I originally committed to the University of Rochester, but I recently got off the waitlist at UC Berkeley for Undeclared Letters and Sciences and will be required to start with FPF in order to start in the fall. I have always wanted to pursue the pre-med track, and I know that the pre-med track at Berkeley is not ideal, not to mention grade deflation. I also know that the name “Berkeley” has a lot of weight for any job or career path. At 18, I have no way of foreseeing exactly what my career will be in the future, but I definitely have the ambition to pursue med school whichever school I go to. However, because premed weed-out courses are so notoriously ridiculous at Berkeley, it probably would not be realistic to do the premed route if I were to attend Berkeley. At the University of Rochester, despite having less name recognition, there is an open curriculum and no general requirement courses, and professors, research opportunities, and volunteer opportunities are known to be accessible. There is also a by-application take-five program which allows students to take a fifth year researching in something unrelated to their major tuition free.
As more context, with the financial aid and merit scholarship I received from the University of Rochester, it’s still expensive to attend UR, but my parents would be able to afford both schools. Also, I did grow up in the San Francisco Bay Area, and many Berkeley students who have attended my high school have said that the academic environment is similar to the academic environment that I experienced in high school, both the good and the bad. Also, I really wasn’t expecting to be admitted into Berkeley in the first place, and initially, I really wanted to experience a totally new place in my college experience. Both schools are definitely great schools, which unfortunately only makes make decision more difficult.
It will be hard to get a a GPA > 3.7 at UCB. You may have to forego your dream of becoming a doctor if you have a below par GPA for MD/DO. Your UG institution does not matter in MD regular route admission decisions. DD did not choose UCB because of grade deflation and high cost for OOS.
@ToDance - What’s the cost difference? If you went to very competitive HS you will be fine at UCB. You need to carefully plan your classes and limit ECs to succeed. You may need to do med school required ECs in summer (volunteering, shadowing and research) and don’t them during first semester or year,
For CA residents, the bar is unfortunately higher…doesn’t matter where you go for undergrad.
If you choose your major and classes carefully at UCB and getting all the support, it could still be a viable option. One guy bragged about his 3.9+ GPA from UCB on SDN (he shared his AMCAS app) and attended Yale med school with scholarship money.
For U of Rochester, @WayOutWestMom knew best. Read up her posts on how pre-meds there changed their majors at end of 1st year and 2nd year after taking the weeder classes.
UR also has grade deflation and caps the number of As awarded in lower level science classes at 15%.
If you want a committee letter at UR, pre-meds need to take calculus (at least through Calc1) and a year of calculus-based physics.
Because of the high number of UR undergrads pursuing pre-med puts a lot of pressure on Strong Hospital (UR’s medical school hospital across the street from campus) you may have difficulty finding clinical volunteer opportunities close to campus.
This isn’t true. While UR doesn’t require a foreign language for graduation. It does requires 2 semester of writing skills (freshman and an upper level) and requires all students to meet Rochester curriculum requirements.
The Rochester curriculum requires all students (except engineering majors) to complete 2 “clusters”–one in each division outside of one’s major. A cluster is a group of 3 related classes. UR divides all majors into one of 3 divisions–humanities, natural sciences & engineering, or social sciences. For example, a bio major (natural science) will need to complete a cluster both in the humanities and in the social sciences to fulfill graduations requirements.
And Rochester can be bitterly cold in the winter. (Think way below zero with the wind chill.) D2 is from the sunny Southwest and found the dark, low clouds from October through March depressing. She said if you’re prone to SAD, UR is the place where you’re going to get it.
I wonder if the grade cap is still true at URoc. My lad never mentioned it at all. He had no problems getting straight As there (one or two grades were an A-), but he’s also very academic and a perfectionist so my guess is he’d have done that at any school he attended. It’s still strange that he wouldn’t have mentioned it as he’s shared many other things about the school to me, to prospective students, and prospective med student wannabes.
Next time I talk with him I’ll try to remember to ask him about it. (No guarantees about my memory anymore though. Getting old and radiation combo have taken a toll.)
I texted my lad and he’s never heard of a grade cap, but of course that doesn’t mean there isn’t one. He just hasn’t heard of it from professors or friends and was surprised to see my question.
He was a TA in Orgo and as far as he knew they didn’t have one. In his General Chem class they were flat out told that if they got an A on the final they would get an A in the course regardless of what their grade up to that point was. That seems to me like there could have been 100% As if students all got an A on the final, so I have some serious doubts that it’s true now even if it were in earlier days. My lad was the Class of 2016 for his “weeder” courses - took Chem, Bio, and Calc first semester of freshman year in 2012 - had As in all of those courses.
He never had difficulty finding volunteer opportunities at Strong (or elsewhere - like Hospice) either. He made many (Dr) friends there over the years and is now happily all but finished with his second year of med school there - just has to take his Step 1 the week after his brother gets married in June.
He loves Rochester (city and school). It wouldn’t surprise me if he ends up doing his residency there, but that’s still a bit into the future.
wow, 15% sounds low. At Berkeley, even the absolutely worst class for getting a good grade statistically is 22% getting some sort of A, and that’s only one or two classes. Most difficult classes will be closer to 30% getting some sort of A, and the median grade will be a B.
AAMC reports how many students from apply to med school each year from many universities, both overall and broken down by ethnicity. But it doesn’t not report acceptance data about specific schools.
Look under “Continuing Education” and and “Program of Study” for medicine.
If you’re patient you can select the various graduate institutions listed one by one and see which includes students in medicine.
In the years 2016-18, UR sent 55 students to medical school, 24 of whom matriculated into URSOM (that number include REMS grads).
NOTE: just because the name of medical school is listed, it’s not safe to assume that someone is studying medicine there. For example, Weill Cornell SOM is listed but the student who enrolled there was pursuing a PhDin chemical biology, not medicine.
OP - there are many variants to “how many students were accepted to med schools”. First the definition of “pre-med” is vague, pre-med is just an indication, anyone can call themselves pre-med but generally speaking students taking the typical pre-med science classes are mostly pre-med (of course besides the chem/bio majors). After the first two years of harsh weeder classes (gen. chem/bio, orgo, biochem) the attrition rate can be anywhere between 4-to-1 up to 10-to-1 (again this is just a general observation…no need to debate to death in statistical term). By the time these survived pre-med taken the MCAT, there is another attrition rate since many just can’t get high-enough MCAT score. Now when these final survivors get to med school app cycle, the attrition is roughly 40% (with at least 1 acceptance) to 60% with zero acceptance.
Some schools do post their “success rate”, but read them with huge grain of salt.
AMCAS reports are a better source but they only report the app cycle which includes current undergrad AND alumni (students graduated already, taking gap years).
Best way to find out such info is to talk to your college pre-health office who certainly keep track of them and warn you which weeder class(es) to watch out.
It is similar to college admission - where can I find info on how many applied to Ivies? how many got accepted and which Ivies? Good luck getting such info from your own high school.
Great links (as usual) from WOWM, and as @Andorvw notes, AMCAS includes both recent and gap-year grads in their app cycle numbers. For the 2018 cycle, AMCAS says Cal ended up with just under 50% getting in and UR with just under 60% - but that varies from year to year, so they are really in roughly the same range.
This may not sound too good, but FWIW:
One of my kids had a classmate who was not all that bright, not at top of HS class, went to UR and today is a doctor.
Got all the lab experience, etc. needed pretty easily there, from what I gleaned.
Data point of one, I know, but If that kid could make it via Rochester, that would be my choice.
FWIW I also know several UR graduates from my era who are medical professionals of one type or another.
I think that’s something that place is relatively good for.
OP, also be aware that the definition of “medical school” can vary.
Some universities only include US allopathic med schools in their numbers. Some include US allopathic and osteopathic med schools. Some include any medical schools whether it’s in the US or overseas. And some include any healthcare professions that requires a professional degree. (Such as PsyD for clinical psych, advanced practice nursing, DPT for physical therapy etc.)
@monydad Don’t forget that the normal bell curve of brain development goes beyond high school. I know a fair number of kids who weren’t at the top of the class in high school, but did really well with a couple more laps around the sun and more focus. Just met one today at a “fun day” at school where many of our alumni return if they’re at home. He just finished his 3rd year of med school. Undergrad was Penn St. It’s the student, not the school, esp if there are no terrific hooks. He even made a point of telling some teachers and students that it’s a myth to tell kids “Average kids can’t become doctors. I’m living proof that they can.”
College counts a ton. High school not so much, unless students take college classes in high school, of course. Note that the lad attended Penn St, so his version of “average” was among “Penn St level college bound,” not average of all students in high school.