Greetings, I am a Pre-Med student. I have recently been accepted into RPI in Troy, NY, as a transfer student to major in Biology, from a great Junior College. Any adivice on what to expect? I plan to apply to Med school from there. Thanks!
Oh hey now. I take offense to that. I'm not hideous Seriously though, RPI is really good. And our reputation at med schools is starting to get much better. I've heard rumors that an RPI alumn went down to AECOM (their father is a professor there or something) and has changed the way AECOM views RPI students. Also, Stony Brook looooooves RPI graduates. As far as the bio program here is... well... it leaves something to be desired. RPI is mainly for engineering, and it shows. Even then, Shirley seems to be putting more $$ into putting plants near the parking lots than investing in repairs to the wind tunnel, forget about new microscopes for the cell bio lab (or oscilloscopes that aren't ancient for the ex phys labs). There are some decent research opportunities though, since a lot of professors in the bio department are usually more than willing to work something out for credit (which you need to graduate anyway). I've been working in a genetics lab in the new biotech center for the past year and it's actually pretty nice. As for the whole pre-med thing at RPI... they've changed it a lot. I know someone who just started the pre-med thing (not the AMC one, he's a BME) and apparently he has an advisor specifically for that. I never had an advisor, but there was a "committee" that was pretty good at answering questions and giving appropriate feedback. But Troy sucks, this is true. Oh so true. But there are tons of fraternities, so who needs to spend money on booze when you can get it for free? P.S. the ratio is about 70:30 now