<p>“UCs are notorious for poor premed advising”</p>
<p>Source? There is nothing supporting this from what i’ve seen or anecdotally. I hope you have something to back that up.</p>
<p>Here is a good resource for a pre-med looking at UCLA. Be careful what random ■■■■■■ post on these forums who aren’t in the industry or know what they are talking about.</p>
As you acknowledged, humanities and social science courses tend to be more demanding on the quarter system. Pre-med courses make up only a tiny portion of a pre-med’s coursework, and many pre-meds don’t major in the sciences. </p>
<p>Additionally, while many courses are on a full year sequence, not all are; some of the sequences at UCLA cover in 2 quarters what normally takes a year elsewhere (e.g. some languages are compressed into two quarters, with the third as a mixed elementary/intermediate course). More commonly, subjects that normally take at least one semester to cover (e.g. ecology or genetics) are addressed at UCLA in one quarter. A lot of important material gets compressed or left out. </p>
<p>I’ve experienced both the semester and quarter system, and I very strongly prefer the former. I think it gives students a better chance of developing relationships with professors and professors more opportunity to go in depth with material. The short span of the quarter system means that students who bloom late in a class rarely get a chance to improve their grades. Because there are fewer assignments, each tends to be weighted more (e.g. two exams instead of three) - bomb one major assignment, and you could be sunk.</p>
I always thought the quarter system was a very quick pace, faster than the equivalent semester course, even if the overall material covered is the same.</p>
<p>Typical for a quarter system course is 2 midterms and a final. With not much new material covered “dead week” or week 10, you generally had a midterm after 3 weeks, after 6 weeks, and then the final. With a 15-week semester thats a midterm after 5 weeks, after 10 weeks, and then the final. There is a different feel to having a test every 3 weeks compared to more than a month apart.</p>
<p>Wouldn’t the opposite sometimes be true? I.e. what may be a one semester course may be two quarters on the quarter system. Or the courses may be different “sizes”, as in a 4 credit quarter course may be equivalent to a 3 credit semester course (not exactly the same credits or hours of instruction, but closer than if both were 4 credits).</p>
<p>informative…I don’t think those links suggest that UCLA has good premed advising? What is your definition of “good premed advising”? It’s a lot more than listing the premed prereqs which virtually all schools do. And, having research opps doesn’t demonstrate “good premed advising,” either. </p>
<p>I see a huge difference between my two pre-med nephews at UCLA and what my son is getting elsewhere. My son has had very personal attention, frequent meetings, guest speakers, mock interviews with university personnel and SOM personnel, and was given a well-packaged Committee Letter. My son was sent an encouraging note the day before his MCAT, and has been contacted before and after each med school interview for advice and feedback. My nephews have gotten …uh…little to nothing.</p>
<p>In addition to that, it has good volunteering opportunities at RRUMC. You may try to say that that’s negligible, but if a student really wants to be pre-med, it may not be the worst idea to have them working in one of the top hospitals in the country to see whether the route is actually for them.</p>
<p>As far as the more personal stuff is concerned, UCLA has nearly 40k students. It isn’t feasible for them to give such careful attention to their students. Are there more personalized schools for pre-med? Certainly. As a result of that, are those school’s pre-medical programs better than UCLA’s? not necessarily…</p>
<p>You may try to say that that’s negligible, but if a student really wants to be pre-med, it may not be the worst idea to have them working in one of the top hospitals in the country to see whether the route is actually for them.</p>
<p>Who said that’s negligible? I said it doesn’t indicate “good premed advising”…and it doesn’t. </p>
<p>Volunteering or shadowing at Ronald Reagan is certain a wonderful opp. Yes, it’s a top hospital. I think it was #2 when my dad had open heart surgery there. However, the “push” an applicant gets from shadowing there vs shadowing at any other good hospital is likely negligible. </p>
<p>Virtually every undergrad has guest speakers for its pre-med students - especially universities that have med schools. Yes, UCLA has a lot of undergrads…so does my son’s undergrad. </p>
<p>Good pre-med advising requires some personal attention. Otherwise, just hand out a manual and call it a day.</p>
<p>I rather have a doctor that used his/her own initiative to get top grades and recommendations versus one that was coddled the whole way through and told how great they are.</p>
<p>I rather have a doctor that used his/her own initiative to get top grades and recommendations versus one that was coddled the whole way through and told how great they are.</p>
<p>Oh please…</p>
<p>No one said anything about coddling. No one is talking about a system that hands out false praise. </p>
<p>We’re talking about good advice from people who understand the complicated process (and yes it is complicated). </p>
<p>If you look over at the premed forums you’d find a bunch of premeds making good intentioned missteps simply because they rec’d little to no advice. You’ll find kids thinking that if they double major or add extra minors that SOMs will be oh-so-impressed, but then their GPAs get hurt. They wrongly think that SOMs will overlook their lowish BCMP GPA or cum GPA because they did a second major or they majored in a extra hard discipline. Uh, no the SOMs won’t care. </p>
<p>Another common mistake is not knowing that certain OOS public SOMs rarely (if ever) accept OOS students…so they’ll waste time and money applying to SOMs that will never accept them. </p>
<p>Or, they’ll get distracted by rankings and “names” and not bother applying to SOMs that are located on the campuses of lower ranking undergrads, because they don’t know that the MD education system in the US is very flat…the point is to get accepted somewhere…no matter where that place is. </p>
<p>Too many students have well-intentioned ideas about the med school process, but they’re just wrong-headed. That doesn’t mean that they don’t have what it takes to become a good doctor. Premeds who don’t have “family in the business” are at a greater disadvantage because they’re going to make those missteps. They need an in-house advising system to help level the playing field. .</p>
<p>Quote:
They need an in-house advising system to help level the playing field</p>
<p>UCBchem response…
…Or they can be resourceful and go seek outside sources for verification or a second opinion.</p>
<p>Oh good heavens…and getting outside advice is “less coddling”? This is sounding like a UC alum upset that the UC system is getting dinged. I’m a UC grad myself. There’s nothing wrong with acknowledging a weakness…and the UCs have a premed advisng weakness. Period. </p>
<p>You can blame advising weakness on UC schools’ size, you can blame it on their lack of dedication of money for that resource, or you can blame it on a desire to weed more premeds. But you can’t blame it on not wanting to coddle their students and expecting them to get the info elsewhere. lol</p>
<p>Re post #51 - One of the most reasonable posts I’ve seen here. I trust that the true target audience, the high school kids trying to make up their mind about what to do, will understand what you are saying and make their own decision about how to weigh the trade-offs</p>
<p>How would you know? Do you only use medical providers from state schools? Would you exclude a Stanford BA/Hopkins Med grad? </p>
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<p>The broader issue, ucb, is that outside resources can be great for generic info, but certain med schools love grads from certain undergrads, and that knowledge is only available on the “inside”. Thus, it is vitally important to know, for example, that xx MS takes Cal grads every year. (And that ASU and U-Dub only take an unhooked Cal grad once in a decade.)</p>
<p>Regardless, UC advising is poor, and they publicly admit it.</p>
<p>Have not read every response so I don’t know whether this was asked: what is your major? My D is pre-med at USC. She also was admitted to UCLA and strongly considered it. We both liked both universities. Both have large lecture classes taught by professors, smaller discussion groups taught by TAs, and small lab sections.</p>
<p>In the end, “pre-med” is not a major. The structure of the major she chose at USC (Human Biology) was more to her liking. The price with some financial aid (we are out of state) was more to my liking.</p>
<p>I do think there is good academic and advisory support at USC. At UCLA, she would have had to apply for limited spots in the major (it was something else, I’m blanking for the moment on what), and then maintain a specific GPA to stay in the major.</p>
<p>*I think you can blame it on the UC weed process…and that was my point.
*</p>
<p>But that’s just short-sighted. For a state that is loaded with disadvantaged URMs to not have a good advising system at their prized UCs is essentially saying that they don’t care if the unconnected don’t make it properly thru the premed route. </p>
<p>I really think it’s a financial issue. The UCs don’t want to dedicate the resources.</p>