UCLA or UCSD or USC for pre-med

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - San Diego
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<p>got accepted into UCSD neuroscience major w/muir college ; UCLA (no grants), USC spring semester. Very interested in Pre-med and Neuroscience. Cost is pretty similar being out of state. Rankings are confusing/generic, not much help :-(</p>

<p>-Any feedback from SD students on comparison of the schools for the pre-med ? - is there grade deflation at SD ? Does lot of folks change or drop from pre-med track to other areas ? also how good is pre-med advising, accessibility to Professors? and opportunities to research/volunteer at the UCSD med school?</p>

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<p>GPA is more important than where you go to school
99% of entering premed students never make it to medical school so go where you want to go</p>

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<p>I would, unfortunately, have to say that USC would be your best bet for premed. It is a private school and the professors don’t try to weed you out as much as the ones at UCSD or UCLA. The private undergrads tend to have higher rates of acceptance into medical schools. </p>

<p>At UCSD there are quite a bit of smart premeds, but I do think that most people that enter UCSD as a premed end up dropping the track because it is usually harsher than what they expected. Not to be racist, but in freshman year, most of the asian biology population comes in as premed and its probably because of their parents stringing them along that track. The reason a lot of people drop from premed is because they didn’t realize how high of a GPA you needed, when to take the MCAT, or the fact that they just don’t like sciences (physics/chemistry/you name it).</p>

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<p>Isn’t UCLA good for premed? At least that’s what I’ve heard. If money isn’t an issue, then USC might indeed be better for the class sizes. I’m not sure about how good the premed program at USC is though, since I’m not an expert on the sciences at USC.</p>

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<p>Turtlebow: UCLA is good for premed, but that doesn’t mean it’s recommended for premed. The UC’s (even the lower ones like Santa Barbara and Irvine) are all based on “the curve”. There is a saying that I find very relevant to the UC’s: “When running away from a tiger, you don’t have to run faster than it; just run faster than your friend.” You don’t have to perfectly know the material being tested; you just have to do better than others.</p>

<p>USC is the most recommended school for premed, just because the professors can dedicate more time to their students, both teaching and grading, rather than rely on TA’s like the UC’s. They also care more about their students since they are funded directly by them for teaching. The UC professors are funded mainly to research.</p>

<p>GPA is so crucial for premed and, if money isn’t an issue, USC would be your best bet. Need I remind you also that the UC’s have horrible pre-med advising. I’m not sure about the premed advising at USC, but with their money and funding, it can’t be worse than a UC.</p>

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<p>@AceAites Respectfully, I must disagree with a portion of your post.</p>

<p>It’s a myth that most SD teachers don’t prioritize their students and grudgingly teach only because the university requires them to. </p>

<p>Many professors at UCSD genuinely do care about their students and are very good at sharing their knowledge!</p>

<p>A few chemistry professors at SD are hired exclusively for their teaching abilities.
I have had a few bio profs who work in industry during the day and teach and night simply because they want to help students learn. (These tend to be the most enthusiastic and engaging ones.)
Even the ones who are researchers and are “required” to teach typically try to find a greater meaning in it. They’re committed to training “America’s future scientists” and they’re usually pretty good at explaining the subject matter in a digestible and relevant manner. If you have trouble with a subject you can always go to a professor’s office hours. If you absolutely cannot make it to his/her office hours many professors will go out of their way to schedule appointments with you. </p>

<p>That being said, there are some professors who don’t know how to teach.However, they don’t usually teach upper div biology courses. Basically, it’s possible that some of your lower division teachers won’t be too amazing. However, you will have decent teachers to choose from for your important courses.</p>

<p>The key to getting good professors during your whole undergrad experience is to have enough credits to sign up for classes with the best professors.</p>

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<p>The only thing Aceites said that is true, is the importance of GPA. Aside from that, the response should be ignored because simply put it makes no sense. </p>

<p>Since GPA and test scores are crucial. You need to pick the school that you feel will you performing the best. The three schools are not alike. All three are excellent and you will be well prepared and a competitive candidate coming from either of them , provided you do well academically and on the MCAT.</p>

<p>Sent from my ADR6300 using CC</p>

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<p>@JustMyView: Then we’re going to have to agree to disagree. :P</p>

<p>Yes, the UC’s aren’t horrible and offer excellent resources for premeds or else nobody would go there for pre-med. (You know that I’m going to be doing Pre-med there) but the resources the UC’s offer are limited. Their budget cuts force them to crunch more students into tighter classes. </p>

<p>The “good professors” that do teach and the “decent teachers” will either be taken or filled to the point where it’s incredibly hard to get any individual attention or help. Office hours, yes, are a way, but you must be extremely well off with time management to carve a lot of time to seek those office hours. </p>

<p>When I speak of teaching, I also speak relatively. You can’t deny the fact that most of the UC professors are there to do research. There are some who enjoy teaching and go beyond what they’re expected to do to make sure their students actually learn, but many of them were there originally to research. Teaching IS required of them, whether they want to or not. That fact can’t be ignored. Again, I acknowledge there are teachers hired there, but this is the majority of professors.</p>

<p>You also mentioned that the “not so good” professors are the ones that teach the lower division sciences. These sciences are actually important, as they are on the MCAT. </p>

<p>Again, I didn’t say the UC’s were outright horrible for premed, but OP asked, out of the three, which would be the best for premed. If he enjoys being at all three universities and cost is negligible, USC is the best choice.</p>

<p>@Klkl: What part of my response made no sense? Please elaborate or else you’re just making airy claims that may confuse him.</p>

<p>OP asked which school, in general, would be the best to do premed work. He wants to assume that all other variables are held constant. Of course, the best answer to give him is “The school you love the most and feel the most comfortable with”.</p>

<p>But, if you read his post, he doesn’t want those type of answers. He wants the breakdown of generic advantages/disadvantages. Because OP has asked for such, he has probably dwindled down his list of possible undergrad schools to those three, which he would enjoy being at any. He wants to know further about these “finalist” schools.</p>

<p>You mentioned “provided you do well academically and on the MCAT”. Assuming he has already numbered down his lists of schools he wants to go to and these three schools are the three he would be extremely happy and comfortable at, it all comes down to which school can offer him what.</p>

<p>A private school, with smaller staff: student ratio and a more funded premed advising program, would definitely help him “do well academically and on the MCAT”, since he will know what resources are available for him to excel, rather than wait in long lines at a UC premed advising which offers less insight on how to succeed in the premed track.</p>

<p>Keep in mind that UC schools are notorious for their plethora of “weeding out” classes, ESPECIALLY in science classes.</p>

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<p>I disagree with justmyview about the professors. Yes, there are some good ones. However I can name a LOT of bad ones.</p>

<p>If we want we can even start a list. </p>

<p>P.A.G Fortes is bad for MANY reasons. I can talk about him all day. Most of the Molecular Biology ones suck too (Pillus/Niwa for sure). Both of the Leutgeb professors don’t care about students or even the TA’s. As far as Ochem goes, it is sort of mixed reviews amongst the students but cmon… Whitesell? Jennings? Even Theodorakis and Burkart get bad reps amongst students here and there. Don’t get me started on physics professors.</p>

<p>I agree that there are some good ones out there that generally care, but after being here for four years, I can definitely tell that a good number of them don’t really care as much about students as one would hope.</p>

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<p>@Purest, I’ve just started taking UD bio courses and would LOVE a list of the handful of good professors. </p>

<p>@justmyview, I’m a sophomore about 6 credits from senior standing and I STILL can’t get the best bio professors. Or even into the labs with ANY professor. This really isn’t the right time to attend a UC if you can afford a private school is smaller classes.</p>

<p>I love UCSD and I’ve had a lot of opportunities here–the huge number of hospitals and research opportunities will look nice on my premed app–but I do have to say that getting rec letters is hard, and academic advising in general is terrible. Your roommate could probably steer you in a more accurate direction than your adviser.</p>

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<p>@Momosky: There will always be biased opinions about whether a professor is good or not, so my opinion is just merely a perspective. I don’t base it on difficulty, but just the quality of the lecturing.</p>

<p>Jon Christopher Armour (BIPN)
Paul Price (BIBC)
Randolph Hampton (BIBC)
Kim Albizati (CHEM)… I thought he was OKAY, but a lot of people think he is amazing
Jens Lykke-Andersen (BIMM)
Tracy Johnson (BIMM)
Bob Ternansky (CHEM)</p>

<p>Those are off the top of my head.</p>

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<p>Aceites. You simply make generalizations. I was being kind, but my experience with all three institutions tells me you do not know what you think you know. The clearest evidence is proclaiming one program as the recommended pre med program . Not sure many knowledgable people in medicine would make such a statement. I simply hope the person who ask the question finds advice from a reputable and objective source. </p>

<p>Sent from my ADR6300 using CC</p>

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<p>[Overview</a> of 2010](<a href=“http://career.ucla.edu/Students/GradProfSchCounseling/MedicalSchoolStatisticsForUCLAGraduates/Overview_2010#1]Overview”>http://career.ucla.edu/Students/GradProfSchCounseling/MedicalSchoolStatisticsForUCLAGraduates/Overview_2010#1)</p>

<p>[UCLA</a> Career Center](<a href=“http://career.ucla.edu/Students/GradProfSchCounseling/MedicalSchoolStatisticsForUCLAGraduates/2010_UCMedicalSchoolsAcceptanceAndMatriculation.aspx]UCLA”>http://career.ucla.edu/Students/GradProfSchCounseling/MedicalSchoolStatisticsForUCLAGraduates/2010_UCMedicalSchoolsAcceptanceAndMatriculation.aspx)</p>

<p>[UCLA</a> Career Center](<a href=“http://career.ucla.edu/Students/gradprofschcounseling/MedicalSchoolStatisticsForUCLAGraduates/MultiYearMedicalSchoolAcceptanceRates.aspx]UCLA”>http://career.ucla.edu/Students/gradprofschcounseling/MedicalSchoolStatisticsForUCLAGraduates/MultiYearMedicalSchoolAcceptanceRates.aspx)</p>

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<p><a href=“http://career.ucsd.edu/_files/ucsd-admits-2008-10.pdf[/url]”>http://career.ucsd.edu/_files/ucsd-admits-2008-10.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>@klkl: Again, you fail to point out what was flawed about my post/response. I’m trying to be kind too, but simply saying “You’re wrong because I know about the schools and I don’t think you do” is a poorly constructed assumption. I provided OP with my reasons why I recommended something. He can take my points into consideration or not. While you have tried to be kind, I’m still trying to be kind. If you believe I am wrong, show me where my logic isn’t quite right with logic of your own. </p>

<p>But telling someone they are wrong without pointing out why doesn’t help anyone at all. I certainly hope you aren’t going to be a lawyer. :/</p>

<p>But anyways, this isn’t our decision. This is the OP’s. Wherever he wants to go is where he will go. It’s none of our business. We are just offering our opinions.</p>

<p>@Coolweather: The UC’s is full of wonderfully bright, smart people. It’s not a surprise to see high MCAT scores. However, the data doesn’t consider individual cases. More premeds who would have had the competitive GPA had they went to another school other than a UC are weeded out AT the UC’s. Yes, some weeding out is necessary to make sure that people who weren’t meant to be doctors don’t become doctors.</p>

<p>But the some of the UC’s weeding out process is just ridiculous. A 96% in a physics class at Cal is a B+? That’s a 3.3, below the average competitive GPA.</p>

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<p>AceAites: I am not sure what you are talking about. I am just trying to provide some statistics to help the OP make decision. If anyone has official statistics from USC please post here (I could not find). I don’t have any inclination to any school.</p>

<p>OP - There are some data in the statistics I posted may be relevant to you (or may be not. I am not an expert in this area). Some data points that catch my eyes are:</p>

<p>UCLA class 2010:
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA - Applied 153, accepted 13, 8%
University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine - Applied 130, accepted 3, 2%
University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine - Applied 140, accepted 17, 12%
Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California - Applied 136, accepted 9, 7%
Stanford University School of Medicine - Applied 94, accepted 3, 3%</p>

<p>Total accepted: 45</p>

<p>UCSD class 2010:
UCSD - Applied 349 / Accepted 37
UCSF - Applied 256 / Accepted 10
UCLA - Applied 315 / Accepted 8
USC - Applied 313 / Accepted 14
Stanford - Applied 167 / Accepted 3</p>

<p>Total accepted: 72</p>

<p>So it looks like UCSD people have more chance to be accepted to a medical school (rough idea, not an accurate statistics).</p>

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<p>^ Those are good statistics to consider. But also remember that there are several med scholars in each class at UCSD as well, and these students are extremely bright. Some decline Ivy League invitees to claim a spot for pretty much guaranteed med school. They probably skew the data considerably, and the data shows how many are accepted not matriculated. The percentages are fairly similar, but I would rather be competing for more spots at SD with IMO more but weaker competition here at SD.</p>

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<p>Somehow UCSD class 2009 was much stronger than class 2010. In 2009 there were more UCSD graduates admitted to top medical schools: 3 JHU, 7 Harvard, 7 Stanford.</p>

<p>The number of UCSD applicants was more than twice the number of UCLA applicants. Perhaps UCLA has more restriction to premed major? Or perhaps UCSD students have more resources than UCLA students. There are many hospitals, medical research institutes, and bio-technology around UCSD campus and UCSD is almost the only college that has premed students. Premed students in Los Angeles area probably have to compete for resources because LA area has many premed colleges: UCI, UCLA, USC, Clairement colleges, Caltech,…</p>

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<p>

This defies common sense. The most number of allo med school applicants in all colleges worldwide should be a coin toss between Cal and UCLA.</p>

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<p>^ Do you read the statistics? Do you have other statistics to support your claim?</p>

<p>UCB acceptance rate:</p>

<p><a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/national.stm[/url]”>https://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/national.stm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;