UCLA or UCR - which one to chose for pre-med?
def UCLA!! UCLA has 1) lots of premed opportunities 2) great academics that will prepare you for MCAT 3) the name LOL not to degrade UCR or anything, but I think admissions in med school will look more highly upon UCLA:)
Med school will look at you GPA and MCAT score. They will care less whether it is UCLA or UCR.
Echoing @TomSrOfBoston med schools don’t care about prestige. It’s mainly gpa and mcat. @ucla2021 unfortunately the UCLA prestige is negligible for med school.
I have a friend who chose UCSB over Cal for that exact reason - GPA deflation in Cal and UCLA are hurting those who want to pursue Med Schools. BTW, I think UCR just opened a brand new Med School and gives preference to UCR applicants.
@10s4life @TomSrOfBoston There was a presentation featuring an admissions board member for UCLA Med School, and he said that there’s a “conversion” factor when looking at GPA’s and the school the applicant attended.
@ucla2021 The so called conversion factor is very small. Conversion compensating for school prestige is so negligible that it’s not even worth mentioning. The top Ucla students will get to med school but average students gpas won’t be compensated enough with a conversion factor to be competitive. That’s why it’s advised that unless you are a top student in your college you go to the school where you can get the highest gpa.
If you could get into UC Riverside’s program which offers free medical school in return for post graduate service in the area it would be an amazing opportunity.