Mini is right…most pre-med students never apply to med school. I think only 25% actually ever apply. Within the first 2 years, half of the pre-meds have changed their goals. After that, another bunch doesn’t apply .</p>
<p>Instead of focusing on med schools, focus on where he’ll get a very good undergrad education no matter what his career goal is.</p>
<p>How much was the Regents?</p>
<p>Some schools with higher Med School acceptance rates may just do a better job of heading kids off the pre-med track earlier.</p>
<p>He got the Regents from Cal ($2500/yr) Alumni award($4000/4yr)from UCLA.
And we live near(25-30min drive) Cal which can be a great advantage cost-wise.</p>
<p>Average grades at Berkeley and other UCs can be found at [University</a> of California: StatFinder](<a href=“http://statfinder.ucop.edu%5DUniversity”>http://statfinder.ucop.edu) . There is also some information at [National</a> Trends in Grade Inflation, American Colleges and Universities](<a href=“http://www.gradeinflation.com%5DNational”>http://www.gradeinflation.com) – Berkeley is one of the schools listed (at the bottom), but CMU is not. However, grade inflation should be considered in the context of the competitiveness of the students (e.g. less selective universities and community colleges tend to have lower GPAs).</p>
<p>Berkeley pre-med advising information can be found at <a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Medical/Medical.stm[/url]”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Medical/Medical.stm</a> . Some stats can be found at <a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/MedStats.stm[/url]”>https://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/MedStats.stm</a> .</p>
<p>Note that no specific major is required to do pre-med and take the pre-med course work. The student would be well advised to consider what other academic interests he has in order to plan his studies, whether or not he remains pre-med.</p>
<p>I don’t have a kid at either school, but D has 3 good friends who are sophomores at UCB that all went in as premed. Only one now has a GPA high enough that he is sticking with premed. The other two are moving on to other majors.</p>
<p>That would be somewhat higher (for folks remaining premed) than the norm (but it is a small sample).</p>
<p>Something to note is that biology is a very popular major among pre-meds, presumably because it is convenient (the same courses apply to both the major and pre-med requirements). But biology has relatively poor job and career prospects at the bachelor’s degree level for those who do not go to medical or other professional school.</p>
<p>Here is Berkeley’s career survey:
<a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Major.stm[/url]”>https://career.berkeley.edu/Major/Major.stm</a>
Molecular and Cell Biology and Integrative Biology are two of the most popular majors on the Berkeley campus. But only a minority of them are going to any graduate school at all, including medical school.</p>
<p>Here is CMU’s career survey:
[Post-Graduation</a> Survey: Salaries & Destinations-Career and Professional Development Center - Carnegie Mellon University](<a href=“http://www.studentaffairs.cmu.edu/Career/Students/gps1/explore/survey/]Post-Graduation”>http://www.studentaffairs.cmu.edu/Career/Students/gps1/explore/survey/)</p>
<p>*I don’t have a kid at either school, but D has 3 good friends who are sophomores at UCB that all went in as premed. Only one now has a GPA high enough that he is sticking with premed. The other two are moving on to other majors.
*</p>
<p>That sounds about right - even if it’s a small sample. 3 friends pre-med at Cal (or anywhere), and then within 2 years, 2 have GPAs too low for med school. So, 1 is left as “pre-med” at the end of soph year.</p>
<p>So, this suggests that Cal weeds just like all the rest. The pre-med pre-reqs are weeder classes, no doubt about it. Once you start getting B’s and C’s in Gen Chem classes and OChem classes, you start realizing that your BCMP GPA is going to a problem for med school admissions.</p>
<p>My honest opinion is that a student is SURE - absolutely SURE - s/he wants to be pre-med, then get a big, big merit scholarship in an honors progarm at a second tier school, preferably a state school with some graduate research going on, and become the star of the department. S/he’ll get more mentoring, more research opportunities, more individualized attention, better recommendations than being a middling student at a supposedly better institution, and will save a ton of money for a good medical school. </p>
<p>The only problem is that, if changes one’s mind, there are fewer options. </p>
<p>But if I were sure, I’d choose neither Berkeley nor CMU if there was a lot more money available elsewhere.</p>
<p>I’ve been through Chem 1A at Berkeley with the giant lecture hall, rotating stage, and “as discovered right her in our department” condescending attitude. This class is your pre-med gatekeeper and in my day they did not want everyone to succeed. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy . . . well, maybe.</p>
<p>did your son apply to Universtiy of Washington , Saint Louis?</p>