<p>Yes, this is one of those decision threads! I was accepted to UPenn (and the Vagelos Molecular Life Science Program), Cornell (Agriculture and Life Sciences School), and UChicago (University Scholar, $10k scholarship). Right now, after doing research and reading a lot of posts on this forum, I'm leaning towards going to UChic, but I'm still not sure. </p>
<p>I want to go to medical school, and obviously UPenn and Cornell would be great ways to get there. But at the same time, I want a really fulfilling and well-rounded undergrad education; from everything I've heard, UChic is the best out of the three to provide that, even if UPenn and Cornell are Ivies and are more 'famous' schools. Obviously, any of those three schools would require a tremendous amount of work and dedication to do well in, but I hear that UChic is particularly rigorous academically even among the top schools. </p>
<p>So I suppose my question is: For someone who is set on being a doctor, what would the be the best school to help her achieve that goal? Is there a significant difference between the three?</p>
<p>There are a good number of posts on pre-med at Chicago and med school admissions already. Try running a search for some information. If you want the education at Chicago, go to Chicago. Any of these schools would be fine for pre-med, I'm sure.</p>
<p>I don't think that Penn or Cornell have significantly more name recognition than Chicago, by the way.</p>
<p>Pre-med at UChicago is excellent, it's DEFINITELY the place to find a "well-rounded" education, and given the latest trends in college rankings and recognition I don't know if you can say that it's any less famous or prestigious than the Ivies anymore (and certainly not among people in the medical professions, who will all know of UC because it's a leading research center).</p>
<p>I would imagine that having one of the best hospitals/research institutions in the world right on campus is helpful to pre-med people as well, as it makes getting internships, jobs and such a lot easier (not to mention the fact that the faculty who teach classes will all be doing lab work of their own, so more power to you if you can make connections.)</p>
<p>Plus, the $10k is an enormous incentive, but even without it I would pick UC as the school that appears to meet your needs the best.</p>
<p>Funny that you mention that you're between Penn, Cornell, and Chicago, because my parents went to Penn, my brother Cornell, and I'm at Chicago.</p>
<p>While all three schools are excellent, Chicago still does offer an academic experience that's beyond Penn and Cornell. That's not to say that our professors are necessarily better or our courses are necessarily harder, but Chicago has a buzzing academic life that I think will fit what you're looking for. I'm sure Penn and Cornell have that atmosphere too, but my family members were able to avoid it.</p>
<p>And again, on the pre-med question... I know oodles of pre-meds here who can only say good things about the program and they feel prepared for what's coming ahead of them. You can check out other threads for more particulars on med school admission from Chicago.</p>
<p>Another anecdote-- my friend, a first year with no lab experience in high school, e-mailed a bunch of profs the summer before her first year here and asked if she could join their research team. She got three or four invitations to join projects, and now she's doing research alongside grad students on a project funded by NIH and she's giving presentations all the time.</p>
<p>I believe Libby posted that there are more undergrad research opportunities than there are undergrads to fill them. We loved having undergrads in our lab, very smart, free, labour!!</p>
<p>Im doing some grad work at Penn now and heading to Uchicago next year and can tell you that if your looking for a well rounded education it will be difficult to get that at Penn without alot of hard work (in terms of figuring out how to do that) and quite a bit of luck with wise guidance and good professors. From what I can tell the bio stuff here is very good (they have big nice shiny buildings near the med school), i dont know about Chicago for anything outside of humanities, so thats a plus--but the atmosphere is not particularly intellectual or encouraging of well-roundedness as I have experienced it.</p>
<p>Different strokes for different folks. My education has been very well-rounded and rigorous. The opportunity is there if you look for it. If you want to be surrounded by people who are also looking for it (I myself am a fan of diversity :D), then UC would be better.</p>