<p>I have gotten Foote Fellow at UMiami along with the Singers Scholarship. With the Foote Fellow program I don't have to take any of the general education requirements and I can focus fully on my major and also the option to get into an accelerated medicine program there. </p>
<p>At WashU I have gotten good scholarships which almost fully covers my tuition. I know that Washu is a way better school than UM by rank and by premed track, but I am worried about choosing Washu because I have hear that doing premed at WashU is very hard and it will be stressful. </p>
<p>Please let me know if you can answer some of my questions about Washu. I wanted to know if going to WashU makes a difference when applying to medical schools. Also, how many undergraduate students who enter as premed students actual end up going to medicine? And does WashU's medical school give any preference to their undergraduate students? </p>
<p>At WashU, are students required to take general education courses? Are premed students able to keep up with the workload and pursue other interests?</p>
<p>Yes, washu premed is hard - you are certainly correct in that. That being said, I hope you realize that med school will also be quite difficult. Med schools are looking for students they believe can succeed in a tough environment, and thus washu has a higher pre-med placement rate than most other undergraduate schools. If you look at appendix A here: <a href=“http://prehealth.wustl.edu/Documents/HANDBOOK.pdf[/url]”>http://prehealth.wustl.edu/Documents/HANDBOOK.pdf</a> you will see that med schools certainly take the rigor of washu course work into account when handing out acceptances - most other schools don’t have a 50% placement rate for students with a 2.6-2.8 science GPA and a 24-26 MCAT! (Yes, small sample size. Therefore, take with a grain of salt)</p>
<p>Probably half of pre meds going into college drop out before applying to med school. Haven’t seen any statistics published, so that’s just my best guess.</p>
<p>While I would guess that the med school officially gives no preference to washu undergraduates, I am not certain that that is the case.</p>
<p>There are some general distribution requirements. I personally don’t think that they are that demanding, but other people seem to believe otherwise. I’m personally able to take the classes I want as well as participating in the extracurriculars that I want to.</p>
<p>For arts and sciences, the only specific course which is required is writing 1. There are, however, more general requirements such as 3 language courses and 3 history courses (I believe this is still the case - the curricula was changed for students starting the year after my class).</p>
<p>Do WUS accept AP courses if one is going for pre-med. I read somewhere that Med School dont like students getting credit for AP courses in undergrad schools which they need for admissions. like certain Biology, chemistry, Physics and English courses…</p>
<p>KLM123 did you took any AP courses in your HS.</p>
<p>Remember PreMed isn’t a major at any college. PreMed is a group of courses required by the Medical Schools you are applying to.</p>
<p>WashU requirements are around the college you are in (ArtSci as an example) and the major you selected. You don’t need to major in a science to be PreMed. </p>
<p>If your major requires certain biology or chemistey courses, your AP credits will not cover that. In general AP credits get you the following - fill some elective credits and the ability to waive a certain level course to take the next level course = you don’t get credit for the course you skip. An example would be using your AP Calc credit to skip Calc I and take Calc II. I dud that. For me because some of the Med Schools that I will apply to require two math courses, I am also going to take Stats. Other may take Calc 3. </p>
<p>Most Med Schools require that you take Chem I, Chem II, Bio. So you aren’t going to be able to use your AP credits for these courses. </p>
<p>WashU does require all Fr to take Writing I. You can use your English AP credits to fill elective credits. </p>
<p>If ou have specific questions based on your major and the AP subject, call to speak to an advisor in the college your major is in.</p>
<p>Ryan MK and onecot were very instrumental is putting my son’s mind at ease, so much that he decided against University of Michigan (he actually liked the bigger atmosphere and campus spirit) and decided to enroll at WUSTL. Ryan makes an excellent point about the acceptance rates for WUSTL premed students, and I strongly urge you to look at the handbook page with the acceptance rate stats- even students with mediocre GPA and MCAT scores at WUSTL fare pretty well. I think that WUSTL is a much better school than University of Miami (I live in Florida). If the financial situation is the same, I’d go with WUSTL- it is a very friendly place with immense resources and a friendly environment from what my son told me.</p>
<p>Just to point out some incorrect statements in the above post by onecot:
There are actually quite a few schools that have “pre-med” as a major. They just typically aren’t schools on par with WashU.</p>
<p>
Also not true. If you get a C (C+ maybe) or better in Calc II, you should get backcredit for Calc I. That being said, you still need 2 math classes generally, and that backcredit does not count for med schools. Just clarifying that it does indeed count as 3 credits for Calc I. You don’t even need a 5 on the AP for that.</p>
<p>
Also not entirely true. Only about 33% of engineering students have to take Writing 1 (1/3 test out through AP/SAT/ACT scores, another 1/3 test out during the orientation test). All engineers do have to take Technical Writing though, which can count towards the med-school writing req.</p>
<p>Note: I am not and have never been pre-med. I just happen to know a bit about med school applications/requirements.</p>
<p>Edit: Psychodad - congrats to your son for making his decision! I’m sure he’ll love it here :)</p>
<p>So once can get some credit for AP courses as Elective subjects.
If I get 3 AP courses credit as elective that means I have to take 9 less hrs of Credit to graduate from WUSTL. less hr to take translates to less $$ in tuition fees also.</p>
<p>If one wants to follow pre-med then what Major he need to follow to get graduated, or he dont need to have any Major and still get graduation.</p>
<p>@johnson181
thanks for your clarifications…</p>
<p>I be seeing WUSTL tomorrow in Oak Brook IL, they have a presentation.
July I am planning to come to WUSTL campus for pre-med and camp tour too.Thats all confirmed too…</p>
<p>@Dadfor2014- premed is no more than:
1 yr bio with lab
1 yr inorganic chem with lab
1 yr organic with lab
1 yr physics with lab
1 or 2 semesters calculus (or 1 semester calc/1 semester statistics)
Writing depending on the school</p>
<p>You can google how many semesters of math are needed at medical schools, and there should be a list of which schools require two semesters of calculus; if I’m not mistaken, only 17 medical schools require two semesters of calculus (The second semester calculus can be substituted with a semester of statistics)</p>
<p>As far as major goes, you can major in anything before going to medical school. I majored in French and I’m a cardiologist. My son is planning on doing a premed curriculum and plans on majoring in classics at WUSTL.</p>
<p>You’re doing the right thing by attending the information session for the school. I’m convinced that the interest my son showed in the school (he attended a local presentation, he met with the regional admissions rep at his high school, and he attended a campus visit during Christmas break) helped in their decision to admit him. He did not have the highest ACT score, but he had everything else required for a highly competitive school, including his involvement with a large national nonprofit health organization.</p>
<p>Correct, if one is allowed to use 3 AP scores to obtain 9 units of credit, then that is 9 fewer units one needs to graduate. It could conceivably save money if one is then able to graduate early. There is no specific major required for pre-med. Many students choose to major in an area such as biology, but that is not required. One could major in music while still following the pre-med track.</p>
<p>thanks for your help… I been reading your posts too and they are very informative.
I think your Son made the right choice. WUSTL is way high on my sons list also with other being UCI, DUKE, ND and UM… In the end Financial Aid might be the key factor to choose.</p>
<p>WUSTL definitely superscores the ACT (other top schools that do are MIT (de facto), University of Chicago, UVA (de facto), UNC, Boston College). There may be others, and I apologize if I forgot to mention them.</p>
<p>As far as writing goes they do require the writing, but I don’t know of they superscore that (I’m not really even sure how much the writing score is used for admission purposes).</p>
<p>As President Reagan used to say- “trust, but verify.”</p>
<p>@Dadfor2014- Even if one school ( WUSTL) does not require the writing section for the AC T, many competitive schools will require the writing section. Therefore, I would recommend taking the ACT with writing, unless you are absolutely certain that the schools that are being applied to do not require the writing section. The best thing would be to go to each individual college’s website to check what test scores they require.</p>
<p>Yes he did took ACT with writing on 4/13 his first attempt and got 33, took second one on 4/23 that is for IL but accepted by all unis as we were told ,that one is without writing he think he did much better in the second one and next is on June 8 and he planning to take that one too…</p>
<p>There is a list on web which shows what school required ACT with writing.</p>
<p>To anyone that I misled with my post I apologize. </p>
<p>I understand the PreMed process. I probably misused a few words and took short cuts knowing you were thinking of PreMed at WashU. I believe the OP asked questions about WashU that is why I stated PreMed isn’t a major.</p>
<p>Regarding the get credit for AP Calc, I knew that too (since I received the 3 credits). My Major and PreMed Advisors suggested that I take a second math course even though I got a 5 on AP Calc AB. Maybe they would recommend differently for AP Cal BC. The link Ryan included of the Handbook covers this. </p>
<p>I even know there are Writing I exceptions for some Engineering students (since my roommate is one). I was trying to cover a majority of the situations. I didn’t think he mentiond engineering. So of the 1500+ freshmen this year all but 100-200 have to take Writing I. </p>
<p>He took Physics II, Chem and US Hist.
This year he taking calculus BC, Biology, European Hist and English language.
Senior yr he planning to take Stat, English Literature, Psych and Ecnomics/Politics. </p>
<p>so may be some of them can cover the general requirement.</p>