UCLA or Johns Hopkins for pre-med?

College Search & Selection
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<p>Recently I was admitted to USC, UC Berkeley, Duke, Johns Hopkins, and UCLA. Basically, I've narrowed it down to JHU and UCLA and I'm really not sure which one would be better. I know Hopkins is notorious for its medical program, but it's really hard to beat the environment of UCLA. I know I can look up the statistics for the number of students that get accepted to a medical school, but I'm wondering which school I should go to not for <em>a</em> medical school, but in order to get into top ranked med schools.</p>

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<p>either one. med schools are going to consider but slightly any difference between the schools. you need a school where you can get a high GPA, research experience, instruction that will prep you for the MCAT, great letters of rec, etc. That could happen at either school. I live in MD, and the reputation JHU pre-med program has is that it’s a meat grinder. If you survive, you’re very bright and hard working. If you survive with a GPA intact you’re golden, but few even survive. I’d send a child to UCLA before I’d let him or her go to JHU in a STEM field. Can you afford either one?</p>

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<p>@jkeil911
I’m instate for UCLA and I got a $126,000 Hodson Trust scholarship to Hopkins so they end up being about the same price. JHU is like $1,000 more per year for me, but both are under $30,000</p>

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<p>While both schools have great premed programs JHU has a better reputation in terms of premed in general. JHU has a lot of research opportunities for premed students and boast an 80% premed-med school acceptance rate. Very few schools (mainly the Ivy League schools) can boast a higher premed-med school acceptance rate.
However you should visit both schools before making a decision. One thing to note is that while JHU has the reputation for being a life sucking, social black hole, those rumors are largely blown out of proportion. If you plan to be a premed student you will have to buckle down and study -sacrificing some measure of your social life; however choosing JHU over UCLA won’t kill your social life. Of course UCLA has a really nice environment -as you said, but JHU isn’t too shabby in that department either. </p>

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<p>OP, don’t consider the med school acceptance rates as evidence of anything except marketing. A school will keep its rate high by refusing to support any student who is not 80% to get into a med school. Those who aren’t supported don’t apply because they need the letters of rec, etc. Not only is JHU reputed to be a “life sucking, social black hole,” as my predecessor so eloquently put it, but the competition between pre-meds is reputedly more intense than just about anywhere else. I don’t know how true this is for any one student, but this legend persists. Another thing to consider is where you’d like to practice, perhaps. A lot of JHU grads end up going to JHU med school and settling in the Philly-Baltimore-DC area. I don’t know why, but I know a lot of JHU doctors or have had them working with me or a family member in Maryland.</p>

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<p>I live in California and I’d like to ultimately end up in California or at least on the west coast. Pre-med is intense, difficult, and stressful, but I don’t want it to be any more intense, difficult, or stressful than it has to be. That’s why i kind of wrote UC berkeley off my list- I heard that their pre-med is excessively difficult and it’s not worth going there if you can have a “more relaxing” curriculum somewhere else. that’s what I’ve heard at least. </p>

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<p>In response to jkeil:</p>

<p>^Did you attend JHU? Do you have a high level of reading comprehension? (as the poster before you immediately disputed the blackhold reputation). Do you know for a fact that JHU med grads have to settle in Philly or the tri-state area? Everything you report is reputed or hearsay or secondhand. Rumors on here are not to be trusted. </p>

<p>Here are the facts:</p>

<p>JHU cutthroat rumors have been dispelled over and over by actual JHU students in the JHU forum and by students on campus.</p>

<p>Who in their right mind would attend JHU if it was truly a miserable place to be for four years? - certainly none of the smart accomplished Johns Hopkins students with comparable and /or easier options elsewhere (I think this describes most of campus…;)). Certainly not the large California contingent at JHU (second most students within JHU) who likely had UCLA or Berkeley as options.</p>

<p>Students choose to enroll in JHU after visiting and getting perspectives from actual students. That is why JHU has a yield rate (38%) in line with several other comparable privates like Rice, Duke, or Northwestern. </p>

<p>Uninformed posters like jkeil, high schoolers, and those with limited first hand experiences with JHU are the ones that continually perpetuate outdated rumors - visit and do not base a life decision on hearsay. Get it from the horse’s mouth and hear what the vast majority say. Ask friends who are attending or have attended JHU for perspective as well. They have no reason to mislead you.</p>

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<p>No one from my school has ever gone to JHU so I don’t really know anyone to ask. I have a sibling at UCLA and several friends there</p>

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<p>Can you visit? Please do an overnight if you can.</p>

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<p>The JHU Hodson Trust scholarship requires a 3.0 GPA to renew, which should not be that difficult to maintain for a top student who gets a large scholarship at the school. In any case, if your GPA falls low enough to lose that scholarship, you may as well say goodbye to any medical school dreams (at least for MD medical schools in the US).</p>

<p>The pre-med path at any school is set up to force pre-meds to compete with each other for top grades, and the courses need to be rigorous enough so that students completing them learn enough to have a good chance of getting a high enough MCAT score. Of course, certain pre-med extracurriculars are also expected.</p>

<p>Note that fewer than half of pre-meds who apply to MD medical school in the US get even one acceptance (and that does not count the pre-meds who drop the idea after getting grades that are too low in chemistry, biology, etc. courses). <a href=“https://www.aamc.org/download/321508/data/2013factstable24.pdf”>https://www.aamc.org/download/321508/data/2013factstable24.pdf&lt;/a&gt; shows a table of acceptance rates for various levels of GPA and MCAT score.</p>

<p>More applicant and matriculant data here: <a href=“https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/”>https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Medical school cost data here: <a href=“https://services.aamc.org/tsfreports/”>https://services.aamc.org/tsfreports/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Jhu’s average gpa is a 3.34… You would have to be bottom 10% to make below a 3 most likely. At that point i would be more worried than simply losing a scholarship or getting into med school</p>

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<p><a href=“http://blogs.hopkins-interactive.com/2016/2013/03/is-hopkins-cutthroat/”>http://blogs.hopkins-interactive.com/2016/2013/03/is-hopkins-cutthroat/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“Social Life at Johns Hopkins University (StudentsReview ™)”>Social Life at Johns Hopkins University (StudentsReview ™);

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<p>I highly doubt Berkeley’s pre-med program will be significantly more difficult than JHU’s or UCLAs. When people talk about ‘more relaxing’ curriculum, they mean places like LACs like Pomona or Williams. They don’t mean some of the top research universities (especially in health sciences) in the nation. If you’re going to one of these schools under the guise that it will be ‘more relaxing’ than Berkeley I think you’re mistaken.</p>

<p>JHU and UCLA are both excellent universities that can get you to top U.S. med. schools. JHU might have better pre-med advising, but also more difficult competition. UCLA may be sink or swim, but it may be a great place for a motivated and bright student. You have excellent options here. I’d choose for fit.</p>

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<p>^ I’m not looking for an easy route by any means. I’m just looking for a school that I don’t have to study 16 hours a day 7 days a week in order to get a C-</p>

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<p>If that happens to you as a premed at UCLA or JHU (or Berkeley), it would likely happen to you as a pre-med at any of the other schools.</p>

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<p>Considering applying to both, and I have a 3.6 unweighted, 4.12 w, and a 2030 sat 640 cr, 630 w, 770 m. Curious what your stats were!!</p>