<p>Hey!</p>
<p>I was interested in Yale's pre-med track.</p>
<p>How difficult is it? Namely, how hard are the intro classes? I have heard conflicting statements : some say that the pre-med courses are fairly easy; others say that they are "brutal."</p>
<p>Does Yale restrict the medical school applicants to only the top-tier students? For example, do they withhold recommendations? </p>
<p>Thank you very much!</p>
<p>For your last two questions, their answers are no.</p>
<p>As regard to the difficulty of premed classes, it mostly depends on how well you are prepared in high school, IMHO. If you are the top few students from the very top high school in the suburban area of a major city, you will likely do fine in the majority of the classes.</p>
<p>It is rumored that the premed classes are hard because of the pool of students in it, not because of the difficulty level of the materials in the intro classes, no matter what school you go to. Also, at the college level, you may notice that the achievment levels of students could vary significantly. It is not easy to be the shining star in every class like in high school. I remember DS once commented A- may be within his control, while requiring some “luck” in scoring a straight A. I think that in his graduation class, there was no one whose accumulated GPA is 4.0. It does not require anywhere close to that kind of GPA in order to be a successful premed at any college though.</p>
<p>The above is just my subjective opinion as a parent who has a child having gone through the proces hallf a decade ago (so it may not be up-to-date info.)</p>
<p>Well I’m sure if you asked my rising junior he would not call any of his MS required classes “fairly easy”. He never knew what a B was until he came to Yale and is hard pressed to get an A in any of his classes. I sure would like to meet the person who thinks otherwise. :o</p>
<p>Agree with both of the above posters. </p>
<p>Premed coursework is tough everywhere, but what makes it more difficult is when you’re fighting the curve within a very strong cohort. Many people argue that Y and other privates have high grade inflation, making getting As easier than a large state school. D1 spent fr year at a top public and then transferred to Y, she wouldn’t agree. At the public she was at the top of her class of 6k fr, while at Y she felt like she was more in the middle of the pack and had to work much harder to keep up her gpa. </p>
<p>She starts med school tomorrow, so it didn’t hold her back ;).</p>
<p>Entomom, Congrats to your D.</p>
<p>When DS heard, in his junior (or even senior year?) that the class average of a midterm of a intro bio class is 46 out of 100, he said he’s glad he took the same class in an earlier year, when he was a freshman. He said this after he had taken almost all required upper-division bio classes and that class was meant for students who did not take AP bio in high school. </p>
<p>Maybe he was more concerned about having to compete against some of the competitive non-science major premeds (like one who in the end heads to Harvard Law) than science major premeds! Some non-science premeds are actually pretty good at taking the tests, e.g., one political science major in DS’s year who actually got very good science grades! Those non-science premeds would “make sure” the grades of most science classes are good as they do not have the luxury of taking many science classes.</p>