UCSB vs CPSLO vs UCSD Premed

[poohbear98]

Hi all,
I’ve recently been accepted into the above schools and am having trouble deciding on one. I plan on majoring in Bio and going on to medical school. Also, cost is not a huge factor for me.

I know a lot of people will recommend UCSD(including my parents). However, I’m not exactly a good student: I get good grades(mostly straight As with a few Bs here and there on the transcript) but just barely. I procrastinate a lot and write papers off the top of my head. That’s why I don’t think I could be competitive at UCSD and earn the gpa I need for med school.
So if UCSD has the best bio/premed program, how do UCSB and Cal Poly compare?

Also in consideration are the social scenes and vibe of the school. I’m a pretty social guy so this keys in pretty big for me. Lemme know what the general student population is like, diversity, party scene, etc. Obviously school will take up a lot of my time but I like to go out on the weekends.

Thank you for taking your time to read and thanks in advance.

tl;dr I might not be a good enough student for UCSD, so how do UCSB and Cal Poly stack up. Also, what are the students and social scene like at all 3?

[Jugulator20]

I procrastinate a lot

I think each of these schools is on a quarter system. Procrastinating a lot in a quarter system could be your Achilles heel and fatal to your med school chances.

[DoctorP]

It’s college, everyone procrastinates. You’ve got an edge because you know it’s your weakness, which gives you a chance to fix it. Premed life is hard at UCSD, but it’s honestly going to be hard everywhere. If you commit to not procrastinating, even if it’s just for your first quarter, you might be able to handle anything all of these schools throw at you. Just a thought

Parties: UCSB > CPSLO > UCSD. That’s not to say they don’t exist at UCSD, but you’ll have to look harder for them/try to meet more people early on or join Greek life (since there’s no central frat row for parties/student ghetto like there is with Isla Vista). Tbh if you’re a social guy you’ll be okay
SLO is the liveliest college town of the three, La Jolla and Goleta are equally pretty, and San Diego is the only real city (more stuff to do on weekends)

If you’re certain you want to be a doctor, UCSD is the only school of these three with a hospital on campus (it has four within walking distance), which means volunteering, shadowing, clinical experience and research opportunities. It also has the most undergrad research opportunities in the area, the only med school, the only pharmacy school, and the highest ranked bio department. You’re still going to have to keep that GPA up, though.

[poohbear98]

Thanks DoctorP! Would you happen to know how the UCSB and Cal Poly premed/bio programs stack up against each other?

[DoctorP]

@poohbear98 unfortunately I don’t hopefully someone else can give you more information

[i_wanna_be_Brown]

5. Remember whom you are asking for advice here: A bunch of strangers on the internet with no real experience or knowledge other than our own personal journeys (and certainly no knowledge about who you are as a person). I and the other students went to one college. I have no idea how the departments at two other schools are. The parents maybe got exposed to 2 or 3 schools but not as students, just hearing 2nd had from their children. You should be talking to your parents, teachers, recent alumni from your high school, college counselor, etc, not us.

point #9 - Don’t come on here asking for info about specific schools [go post on those school’s sections on CC: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/alphabetic-list-colleges/]

One of the most important skills you learn in college is how to learn on your own (and it’s a critical skill for medical school). Know that on the pre-med forum here, the odds that someone has intimate knowledge about any particular school is slim to none. The way to find out the pros/cons of various schools is to ask people who go/went to those individual schools and then compare your answers (there are specific forums on this site for many schools). Don’t ask them to compare and think for you, just ask them about their own and then using the info you collect, make your own assessment about what’s better.

I recommend trying to ask questions with “objective” answers as opposed to opinions because unless you know the person answering has the same perspective as you, you can’t trust their opinion. For example, don’t ask if a school prepares you well, ask for examples of things the school did to prepare them. What each student needs to feel prepared is different so a school that does little might be good enough prep for one person while not enough prep for someone else. Don’t just ask if there’s lots of advising or if there is plenty of research, ask for details about how advisors are determined, how often you get to meet with them, what sorts of things they talk about. For research ask them how they got the position, how long it took them to find one. Stuff like that. You want concrete answers that YOU can apply your opinion to, not just blindly follow someone else’s.

The approach I outline in this post is also good for picking med schools when you eventually apply to them too.

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/1484178-if-you-are-in-high-school-please-read-this-before-posting-p1.html

[mjscal]

I think that while lots of people tend to procrastinate in College it is not a wise way to achieve academic excellence. I would pick either UCSD or UCSB if medical school is your goal. I see lists of medical students at UCSF and UCLA from time to time and there are always some from UCSD and UCSB but I have never seen anyone from CalPoly although I am sure there must be a few. I might tend to favor UCSB just a little bit because I have visited UCSD 4-5 times and UCSB twice over the years and the students have always looked stressed out at UCSD. Students I have met from UCSD corroborate my impression. Cal Poly is a good school and everyone I know who has gone there has loved it. Unfortunately you are a California resident so getting into medical school will be challenging so you want to attend the best school you get into and excel.

[plumazul]

@DoctorP

It’s college, everyone procrastinates.

No they don’t, especially the subset with well defined higher goals.