<p>Here are the schools I am considering right now (in no particular order): Harvard, Duke, Northwestern, WashU, Penn, and UChicago. I haven't visited any of these yet, and I know that ultimately the major factor in deciding which is the best fit is by visiting and seeing if I like the vibe I get, but I would really appreciate at least a little help. Here are the things that I am looking for during my undergraduate experience (by priority):</p>
<p>-great pre-medical program (I am very passionate about medicine and KNOW that I want to become a doctor... like literally no doubt whatsoever in my mind. I want a place that has great advising that can give me numerous opportunities to do research or help out in medicine abroad. I want the classes, especially but not limited to science, to be very rewarding and make me the smartest I can be.)
-location in/next to a big city (I'm not saying it has to be "New York City"-big, although that wouldn't hurt either. Basically, I just want a city where I can experience tons of awesome and cultural things from totally different sides of the spectrum. I mean things from stellar restaurants to broadway shows to cool museums to large fan-based sports teams.)
-competitive atmosphere, but not severely competitive (I like competition and competitive students and classes, but I don't want the environment to be cutthroat. I want a place where students are generally pretty helpful to each other and don't mind collaborating on homework and stuff. I don't want kids to be jerks and to just look out for themselves. I want a sense of camaraderie.)
-tight-knit atmosphere (I already kind of mentioned this, but basically I want people to be really involved in the college itself. I want a big city, but I don't want to have to go out to that city every night to have fun or hang out with friends. I want an environment where people are close to the college itself... kind of hard to explain.)</p>
<p>I hope you also have some safeties on your list, because the schools you mentioned have fairly competitive admissions.</p>
<p>Add JHU? It’s famous for pre-med and in Baltimore (quite an interesting city). The one thing you should investigate is the competitive atmosphere, because I’ve heard varying reports: some people say it’s over-hyped and some say it’s a cutthroat environment. I’ve heard similar things about Cornell re: competitiveness for grades. I think this is true for nearly any pre-med program, however.</p>
<p>I have a friend at Duke and she waxes poetic about how spirited and obsessed people are about athletics, and showed me pictures of Duke around December when people decorated their dorms (wrapped the door to their room like a Christmas present, cut out snowflakes for the windows). Miscellaneous anecdote; might be interesting for you.</p>
<p>CC has a few threads that are things like “Ask a current Duke student questions” that are worth reading through for getting a sense of the school, and there are sites/books that collect student-submitted opinions of different schools.</p>
<p>Harvard doesn’t sound like what you’re looking for. I’ve heard from many people that go/went there that it’s very competitive, it doesn’t have a community feel, and the classes are not as challenging as they expected. I’ve talked to current med school students who took pre-med classes at both Harvard and other schools and they said there was a huge difference. A student that went to my school (Tufts) took biochem at Harvard on purpose because it was WAY easier than at Tufts. But of course, it’s got the name recognition and the difficulty of classes wouldn’t affect your admissions to med school. </p>
<p>WashU, Penn, and Northwestern all have fantastic pre-med programs (Duke may as well, I don’t know much about the school). Penn is very social too, so I think you’d like that. WashU and Northwestern (from what I’ve heard) are also very laid-back. All 3 schools have great work/research opportunities, and the University of Pennsylvania hospital is one of the best in the nation. Philly, St. Louis, and Chicago are all really cool cities (cooler than Baltimore, which basically shuts down at 8pm!). </p>
<p>Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t see Uchicago as having a great pre-med program. I think they’re definitely stronger in the humanities/liberal arts. It’s also very cutthroat there.</p>