<p>Hi all! I'm a Canadian student wanting to do premed (some form of Neuroscience or Biology) in the United States. I've been accepted to UCLA, UPenn, and Berkeley, and I'm wondering which would provide me with the most research and internship opportunities as well as the best general medical education. I would be paying out of state tuition at the UCs so the cost is generally comparable, and I want a school with an easier grading curve as well. Right now it seems to me that Penn is the most prestigious, UCLA is the most medicine oriented, and Berkeley is just a great name. Thoughts or suggestions?</p>
<p>UPenn…for sure.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t pay OOS for a UC ever…especially if the other option was an ivy. This is a no-brainer.</p>
<p>It just seems that the Ronald Reagan Medical Center and the general quality of the Neuroscience at UCLA maybe higher than at Penn? (though Penn is undoubtedly the better school overall). I haven’t heard anything about the availability of opportunities at Penn but I’ve heard UCLA is rife with internships. I’m honestly very torn</p>
<p>Go to Penn and never look back. It’s a name that will follow you for the rest of your life.</p>
<p>to a greater extent than at UCLA? I’m from Canada and they’re both honestly tremendous names up here. I was very excited to get into Penn (VERY EXCITED), but looking at some of the Medical Rankings, UCLA seems to have a slight edge</p>
<p>What about the quality of the people at both institutions? I mean they’re both selective, but perhaps Penn would have slightly more gifted students?</p>
<p>The quality of neuroscience is irrelevant for a premed student. The goal is med school. the major is not important.</p>
<p>What do you mean by “the qualify of medical rankings”? Are you talking about the rank of the SOM? Who cares. You’re not likely going to UCLA SOM. Very hard to get into as an Int’l.</p>
<p>No I just mean general rankings in terms of life sciences and pre-clinical/health. That’s very true, I don’t expect myself to get into a public American medical school but its still nice to know you’re receiving an education at the top of your field. I assume (perhaps this is false?) that a better medical school means a greater emphasis on medicine as a university and that since there are opportunities to work with the medical school as an undergraduate (through research and other means) it reflects well on the undergrad students? I’m sorry I really wish I knew more about this</p>
<p>Go to Penn. The care you receive in a private school is especially helpful for pre-meds.</p>
<p>Uh, UCLA is huge for medicine, and RR is the best hospital on the west coast, and is the best university affiliated hospital only behind Hopkins. Since you’d be a south campus major, it’d probably be no more than a 10 minute walk from your classes. Anyone actually familiar with the hospital would know that it isn’t an obvious choice. </p>
<p>RR at UCLA ranks #5 as an honor-roll hospital scoring 25/30 points in 14 specialties (FTL “Honor Roll is reserved for medical centers that demonstrate unusually high expertise across multiple specialties, scoring at or near the top in at least six of 16 specialties.”) Penn is ranked #10 scoring 17/30 points in 12 specialties.</p>
<p>[Best</a> Hospitals 2011-12: the Honor Roll - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://health.usnews.com/health-news/best-hospitals/articles/2011/07/18/best-hospitals-2011-12-the-honor-roll]Best”>http://health.usnews.com/health-news/best-hospitals/articles/2011/07/18/best-hospitals-2011-12-the-honor-roll)</p>
<p>With Wasserman opening in '14, i imagine that UCLA’s rankings will increase dramatically. And if you’re class of '16, it should open up before your senior year. It might also provide opportunity for many internships. Something to think about. There are plenty of people doing research projects all of the time on campus.</p>
<p>That being said, Penn is an ivy, and is one of the most prestigious universities in the world. Only go to UCLA if you plan on doing lots of internships/research, and plan on being really competitive (pre-med’s really competitive, possibly even moreso than you’d find at Penn.)</p>
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<p>I’m not too sure about international students attending medical school at UCLA, but UCLA has a high admit rate for its own graduates to its own medical school (20% if memory serves) and if he planned on leaving the country, the UCLA name would probably be just as, and possibly more, prestigious than the Penn name internationally.</p>
<p>I’m obviously biased, so take my post with a grain of salt and do your research carefully.</p>
<p>My only caveat would be in regards to you claiming that you want a school with a good curve. I’m a north campus major (humanities/social sciences.) and i have two friends that have taken south campus (sciences/math) classes, on of whom is pre-med. The pre-med person said, verbatim, “they don’t **** around down there.” and “O-Chem is the class that turns the boys into men” and he said that it has like a 90% pre-med drop rate or something (i.e. the class that makes pre-med people quit being pre-med.) The other said that the workload was insanely difficult, and the final covered everything they discussed that quarter which he said was A LOT. if you’re looking for an easy school for pre-med don’t come to UCLA. It will be excruciatingly difficult, believe me.</p>
<p>I don’t think you should go to any school solely based on the “name”, especially when you’re a med school oriented student. The name won’t matter at all next to your graduate school. What’s important is you get into med school, which many students will fail to achieve.</p>
<p>I would pick the school that would most likely help you reach your goal of getting into med school. This would include considerations such as grade inflation, competitiveness, the closeness you work with professors, and internship/research opportunities.</p>
<p>wow thanks beyphy for the VERY informative post. That’s exactly what my problem is, knowing that UCLA is such an amazing place for opportunities but that Penn might be the better (and better known) university. Can anyone tell me about grade inflation/deflation at Penn? sentimentGX4, you’re very right, I’d definitely prefer to go to the school where I know I’ll do better</p>
<p>You have three great schools to choose from. You can’t go wrong. However, I would suggest Penn. All three schools will have many students that want to attend medical school after graduation, but are forced into another career by poor grades in the basic science classes. The grading at Penn will be less “ruthless” in this regard. Also, Penn will be more supportive in trying to “rehab” a student who is struggling with grades in those classes (i.e. general chemistry, calculus, organic chemistry, physics). All three schools will provide many quality opportunities for research. However, there are far fewer undergrads at Penn competing for those opportunities. I think finding a research group you are interesting in joining would be easier at Penn.</p>
<p>I am a facutly member and member of the admissions committe at UCLA’s med school.</p>
<p>flyingace,</p>
<p>I’m not sure where you got the idea that UCLA is more “medicine oriented” than Penn, but that’s clearly not the case. Penn’s medical research complex is second to none, as it has a top medical school, top nursing school, top veterinary school (which does quite a bit of research relevant to human medicine), top dental school, and top bioengineering department all on the same compact campus with undergrads, not to mention the world-renowned Wistar Institute, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (the top children’s hospital in the nation and a research juggernaut in its own right), and the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania with its extraordinary reputation and research facilities. Without exaggeration, no other university in the world offers as much breadth and depth of medical research opportunities on the very same campus with undergraduates. Not to mention that every year, Penn is one of the top 2 or 3 recipients of research funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the largest funder of medical research in the country, if not the world.</p>
<p>Furthermore, Penn has an amazing clearinghouse for undergraduate research in its Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships (CURF), which maintains a comprehensive database of research positions on campus open to undergrads. For example, the CURF Research Directory currently lists 188 open research positions for undergrads in Biomedical Science, alone (click on any listing to see a detailed description):</p>
<p>[Center</a> for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships–Research Directory](<a href=“Penn CURF”>Penn CURF)</p>
<p>Few–if any–other major research universities work as hard to integrate undergrads into their research activities as does Penn; and few–if any–have as wide an array of medical research activities and facilities on the very same campus with undergrads.</p>
<p>well I’m certainly sold then hahaha, very compelling case for Penn, thanks so much for all of your help and advice =) Penn 2016!</p>
<p>I’d add that UCLA and Berkeley have medical placement rates around 55%. That’s slightly higher than national average. I don’t know about Penn specificly but schools like WashU, Northwestern, and Duke have over 80%; its rate is probably similar.</p>
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<p>Dunno about UCLA’s number, but Berkeley’s is fictitious. (They fully admit that they have no way of counting how many students apply to med school, i.e., the denominator.)</p>
<p>Two things that you should be aware of, OP: 1) it is extremely difficult for internationals to be accepted into US Med schools – most US med schools, including UCLA, don’t accept any internationals; 2) most premed internships and research positions that are available are also federally-funded, and exclude internationals.</p>
<p>Between the two UC’s, Cal has a much higher proportion of internationals, so you might find the transition easier. That being said, Penn is the easy choice here. Penn has a HUGE med presence on campus. No way is UCLA more med-oriented.</p>
<p>Re: grade curves…Penn awards slightly more A’s on average, but then the competition is greater too. The fact is that all US science courses are graded on a curve – the best being Brown, but that is not one of your options. And don’t forget to take some classes in the Nursing school, which Penn allows. :)</p>
<p>Just wanted to add what Bluebayou and Sam Lee stated…</p>
<p>California u’s acceptance rates will often not be as high as the other states’ u’s’ rates because a lot of CA kids want to attend med school in state. The collection of the eight med schools (?) within the state are the hardest as a bunch to gain admission to, compared to all other 49. </p>
<p>Added to, as Alexandre would say, private schools will pad their acceptance %'s by dissuading lower tiered students in applying to med school, encouraging them to defer without applying – applying later, placing stringent reqs on students staying in the bio dept, etc.</p>
<p>Statistical reporting is, as we all know, often affected by those trying to forward a better collection of numbers. Private u’s administrations wish to forward stronger data; public u’s don’t care. I wish Cal and UCLA’s administrations cared, but they are just public-school bureaucrats. (This doesn’t belie the fact that both would be great u’s to attend. Actually, wrt the care factor, I would rate Cal’s as caring more. UCLA became a great U a lot of because of it’s locale. I keep saying if UCLA were in Riverside, it would be UCR and at its level.) My point is, they don’t care to forward a certain images to the public, and the only one they care about is their end-all-be-all … diversity. Reporting a high acceptance rate to med school? Not important.</p>
<p>To the OP, if as it sounds, you want to experience California, then UCLA would be an excellent place to attend. Those Cal and UCLA students who don’t make it into med school have great options in pharmacy, dentistry, even business, law, etc.</p>
<p>For the record, here’s what Penn says about its med school placement:</p>
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<p>[Career</a> Services, University of Pennsylvania](<a href=“http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/gradprof/healthprof/med.html]Career”>http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/gradprof/healthprof/med.html)</p>
<p>The reported 80% would have to be from the recent graduating class. Once they’re out, the U wouldn’t have “dominion” or “control” over those who apply to med school after they graduate in favor of post-bac/grad-school training.</p>
<p>So with this said, you’d find an extradordinary amt of control over those who apply to obtain the 80%. “If you want us to help you in your app process, you have to listen to us … and esp if you want to apply to Penn Med.”</p>
<p>This way, the counselors can advise those who may not show forth the qualifications towards more of a slam-dunk admit to some med school to defer after obtaining post-bac training. This is why those who count towards this 80% would undoubtedly be a smaller number (often a much less amt) than those who are reflected [here](<a href=“https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/86042/table2.html”>https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/86042/table2.html</a>) at the aamc.org website, in addition to these numbers reflecting all those who apply regardless of year graduated. ~ 1/4 of those who apply on a national overall level, are from previous years.</p>
<p>If I remember the UCLA website’s statistics, it showed ~ 134 applying in, say, 2010, with a large trend towards UC med schools. This tells me that those who released their info to UCLA were seeking primarily UCLA’s med school, via help by UCLA’s counselors who specialized in med admissions. However, we know that most UCLA grads would be attending med school outside of CA, where the pickings would be easier to attain. </p>
<p>Also, based on the 800+ who applied to med school who had bac degrees from the U, there’d have to be 550+ who obtained degrees from the U in 2010 and who applied to med school in that same year, a deficit of information of 400+. This is the thing to which bluebayou refered in his post prior.</p>
<p>In addition within my 4th paragraph:</p>
<p>The wide array of gpas and MCAT’s within the set of those who released info, showed that UCLA didn’t try to reduce the number who applied by saying that the lower qualified set didn’t have the quals to apply to med school, to the detriment of the %'s who received acceptances. UCLA is more about empowerment.</p>