I am completely torn between these schools. Money is not really an issue for me, so I want to go to the school that has the best chance at achieving my goal to become an anesthesiologist. I personally like Davis better than Berkeley, but will going there hurt my chances of getting into medical school? I am planning on majoring in biochemistry at both schools.
Which of these schools is better for premed? Where is there a better chance of getting into medical-related internships/reasearch positions?
What is the acceptance rate into medical school (in general) from both schools?
https://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/MedStats shows medical school admission rates for UCB pre-meds who apply to medical school. I do not know if such tables are publicly available from UCD.
If you like Davis better then you should go there. I doubt either is in general better than the other for most/all premeds. If you could live your life twice and alternate just this one choice I think one would turn out to be better based on things that are unpredictable; did you get a great TA that really helped you in a tough class, did you end up with a really motivated group of friends, did you have roomate troubles at one, etc. So that’s not really any help.
When you talk about medical-related internships/reasearch positions you should know that med schools care a lot about having exposure to actual patient care. It’s an unofficial requirement to get into med schools, and many programs such as for Physician Assistant actually require a set number of hours. Research experience in a lab is a plus but is not required, nor will it offset a lack of patient care experience. There is a great writeup on preparing for med school at https://www.rhodes.edu/content/health-professions-advising-hpa on the “PreMed Essentials” link. There is also a good handbook at https://www.amherst.edu/campuslife/careers/act/gradstudy/health/guide and no doubt many other websites, as well as books.
Acceptance rates are probably not a good criteria. Students are not randomly assigned to these 2 schools so any rates likely reflect differences in incoming student ability and preferences, rather than characteristics of the school itself.
You say you have decided on being an anesthesiologist. Unless you’ve considered alternatives and have spent time actually working in a health care setting where you saw what they do its better to think of yourself as interested in exploring a career as a doctor rather than someone who has already made the decision to be a doctor, let alone one that has settled on a specialty. Doctors are far from the only ones in the health field that help people. Physical therapists, radiology techs, nurses, speech pathologists, physician assistants, to name but just a few, and these other professions take far less debt and years of training.