Hi everyone,
I’m an incoming freshman from CA, and I wanted to get some insight on where to go for undergrad. I’m hoping to pursue medicine after undergrad. I’m okay with both in terms of finances.
Thank you!!
Are you an incoming high school freshman, or college freshman? If you are an incoming high school freshman, it’s a little to early to fixate on specific schools yet.
Either way - you can go to either and succeed in medicine. What kinds of things are you looking for in a college?
Did you receive significant aid from USC? I would go to UCI and save the rest of your money for grad school.
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Your other posts indicate you also got accepted to Berkeley. Is that not in consideration?
Did you get a huge amount of money from USC? I know you say money isn’t an issue, but if you are considering medical school, money IS an issue.
Cal, Irvine and USC all send students to medical schools.
Keep your undergrad loans and costs to a minimum because IF you go to medical school, aid for that is loans loans and more loans.
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I got into Cal, but I’m not really leaning towards it because they’re not affiliated with a medical school.
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Incoming college freshman.
I didn’t get any aid from USC, unfortunately.
I’m a little nervous to go to UCI because it is highly competitive and their weeder courses are not something too promising for me.
@WayOutWestMom what does UCI offer for premed prospective students that Berkeley does not?
@maryanneaziz the courses required for prospective medical school students will be hard no matter where you take them.
The vast majority of students who think they want to be doctors never actually apply to medical school. Of those who apply, about 40% get accepted and many get only one acceptance.
I would suggest that you choose a college that will give you many options and will provide you with a great college education whether you eventually decide to go to medical school…or not.
If you are full pay at USC, and instate at Berkeley and UCI, pick one of your instate public options. Frankly, I would pick Berkeley…but that’s my opinion.
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If you are worried about being in a highly competitive environment, I would choose UCI over Berkeley but all three schools will be competitive in your intro STEM courses. Virtually all STEM majors need to take a year of biology, chemistry, calculus and physics. The courses aren’t necessarily meant to weed people out but since so many students need to take them, they are naturally more competitive.
As far as college atmosphere, UCI is active during the week but pretty quiet on the weekends.
I am a Cal alum with one child at USC and one at UC Davis. My child at USC received enough aid to make it cheaper than a UC. Her intro STEM courses are a little smaller than they would be at a UC but they are equally as rigorous.
Umm… Berkeley is associated/affiliated with the UCSF SOM–one of the best med schools in the country. There are several joint programs cross-hosted at Berkeley/UCSF.
Berkeley must be doing something right because 738 of their grads applied for med school last year. (In comparison, Irvine which has about the same undergrad enrollment only had 353 students apply for med school.)
@thumper1 is right–no matter where you go, the first 2 years of weeder classes are going to hard and there will be tons of competition for the top grades you’ll need for a med school application.
USC without aid will cost your family over $325,000 for 4 years–about the same price as 4 years of med school. Unless your family can pay the full cost at USC without breaking a sweat (and without taking out loans other federal student loans)…I’d recommend attending one of UCs.
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where are you getting this information from?
I’m sure @WayOutWestMom will be able to give you the source of her info.
But please please don’t decline Berkeley because you think it isn’t affiliated with a medical school. It’s one of THE top universities in this country and many folks want to attend…and yes even premed.
It’s a world class, major research university.
In my opinion, it’s a way better choice than USC at full cost, or UCI. But I’m not attending college.
Now…if you don’t like Berkeley for some other reason. Don’t think you like the location, or whatever…that’s another story. Your college choice has to be right for YOU. You need to be happy with your choice, and feel it’s the right fit for you for the next four years.
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According to the following, in 2020, 55.7% of medical school applicants from Cal were accepted, while the national average was 43.9%. It doesn’t matter that Cal doesn’t have its own medical school. It is loosely affiliated with UCSF across the Bay in San Francisco.
For the number of applicants? From AMCAS–which processes all MD applications in the US. For the number of undergrads at each campus–the registrar’s office for each college. (Google is your friend.)
See for yourself–https://www.aamc.org/media/9636/download
For the UCSF-Berkeley connection-- again google is your friend. There’s the Berkeley-UCSF JMP (joint medical program) for starters.
And Berkeley and Irvine–unlike USC–don’t use a health profession committee letter to limit who will and will not be allowed to applied to medical school.
Committee letters–which are given only to top students who have an excellent chance of gaining a med school acceptance-- are one way undergrads artificially inflate their med school acceptance rates.
Without a committee letter from an undergrad that offers one–the applicants is red flagged, required to explain why and often has their application round filed (tossed in the trash).
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can you explain this a little more, please?
also, USC has a limit to who will and won’t apply to medical school?
Explain what?
How committee letters work? What AMCAS is? The data?
Yes, USC uses a health profession LOR to artificially limit who is and who is not allowed to apply to medical school. There is not hard limit on the number applicants. but a HP committee will internally rank applicants on their likelihood of med school admission and only supply LORs to those they think are most likely to get an med school acceptance. If you’re a top student at the school-great! If you are marginal candidate but still a potentially viable one–then you’re out of luck.
And it’s not just USC that does this; many universities do. HP committees act as gatekeepers to the med school admission process.
Typically HP committee rank students based on GPA, MCAT, the quality of their ECs and professor recommendations. Many HP committee also require an interview with committee and include that in their scoring too… Ranks are typically “highly recommend”; “recommend”; “recommend with reservations” and “don’t recommend”. If you fall into the last 2 categories, you might as well not waste your money applying to medical school because your LOR will get you screened out of consideration.
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Other than both being part of the UC system, do you know how UCSF is associated/affiliated with Berkeley and offering internship or research to undergrads?
I’ll try. Schools that use committee letters…these committees decide who they will write letters for…and who they won’t write letters for. If you are applying to medical school from a school that does committee letters, the expectation is you will have one. If you don’t…that would make the medical school admissions folks wonder…why not.
Schools that don’t do committee letters…anyone can apply to medical school without concern that something will be “missing” in their application (like the committee letter)
A week or two ago, someone mentioned Penn also did the same type of thing when it came to med school recommendations.