Best UG schools for pre-meds

[cantankerous]

If I could go back and do it all over again from UG, I would have tried so very hard to get into WashU. I feel like their curriculum/preparation for pre-med students yields amazing results when it comes to MCAT, and all the WashU students I know have gotten into amazing med schools.

Also this is not bashing any other schools, just going off the experience I have with WashU since my gf went there.

lol I was thinking of WashU, but they said that unless you're very low SES (and VERY low), you have to visit to even have your app looked at. I wasn't flying all the way to St.Louis for a marginal chance at admission (I was within their avg admission score range.... but I'm asian so that means nothing q..q)

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[efle]

lol I was thinking of WashU, but they said that unless you're very low SES (and VERY low), you have to visit to even have your app looked at. I wasn't flying all the way to St.Louis for a marginal chance at admission (I was within their avg admission score range.... but I'm asian so that means nothing q..q)

They? Who is they? Surely not the office of admissions, the majority of admitted people from outside Missouri never set foot on campus before acceptance. Nobody expects middle class people to fly their kids across the country to be worth it to apply. They do give alumni interviews in most cities that, while officially optional, are very much expected to demonstrate interest in the school (and so they can screen psychos). Many colleges require the alumni interview if offered in your city for those reasons. I have never heard of any school taking an official stance that you must visit before even applying to be seriously considered.

 

[C02232934]

My guesstimate for hardest to make the good grades would be

Chicago, Hopkins, MIT, Berkeley/UCLA
Princeton(?), Cornell, Vandy

I tend not to rank or compare Wustl in these discussions, too biased, better off asking someone like Wedgie that is more objective. Am not really familiar with premed weedout reputations of Notre Dame, Georgetown, CMU, or any but a handful of LACs. Princeton gets a (?) because of their recent removal of anti-inflation policy, may drop off the list if it eases up a bit to be more like HYS.

As far as I know, almost all of the core classes at UCLA/Cal are 17% A, 33% B, 33% C, 17% D/F. When I bitch about deflation I am talking about the engineering classes. Frankly, I thought the engineering classes at UCLA were exponentially more difficult than the core classes I took at Cal (my GPA in the core classes is ~3.9. Engineering? Not so much...) Whether or not you will be one of the many casualties on Berkeley's battlefield is going to largely depend on you. Though I think it's important to take into consideration the fact that Berkeley's stats are only slightly below Stanford's. Being in the top 17% of Berkeley's class may be tougher than being in the top 35% or whatever of Stanford's class.

Berkeley's prestige does surprisingly little for her applicants.

I received scholarships+grants to go to UCLA, but they really only covered books, tuition, and some of my rent. If you want the kind of money that will allow you to be unemployed or not dependent on mom and dad you should consider the Ivy League schools imo.

No UVA? UVA is just as rigorous as UCLA and probably Berkeley too...

 

[ZedsDed]

No UVA? UVA is just as rigorous as UCLA and probably Berkeley too...

I was asked about the UCs.

I'm sure UVA is a fine school, I just have no experience with it.

 

[C02232934]

I was asked about the UCs.

I'm sure UVA is a fine school, I just have no experience with it.

It's more than a "fine school" lol, it is one of the top state schools in the country.

 

[ZedsDed]

It's more than a "fine school" lol, it is one of the top state schools in the country.

Fine, UVA is amazing and you are a unique and special snowflake.

Can we please not turn this thread into a pointless flame war? Thanks for that

 

[WedgeDawg]

UVA won't give you a prestige bump to schools outside of Virginia. If you do well at UVA (3.8+, strong MCAT), you can go to any school, just like doing well at any state flagship, but don't count on "prestige" to help you overcome GPA deficits. Everyone I know at UVA who went to top 20 schools had stellar GPAs and solid MCATs (again, as you would find anywhere else really).

 

[C02232934]

To stay on topic, I'll just say that it's not worth it to got to UCLA/Berkeley/UVA because you have the rigor of Ivy League schools without any of the prestige bump.

 

[efle]

No UVA? UVA is just as rigorous as UCLA and probably Berkeley too...

I have great respect for UVA, U Mich, UNC but tend to think of Cal/UCLA as rougher because 1) more premeds 2) they're mostly Californian premeds that have to fight for the especially high bar of OOS/private-level competitiveness 3) I'm from Cali and have probably been biased by frequently hearing about their intensity, plus all the people I knew that went to Berkeley/UCLA over Top 20 private options because the only place they'd have chosen over those two was Stanford