UCB v. UCLA for Pre-Med?

[midnightcoffee]

I was recently admitted to both UC Berkeley and UCLA for biology and I’m not sure which school would be better for pre-med. I’m leaning more towards Berkeley because I’ve always enjoyed the atmosphere and I’m up for the Regents’ and Chancellor’s scholarship, but I’ve also heard that UCB is a bad place for pre-med. Can anyone shed some light on the situation please?

[uclaparent9]

Go where you get Regents. My daughter has that in UCLA and enjoys its benefits!

[MYOS1634]

I totally agree: go where you get Regents.

[GoldenRock]

If no scholarship in both UCB and UCLA, which one is a better choice for Pre-med? Thanks.

[Jugulator20]

Nobody can really answer your question as college is an individualized experience. At best you’ll get generalities about each school, or something like I heard this prof’s Ochem course is superhard and others who might say the same prof’s Ochem course was an easy A. Neither is a better choice for premed. Both of these are excellent schools that will offer you everything need to get into med school. Whether or not you actually get into med school, however, will be directly related to your individual efforts inside and outside the classroom. Don’t look so much at the “premed” picture, but the big picture. What was it about each school that made you apply there? Why are you leaning towards to UCB? Where do you think you will fit in and do well. I don’t need an answer, it’s something you have to think over and decide.

Congrats and good luck.

[i_wanna_be_Brown]

5. Remember whom you are asking for advice here: A bunch of strangers on the internet with no real experience or knowledge other than our own personal journeys (and certainly no knowledge about who you are as a person). I and the other students went to one college. I have no idea how the departments at two other schools are. The parents maybe got exposed to 2 or 3 schools but not as students, just hearing 2nd had from their children. You should be talking to your parents, teachers, recent alumni from your high school, college counselor, etc, not us.

point #9 - Don’t come on here asking for info about specific schools [go post on those school’s sections on CC: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/alphabetic-list-colleges/]

One of the most important skills you learn in college is how to learn on your own (and it’s a critical skill for medical school). Know that on the pre-med forum here, the odds that someone has intimate knowledge about any particular school is slim to none. The way to find out the pros/cons of various schools is to ask people who go/went to those individual schools and then compare your answers (there are specific forums on this site for many schools). Don’t ask them to compare and think for you, just ask them about their own and then using the info you collect, make your own assessment about what’s better.

I recommend trying to ask questions with “objective” answers as opposed to opinions because unless you know the person answering has the same perspective as you, you can’t trust their opinion. For example, don’t ask if a school prepares you well, ask for examples of things the school did to prepare them. What each student needs to feel prepared is different so a school that does little might be good enough prep for one person while not enough prep for someone else. Don’t just ask if there’s lots of advising or if there is plenty of research, ask for details about how advisors are determined, how often you get to meet with them, what sorts of things they talk about. For research ask them how they got the position, how long it took them to find one. Stuff like that. You want concrete answers that YOU can apply your opinion to, not just blindly follow someone else’s.

The approach I outline in this post is also good for picking med schools when you eventually apply to them too.

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/1484178-if-you-are-in-high-school-please-read-this-before-posting-p1.html