<p>Hey all,</p>
<p>I'm currently admitted to both schools as a pre-med. I want to go to medical school.</p>
<p>Currently both schools cost the same price (around $32k total) and I really need to make a decision. How do research opportunities/internships look at both schools? If I go to USC is it a better chance of me maintaining a higher GPA? What are your experiences there? I visited both campuses and both are beautiful so currently...I am absolutely stumped. Help me out?</p>
<p>Much appreciated,
SwedishM8</p>
<p>I wouldn’t worry about the career and research prospect. The Keck School of Medicine is a really good school. Check out USC’s youtube channel, I think they have even found an early form of cure to cancer and are still working on it atm</p>
<p>Both schools are great for pre-med and provide everything a pre-med needs. The core pre-med pre-req classes will be full of competition at either school (the stats of the students are very similar). Since there isn’t much of a financial difference for you, you should pick your school based on social fit and where you will be the happiest— which will enable you to get the highest GPA. Have you visited both campuses? What did you think?</p>
<p>I have visited both. Both campuses are equally excellent. The only factor that I am currently debating over is the extent of research opportunities given that one is a private school and the other is a public.</p>
<p>IMHO for pre-med it’s a no-brainer to go to UCLA over USC (sorry) as UCLA is generally much, much, much stronger in the sciences and in medicine. We’re generally equal or better in the arts and in the professions, but the difference between the medical schools (graduate, yes) is laughable - for primary care, U.S. News ranked UCLA #11 and USC #74. Wow… I usually see UCLA 5-10-15 and us 30-40 but that’s amazing.</p>
<p>I assume if you’re pre-med then you’ll probably be majoring in biology or something similar, and here the U.S. News rankings put USC at #46 and UCLA at #24. Granted, graduate bio programs are not the same as undergrad pre-med bio programs, but you get the point.</p>
<p>USC’s medical school is one of the university’s priorities in its current strategic plan and, all things considered, I would go to UCLA for your program. The exception would be if USC offered you a full ride or you were admitted to its BA/MD program. Also, since you’re already focused on grad school, you probably will want to take a look at top medical schools and see what schools they recommend for undergrad. You’ll be surprised - a lot of great students come out of liberal arts colleges, where they can study pre-law, pre-med, etc. with faculty focused on teaching… you can worry about the research and publishing later on.</p>