Med student here!
First of all, full-stop. There’s a fair amount of misinformation in this thread (I’m looking at you yikesyikesyikes). I have classmates, colleagues, and friends who have gone to all these schools and frankly, I believe they’re all top-quality schools which support their pre-med students and ultimately produce top-quality med students (admittedly that statement is somewhat self-serving). These four schools will not be considered differently from each other, and GPA is normalized to schools and majors for the most part. In short, don’t let the pursuit of a high GPA determine your path in pre-med. What is far more important is what you do in your four years.
First of all, your foremost consideration should be that Amherst and Pomona are LACs and UChicago and JHU are powerhouse research universities. Your undergraduate experience will be very different in a class of 400 as compared to 1500. Their education emphasis is also different, though others can speak to the LACs with more credence than I can. The neuroscience/pre-med track at UChicago and JHU are both feeders to medical schools, and they rigorously prepare students for the learning style of medical school. No, they are not cutthroat. This myth has been promulgated well beyond its expiration date. While the “gunner” phenomenon exists, it is vastly exaggerated and is mostly harmless–the majority of “gunners” earn that reputation for what might be construed as excessive studying and sometimes a protective introversion. It’s best served with a “live and let live” mindset as compared to the “fear the reaper” attitude that bounces around places like College Confidential and, heavens forbid, SDN.
Which is not to say any of these places are easy. Rigorous preparation is rigorous, and there are plenty of routes to medical school that do not involve biology or the basic sciences (I was an engineer, myself). Your undergraduate major should reflect your interests rather than any perception of what “med schools want to see”. If you’re genuinely interested in neuroscience, I think you’ll enjoy the major greatly–otherwise, pick what interests you and take the pre-med coursework on the side. Again, I don’t think this changes by institution–you may note some broad differences in teaching philosophy by institution but by and large individual professors will be more of a determining factor.
All of these schools have exceptional access to volunteering and shadowing opportunities, and you shouldn’t have difficulty finding internships (though they are competitive across the board). Neither do I believe career advising differs much between institutions (you wouldn’t believe how much cross-talk happens between different institutions’ pre-med offices). The pre-med offices at UChicago and JHU do benefit from a massive sample size of pre-meds, on an order of magnitude more than Amherst and Pomona, but this also detracts from the time you can spend with them.
Regarding social atmosphere and student life, I could go on for ages about JHU but I can hardly draw a fair comparison to other institutions I’ve never experienced. I’m sure you’ve seen UChicago and JHU compared harshly in this regard, and I think that again arises from misconception rather than any actual experience or understanding. If you want to hear more, I’m happy to message you about it, just drop a line.
Finally, on the topic of medical research, you can’t go wrong with any of these schools, and you particularly can’t go wrong with Hopkins. Amherst and Pomona have good in-house research programs and I’m sure otisp canspeak to that much better than I can. But they pale in comparison to the sheer size of the programs at UChicago and JHU. There are dozens of labs and PIs (hundreds if you count physician-scientists), from the giants of the field to fledgling assistant professors. You can join a lab that occupies an entire building or one that takes up just a room–each with its unique attributes and personality. You’ll have a wealth of resources at your disposal and seemingly unlimited advice and expertise from your colleagues. At Hopkins, the neuroscience department is also intimately connected to numerous other fields such as bioengineering and neurosurgery–you might be working on a hemispherectomy project one day and a deep stimulator the next! So I’ll tell you what I was told at numerous med school interviews–if research is your driver, then pick Hopkins as your vehicle. That said, you don’t actually need to do research as a pre-med so long as you can demonstrate equal involvement and commitment in other passions, so this whole point could be moot for you, who knows.
Whew, I’m going to stop myself before I go much further, but I just want to emphasize again that you should consider the kind of school you want to go to before you consider the pre-med details of majors and advising offices and volunteering. I know it’s easy for me to say, but don’t sweat the little details–it pays to see the forest for the trees.