Boston College VS Texas Christian University

[ThatSerb]

I need some input on choosing a school. I am down to Boston College And TCU. I will be doing the pre med track. It will end up costing about the same for both schools. I am interested in input regarding any opinions you may have about whether either school will increase the likelihood of my getting accepted into a good medical school.
Let's start with BC. It is more prestigious and higher ranked. However, it does not appear to be geared towards pre med students. If I go there, I will have to be a general bio major as opposed to a neuroscience major at TCU (which I would much rather major in).
Now for TCU. It is not nearly as prestigious. However, it does appear to have more perks than BC. TCU offers numerous volunteer opportunities such as shadowing and serving as a scribe at nearby hospitals. It also offers much preparation for medical school admissions as you are offered 3 mock interviews before the real deal. There are some classrooms in the health sciences building that are simulated ER rooms. Also, I'd assume that there would perhaps be a little bit less competition, which could theoretically make it a bit easier (relative to BC) to maintain that crucial high GPA. Also, TCU will have much smaller class sizes for the usually large sized general ed courses. Overall, it seems much more geared towards pre med.
Again, please keep this solely about the school itself and my aspirations for medical school. I love both of the cities and both campuses are beautiful.

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[bae2017]

Are you a TX resident?

 

[tortelliniboy]

The university you go to doesn't matter; the only caveat is I would go to Texas if you are able to attain Texas residence status when the time comes for applications. Get good grades and a good MCAT. At your own volition you will be able to seek out mock interviews; shadowing/volunteering experiences at any city. Even universities that have an actual "premed" track really aren't worth it as you'll have no fall back in worse case circumstances.

 

[tenniseagle92]

BC alum here, and I absolutely loved my experience. I want to address a few of your points here. BC doesn't have a specific neuroscience major, but they do have a bachelor of science degree in psychology, which is essentially a neuroscience major. You can do this with a chemistry minor to fill all the premed requirements.

You spoke of opportunities, and you shouldn't undersell the opportunities Boston will offer in healthcare. During my time at BC, I volunteered at BWH and MGH and did research at both of those institutions as well. As a Jesuit university, there are so many service opportunities it's almost harder to not do service than to do it. I was able to do a funded service trip to Mexico, a habitat for humanity trip to the underserved Appalachian region, and work with inner city youth in Boston.

I think BC is the best option, but obviously I am biased. Feel free to ask any questions! Also, for what it's worth, I was accepted to multiple top 20 schools with my BC degree.

 

[efle]

You'll have a considerably academically stronger student population at BC (their 25th percentile is above TCU's 75th percentile) which would be a big selling point for me. If it costs the same and you have no preference for location go surround yourself with the best peer group you can!

 

[Lucca]

Another vote for BC here. Don't make the choice based on a professional goal, go where you will thrive. BC all the way.

 

[ThatSerb]

Are you a TX resident?

Nope, California

 

[zacharyw]

The core curriculum at BC is quite helpful in forcing you to branch out, and make you a lot more interesting on the interview trail. Use the opportunity to explore. The majors offered doesn't matter, it's the people you get to meet that matters. BC's max class size is ~200, and honor's chemistry track let's you take gen chem and orgo with 40 other students, IMO best deal around to let you get to know your professor. The chemistry dept is excellent with a lot of professors who knows how to teach. Bio dept is a bit of hit and miss but there are still plenty of good professors. PULSE is a wonderful course and a lot of the humanities course are surprisingly good.

Develop a relationship with a few professors, stay on top of your grades, and take advantage of MGH and BWH, and you will set yourself up pretty well. Class size in science gets even smaller as you take more upper level classes and the premed advising do actually know their stuff, especially with being prompt about getting your committee letter out on time. (Mine was submitted in early July)

About 65-70% of people applying to med school gets in overall at BC in 2012 (they haven't updated the stats since I don't think), which is much higher than average. And yes, 2013 alumni and a current MS1. I enjoyed my experience at BC so a bit biased here

 

[DokterMom]

Nope, California

Boy would you be in for a culture shock at TCU! They take that C pretty seriously, and in a very conservative way. If you're religious but more socially liberal or even 'just open-minded', then BC all the way.

 

[Lucca]

Nope, California

As a Texan who has been to California and Massachusetts I cannot possibly recommend you come to this state. This state is one which everyone wants to leave unless they have lived here long enough to learn to love it. Otherwise, life is best spent on the coasts imho.

 

[tenniseagle92]

Boy would you be in for a culture shock at TCU! They take that C pretty seriously, and in a very conservative way. If you're religious but more socially liberal or even 'just open-minded', then BC all the way.

Yeah I'll ditto this. BC is a Jesuit school, but that's a very fluffy term nowadays...meaning BC's Jesuit-ness is really only there to the extent that you want it to be. If you want to get involved, there's campus ministry and Mass once a week. If you don't, it really just means there are more service activities on-campus. The campus, particularly the professors and students, is more liberal (think more Boston/Massachusetts vibe than Christian vibe) than one might think.

 

[DokterMom]

As a Texan who has been to California and Massachusetts I cannot possibly recommend you come to this state. This state is one which everyone wants to leave unless they have lived here long enough to learn to love it. Otherwise, life is best spent on the coasts imho.

As a Californian who now lives in Texas, but is still a Californian at heart and in politics, I have to insist that Texas is actually a pretty great place to live, in spite of some of the more extreme characters. But for college, between BC and TCU? No Contest.

 

[Lucca]

As a Californian who now lives in Texas, but is still a Californian at heart and in politics, I have to insist that Texas is actually a pretty great place to live, in spite of some of the more extreme characters. But for college, between BC and TCU? No Contest.

Alas, I have tasted the ambrosia of civilization and stay hidden within the parapets of austin but certainly it's not awful but definitely a place i would want to settle in after i was done being young somewhere more lively. To each their own.

 

[Theafoni]

Voted for TCU because football. I have a friend who goes there and he said party scene is ridiculous on gameday.

 

[MaybeDr]

And why aren't you going to a UC...?

 

[Grenerd]

BC alum here, from an academic perspective BC is probably superior. As someone said their 25th percentile is higher than TCUs 75th. From an EC and service perspective BC is also probably superior. Boston is sort of a health care Mecca you have opportunities at BMC, TMC, BWH, MGH and a lot of other places. I was told a few times on the interview trail that my interviewers had not seen ECs like mine in terms of depth of patient contact very often. I could list a million reasons why I would pick BC in your shoes but I'll stop with Jesuit education, you will leave BC with an extremely well rounded world view and a unique progressive social consciousness that I doubt you would get in a conservative environment like TCU. I did a gen bio degree at BC but also branched out into another field and my senior thesis in that work was a great conversation piece in interviews. Finally I should also temper my enthusiasm with something negative about BC: they grade deflate. You will have science classes often curved to a C which means you will really have to bust ass to get a couple standard deviations above the average for an A, I say you will have to bust ass because your classmates will also be very very sharp. Gen Bio and Gen Chem will be fine because there will be a lot of premeds that aren't cut out for it that will eventually drop that make beating the curve easy but once you get into some smaller classes with the Bio majors who are sticking with it things can get tough.

 

[ThatSerb]

BC alum here, from an academic perspective BC is probably superior. As someone said their 25th percentile is higher than TCUs 75th. From an EC and service perspective BC is also probably superior. Boston is sort of a health care Mecca you have opportunities at BMC, TMC, BWH, MGH and a lot of other places. I was told a few times on the interview trail that my interviewers had not seen ECs like mine in terms of depth of patient contact very often. I could list a million reasons why I would pick BC in your shoes but I'll stop with Jesuit education, you will leave BC with an extremely well rounded world view and a unique progressive social consciousness that I doubt you would get in a conservative environment like TCU. I did a gen bio degree at BC but also branched out into another field and my senior thesis in that work was a great conversation piece in interviews. Finally I should also temper my enthusiasm with something negative about BC: they grade deflate. You will have science classes often curved to a C which means you will really have to bust ass to get a couple standard deviations above the average for an A, I say you will have to bust ass because your classmates will also be very very sharp. Gen Bio and Gen Chem will be fine because there will be a lot of premeds that aren't cut out for it that will eventually drop that make beating the curve easy but once you get into some smaller classes with the Bio majors who are sticking with it things can get tough.

Thanks for your input. Just curious, do you remember the class size of your orgo chem class? Just a rough estimation

 

[Grenerd]

Thanks for your input. Just curious, do you remember the class size of your orgo chem class? Just a rough estimation

For me Orgo started as two 175-200 person sections first semester and became one 250-275 person section second semester. Orgo is really the big make or breaker for a lot of BC pre-meds. A lot of people make it just fine through the Freshman pre-reqs and then have a bit of a come to Jesus moment sophomore year. Fortunately for people who do decide that its not going to happen the Biology department has created a few classes that serve as 'outs' so to speak for people who still want a BS or BA in biology but aren't going to make it through another semester of Orgo.

 

[zacharyw]

Finally I should also temper my enthusiasm with something negative about BC: they grade deflate. You will have science classes often curved to a C which means you will really have to bust ass to get a couple standard deviations above the average for an A, I say you will have to bust ass because your classmates will also be very very sharp. Gen Bio and Gen Chem will be fine because there will be a lot of premeds that aren't cut out for it that will eventually drop that make beating the curve easy but once you get into some smaller classes with the Bio majors who are sticking with it things can get tough.

My experience has been the opposite - all my high level science electives has been a B/B+ curve, if not higher.

Even the intro level the worst I had was a B/B- curve (curved to an 82%). I am aware the C+/B- curve for general orgo, but that's only one class. Not sure how they decide who gets into honor's chem nowadays but used to be 4 or 5 on AP chem. They curve that class to a B/B+ average, so that's an option. The non-science courses do not deflate at all, if anything, they probably inflate to prop up the ~3.4 avg GPA that people graduate with.

 

[efle]

My experience has been the opposite - all my high level science electives has been a B/B+ curve, if not higher.

Even the intro level the worst I had was a B/B- curve (curved to an 82%). I am aware the C+/B- curve for general orgo, but that's only one class. Not sure how they decide who gets into honor's chem nowadays but used to be 4 or 5 on AP chem. They curve that class to a B/B+ average, so that's an option. The non-science courses do not deflate at all, if anything, they probably inflate to prop up the ~3.4 avg GPA that people graduate with.

Wow, more than a quarter of exam takers get a 4 or 5 for AP Chem so that's a pretty low barrier to get a +0.7 on the curve

But yeah I haven't heard of BC deflating past the usual 3.0/2.7 median for prereqs

 

[Grenerd]

My experience has been the opposite - all my high level science electives has been a B/B+ curve, if not higher.

Even the intro level the worst I had was a B/B- curve (curved to an 82%). I am aware the C+/B- curve for general orgo, but that's only one class. Not sure how they decide who gets into honor's chem nowadays but used to be 4 or 5 on AP chem. They curve that class to a B/B+ average, so that's an option. The non-science courses do not deflate at all, if anything, they probably inflate to prop up the ~3.4 avg GPA that people graduate with.

Agree with most everything you said, just wanted to make him/her aware that there will be courses (usually the weed out pre-reqs) that do have a low curve. I believe I had Gen Bio, Gen Chem, and Gen Orgo all curved to 75.

 

[tenniseagle92]

Agree with most everything you said, just wanted to make him/her aware that there will be courses (usually the weed out pre-reqs) that do have a low curve. I believe I had Gen Bio, Gen Chem, and Gen Orgo all curved to 75.

Not sure when you graduated, but my Gen chem and orgo classes (taken in 2010-2012) were all curved to B-/C+ (so an 80, basically).

Also, I can't stress peer groups enough. Being with a sharper student population will lead to better study groups/higher motivation levels for you and your classmates. In orgo, I had four or five friends from other classes and we used to always study with each other...we all ended up getting As both semesters. It's a nice support system to have.

 

[WingedOx]

FWIW, not being able to major in "neuroscience" is going to mean jack in terms of your overall undergraduate education. Same thing with health science classrooms.

I'd vote stay in California. Realistically, it could be a decade or more before you can come back.

 

[MaybeDr]

FWIW, not being able to major in "neuroscience" is going to mean jack in terms of your overall undergraduate education. Same thing with health science classrooms.

I'd vote stay in California. Realistically, it could be a decade or more before you can come back.

What I find odd is the large discrepancy between neuroscience undergrad and neuroscience grad/research.

Yeah I'm baffled unless one has a scholarship that makes the cost of attendance low, every CA resident should be going to a UC if you have the stats that get you into BC.... No reason to tack on unnecessary debt. Take it from someone that actually left California and ended up transferring back.

 

[ERK123]

What I find odd is the large discrepancy between neuroscience undergrad and neuroscience grad/research.

Yeah I'm baffled unless one has a scholarship that makes the cost of attendance low, every CA resident should be going to a UC if you have the stats that get you into BC.... No reason to tack on unnecessary debt. Take it from someone that actually left California and ended up transferring back.

I could see someone getting accepted into BC and not getting into one of the more desirable UC schools. The UC's are incredibly competitive. I got into better schools out of state than I did in California.

 

[HowTragic]

Current BC student chiming in. Most of what I can say has been reflected on previous posts, but just to highlight some things from personal experience:

The bad
1. GPA is deathly difficult to maintain. Nearly all of the science courses I took as a biochemistry major were curved to a C+/B- with the exception of advanced bio electives, physics (which was curved to B/B-) and p. chem. You're looking at about ~13-15 points above average overall in each class to maintain an A. Over 600 entered my year as premed, and less than 250 came out of 1st semester orgo. The first two years are well known "weed-out" years.
2. In conjunction with above, even if you somehow managed to ace your science classes, lab classes are exceedingly difficult to do well in, and will also haunt you for the entire duration of your 4 years here. In particular, physics lab is well known for making premeds hate themselves. The reports are long and no one gets an A. It's curved to a B, and unsurprisingly, the TAs do a grand job of making sure everyone gets that B no matter how much time you blow on the report. So if you're aiming for that perfect 4 point, this pretty much kills your chances.
3. The premed program is pretty mediocre. There isn't really a guide or anything fancy as a "pre-medicine major", you just choose whatever and ring the committee up when it gets close to your application cycle. The committee tends to be rather... judgmental and capricious in their assessments. I chuckled when I got an email from the committee addressed to my entire class saying there were "some" students with "modest GPAs" that should "seriously reconsider" reapplying (not that this pertained to me, I slipped up during their committee process anyways, and they were unforgiving so I just applied individually.) A lot of people were off'd by that, many of my peers believe that it was a ditch effort to save their prestige instead of taking the applicant's best interest into account.
4. The ridiculous number of different graduation requirements and courses you have to take. Premeds are haunted by a cutthroat competition in science courses during their waking hours, and that philosophy reading they forgot to do during the sleeping hours.

The good
1. Premeds who do survive tend to come out as well-rounded individuals versed in philosophy, foreign language (again, a graduation requirement), theology and a number of other basic studies.
2. Some of the professors here are truly kickass, mostly in foreign language, phil/theo, and a couple from the sciences.
3. Boston's pretty cool, the T's convenient. If you're going to be active in volunteering and research, there's a large number of opportunities available, albeit costing you an early T-ride downtown or the like.
4. Might not apply to you, but you can get some pretty awesome student jobs once you get "in the loop".

I don't think anyone really goes to BC to be a pre-med, thinking that it's the school to get you in med school as BC is predominantly a humanities university. It just somehow came to be that a bunch of naive freshmen soon realized that a degree in art history or communications wasn't going to float their 45k/yr tuition here. And the ones that didn't... well, I heard their cries at the last student loans repayment meeting.

 

[WingedOx]

What I find odd is the large discrepancy between neuroscience undergrad and neuroscience grad/research.

Yeah I'm baffled unless one has a scholarship that makes the cost of attendance low, every CA resident should be going to a UC if you have the stats that get you into BC.... No reason to tack on unnecessary debt. Take it from someone that actually left California and ended up transferring back.

I could see someone getting accepted into BC and not getting into one of the more desirable UC schools. The UC's are incredibly competitive. I got into better schools out of state than I did in California.

If people want my most sincere advice, it would be for CA students to gun for a Claremont college assuming the price is right. CA doesn't have quite the number of good small schools compared to the East Coast and Midwest. The UCs do have their disadvantages.

 

[zacharyw]

3. The premed program is pretty mediocre. There isn't really a guide or anything fancy as a "pre-medicine major", you just choose whatever and ring the committee up when it gets close to your application cycle. The committee tends to be rather... judgmental and capricious in their assessments. I chuckled when I got an email from the committee addressed to my entire class saying there were "some" students with "modest GPAs" that should "seriously reconsider" reapplying (not that this pertained to me, I slipped up during their committee process anyways, and they were unforgiving so I just applied individually.) A lot of people were off'd by that, many of my peers believe that it was a ditch effort to save their prestige instead of taking the applicant's best interest into account.
4. The ridiculous number of different graduation requirements and courses you have to take. Premeds are haunted by a cutthroat competition in science courses during their waking hours, and that philosophy reading they forgot to do during the sleeping hours.

The committee is only judgmental because there are people who truly have no business applying to allopathic schools. I still talk to some of the people on the committee and they lament that they can't seem to knock any sense into someone who's 3.3 and a 30 MCAT that maybe taking some time off and go for DO is a better path, the same advice you would get on this site. I don't think my advisor had any advisee (~12) that cracked 3.6 this year. With record numbers of applicants (100+ compared to under 70-80 in the years past) but same number of staff, and you see where we can get some issue here. While slipping up the committee process is a bit unfortunate, but just like AMCAS aren't forgiving with deadlines, it's not too much to expect them to be stringent as well, especially with the number of people.

I thought the core was nice, of course you take intro to theater instead of advanced music theory and look into the student eval of professors before selecting courses. Be smart about it and GPA is not deathly hard to maintain.

 

[ERK123]

If people want my most sincere advice, it would be for CA students to gun for a Claremont college assuming the price is right. CA doesn't have quite the number of good small schools compared to the East Coast and Midwest. The UCs do have their disadvantages.

I feel like a person's college preference is going to vary dramatically from individual to individual. Both TCU and BC are going to have a lot of qualities that a small school not not offer (especially sports!)

 

[MaybeDr]

I could see someone getting accepted into BC and not getting into one of the more desirable UC schools. The UC's are incredibly competitive. I got into better schools out of state than I did in California.

The school doesn't matter. If your ultimate goal is to go to medical school your undergrad isn't going to really matter assuming it has opportunities around. UCI and UCD aren't very difficult to get into. I just don't understand if you are paying out of pocket why in Gods name would you pay 47,000 dollars a year over a school that is ranked a little worse NATIONALLY and pay 14,000 dollars a year. Notice BC isn't known for it's bio program. Both UCD and UCI way out rank BC in bio. The price people are willing to pay for a college's name.

Of course this is assuming that you are actually paying for your education.

 

[ThatSerb]

What I find odd is the large discrepancy between neuroscience undergrad and neuroscience grad/research.

Yeah I'm baffled unless one has a scholarship that makes the cost of attendance low, every CA resident should be going to a UC if you have the stats that get you into BC.... No reason to tack on unnecessary debt. Take it from someone that actually left California and ended up transferring back.

 

[ThatSerb]

The school doesn't matter. If your ultimate goal is to go to medical school your undergrad isn't going to really matter assuming it has opportunities around. UCI and UCD aren't very difficult to get into. I just don't understand if you are paying out of pocket why in Gods name would you pay 47,000 dollars a year over a school that is ranked a little worse NATIONALLY and pay 14,000 dollars a year. Notice BC isn't known for it's bio program. Both UCD and UCI way out rank BC in bio. The price people are willing to pay for a college's name.

Of course this is assuming that you are actually paying for your education.

I would like to keep this conversation limited to my specific situation (BC and TCU) , as this is about my education, lol. But I appreciate your input.

 

[MaybeDr]

I want to explore out of state. I got into Merced, Riverside, Davis, and waitlisted at SD. No offense, but I would like to keep this post in regards to my potential schools at the moment, TCU and BC.

I was in the same position you were many years ago. I understand the desire to leave California. Making a mature decision involves thinking financially. I don't know anything about your finances but it sounds like you are actually paying for your education.

 

[ThatSerb]

I was in the same position you were many years ago. I understand the desire to leave California. Making a mature decision involves thinking financially. I don't know anything about your finances but it sounds like you are actually paying for your education.

I will not be disclosing the specifics of my financial situation; for privacy reasons and also because for this post, I am concerned with the quality of pre med education and medical school acceptance of each respective school. I will say, however, that after all of the bits and pieces of financial aid, merit aid, scholarships, ect, are added together, no single school is drastically more expensive than any other.

 

[MaybeDr]

I will not be disclosing the specifics of my financial situation; for privacy reasons and also because for this post, I am concerned with the quality of pre med education and medical school acceptance of each respective school. I will say, however, that after all of the bits and pieces of financial aid, merit aid, scholarships, ect, are added together, no single school is drastically more expensive than any other.

Then rescind my statements. If you are concerned with the quality of your pre-medical education, in my opinion Davis offers the best package out of the schools you have listed. BC seems like great option though. If I were you I would also try to find out the percentage or students that enter as bio and leave as bio for all of your choices. I'd vote BC though.

Pick the path with least resistance.

 

[ERK123]

I would like to keep this conversation limited to my specific situation (BC and TCU) , as this is about my education, lol. But I appreciate your input.

I am from California and wanted to go out of state for the experience. I got into several UC's (not UCLA or Berkley). I ended up going to a Big Ten school and loved it. Schools like BC have a camaraderie among alumni that will last for the rest of your life and this does not exist in the UC system (IMO). In just about every major city in the country there will be a strong alumni base that gathers to watch football games each Saturday and socializes throughout the year. This may more may not interest you. If I were you I would choose BC as it will most likely be the fullest college experience, however, I am also the type of person who would never have even applied to TCU due to the ideological mission of the school and the type of classmates I would encounter.

 

[BC_20XX]

I need some input on choosing a school. I am down to Boston College And TCU. I will be doing the pre med track. It will end up costing about the same for both schools. I am interested in input regarding any opinions you may have about whether either school will increase the likelihood of my getting accepted into a good medical school.
Let's start with BC. It is more prestigious and higher ranked. However, it does not appear to be geared towards pre med students. If I go there, I will have to be a general bio major as opposed to a neuroscience major at TCU (which I would much rather major in).
Now for TCU. It is not nearly as prestigious. However, it does appear to have more perks than BC. TCU offers numerous volunteer opportunities such as shadowing and serving as a scribe at nearby hospitals. It also offers much preparation for medical school admissions as you are offered 3 mock interviews before the real deal. There are some classrooms in the health sciences building that are simulated ER rooms. Also, I'd assume that there would perhaps be a little bit less competition, which could theoretically make it a bit easier (relative to BC) to maintain that crucial high GPA. Also, TCU will have much smaller class sizes for the usually large sized general ed courses. Overall, it seems much more geared towards pre med.
Again, please keep this solely about the school itself and my aspirations for medical school. I love both of the cities and both campuses are beautiful.

Recent alum here. I'll provide you with some data first and then give you my conclusions. You are obviously free to draw your own.

Data (according to BC pre-med department and BC main website):

Number of Boston College Seniors applying to allopathic medical schools: 26
Number of Boston College Seniors accepted to allopathic medical schools: 16

National Mean MCAT score for marticulants to allopathic medical school(according to BC pre-med dept <numbers from 2012-2013 cycle>): 30
BC Mean MCAT score for marticulants: 32.76

Mean overall GPA for marticulants (National): 3.69
Mean BC GPA for marticulants: 3.63

BC average SAT score: 2040 (94th percentile)

*I don't have exact number of students who start off pre-med but they are in the hundreds. Using organic chemistry as a proxy for pre-med students since chemistry majors interested in research have their own orgo, the number by sophomore year starts at around 400. This is only an approximation and it is very possible that the number would be higher freshman year.
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My conclusions from the data:

BC is a terrible choice if you want to go to medical school. General chemistry curves to a B-, Orgo to C+/B- border, Physics to B-/B, Intro Bio to B-
Take into account that your peer group is 94th percentile and you have to be significantly ahead of the curve to get an A-/A and you can see how difficult it can be. These are not simply slackers; they are very bright students that would be top quarter of most non-competitive state schools or TCU, for example, as others have pointed out.

Do you get a boost due to the prestige? I wouldn't say so. BC is well known in the northeast and, to a less extent, nationally but it is not seen as the same tier as HYPSM or any top 20 school. The numbers speak for themselves: if there is a boost to your GPA it is a measly 0.06 which is confounded by the fact that BC marticulants to medical school have higher MCAT scores on average. Out of >400 pre-med students at BC only 26 apply and 16 get in. That is an insanely low number for a school with such a bright student body.

The premed department is very dismissive, probably to protect their numbers. I was told to consider PA school or SMP despite a good MCAT and a low, but not dismal GPA. I got a couple interviews last year despite a small school list and late application and am on 5 waitlists this year. I know someone with a 34 and 3.4 who they discouraged from applying.

On the plus side, BC can probably hook you up with a nice job in finance if pre med doesn't work out and is a very good value for many other majors and career paths.

Final thoughts: Boston College was not worth it for me financially, academically, or otherwise. Although the peer group was sharp and the education was good, what is the use of a good premed education if your GPA is too deflated to get into medical school? They also tend to nudge many people into post-baccs and SMP's.

You should really think about it. If you are sure you will be one of those top 16 students out of hundreds of high achieving students then go for it. If you are not one of them, you risk a $250,000 tuition bill over 4 years, opportunity cost of 1-2 years of a physician's salary, and maybe a tuition bill for a post-bacc or SMP.

I had a great time at BC, made great contacts, and had many great experiences, but it was in no way worth half a million dollars.

 

[WingedOx]

Trust me OP, if one of the posters who have been around for a while says "neither", they are giving serious advice. College is a means to an end. You've got your whole damn life to explore other locations... particularly when you haven't even experienced living independently from your parents at 17-18. That alone will be a whole new experience. Get the best education for the money now. Even if your parents are paying, it will be worth it down the road.

 

[ThatSerb]

Trust me OP, if one of the posters who have been around for a while says "neither", they are giving serious advice. College is a means to an end. You've got your whole damn life to explore other locations... particularly when you haven't even experienced living independently from your parents at 17-18. That alone will be a whole new experience. Get the best education for the money now. Even if your parents are paying, it will be worth it down the road.

UC will cost essentially the same as TCU.

 

[ThatSerb]

Recent alum here. I'll provide you with some data first and then give you my conclusions. You are obviously free to draw your own.

Data (according to BC pre-med department and BC main website):

Number of Boston College Seniors applying to allopathic medical schools: 26
Number of Boston College Seniors accepted to allopathic medical schools: 16

National Mean MCAT score for marticulants to allopathic medical school(according to BC pre-med dept <numbers from 2012-2013 cycle>): 30
BC Mean MCAT score for marticulants: 32.76

Mean overall GPA for marticulants (National): 3.69
Mean BC GPA for marticulants: 3.63

BC average SAT score: 2040 (94th percentile)

*I don't have exact number of students who start off pre-med but they are in the hundreds. Using organic chemistry as a proxy for pre-med students since chemistry majors interested in research have their own orgo, the number by sophomore year starts at around 400. This is only an approximation and it is very possible that the number would be higher freshman year.
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My conclusions from the data:

BC is a terrible choice if you want to go to medical school. General chemistry curves to a B-, Orgo to C+/B- border, Physics to B-/B, Intro Bio to B-
Take into account that your peer group is 94th percentile and you have to be significantly ahead of the curve to get an A-/A and you can see how difficult it can be. These are not simply slackers; they are very bright students that would be top quarter of most non-competitive state schools or TCU, for example, as others have pointed out.

Do you get a boost due to the prestige? I wouldn't say so. BC is well known in the northeast and, to a less extent, nationally but it is not seen as the same tier as HYPSM or any top 20 school. The numbers speak for themselves: if there is a boost to your GPA it is a measly 0.06 which is confounded by the fact that BC marticulants to medical school have higher MCAT scores on average. Out of >400 pre-med students at BC only 26 apply and 16 get in. That is an insanely low number for a school with such a bright student body.

The premed department is very dismissive, probably to protect their numbers. I was told to consider PA school or SMP despite a good MCAT and a low, but not dismal GPA. I got a couple interviews last year despite a small school list and late application and am on 5 waitlists this year. I know someone with a 34 and 3.4 who they discouraged from applying.

On the plus side, BC can probably hook you up with a nice job in finance if pre med doesn't work out and is a very good value for many other majors and career paths.

Final thoughts: Boston College was not worth it for me financially, academically, or otherwise. Although the peer group was sharp and the education was good, what is the use of a good premed education if your GPA is too deflated to get into medical school? They also tend to nudge many people into post-baccs and SMP's.

You should really think about it. If you are sure you will be one of those top 16 students out of hundreds of high achieving students then go for it. If you are not one of them, you risk a $250,000 tuition bill over 4 years, opportunity cost of 1-2 years of a physician's salary, and maybe a tuition bill for a post-bacc or SMP.

I had a great time at BC, made great contacts, and had many great experiences, but it was in no way worth half a million dollars.

Thank you so much. A lot of really good info there. That is the vibe I have been getting.

 

[HowTragic]

The committee is only judgmental because there are people who truly have no business applying to allopathic schools. I still talk to some of the people on the committee and they lament that they can't seem to knock any sense into someone who's 3.3 and a 30 MCAT that maybe taking some time off and go for DO is a better path, the same advice you would get on this site. I don't think my advisor had any advisee (~12) that cracked 3.6 this year. With record numbers of applicants (100+ compared to under 70-80 in the years past) but same number of staff, and you see where we can get some issue here. While slipping up the committee process is a bit unfortunate, but just like AMCAS aren't forgiving with deadlines, it's not too much to expect them to be stringent as well, especially with the number of people.

I thought the core was nice, of course you take intro to theater instead of advanced music theory and look into the student eval of professors before selecting courses. Be smart about it and GPA is not deathly hard to maintain.

Sure I'll give you that. But can you say with certainty that they only discouraged people with only those level of stats? Not to mention the reason why this is even a problem in the first place is because only 15%-20% of the prospective premeds could even have a passable GPA due to the grading scale. I am literally baffled by why university officials think that grade inflation is a problem that can be combated by a single college screwing over its own dedicated students. I know someone who was discouraged by the committee from applying, applied individually anyways and still got into UPenn. From my personal experience meeting with the chairman of the committee, it seems like anything below 3.6 is their grey zone, which is ample insurance for an application standard, but can't possibly be fit in judging every single applicant based on their personal achievements and interests. That's probably why the portion of applicants who do get into medical school is kept fairly high. Nothing really, it's just simple data manipulation. Happens all the time at educational institutions.

And surely I wasn't angry or anything that I didn't get into their committee process, I didn't really care. My current academic advisor quit the committee years ago because he/she was appalled by how capriciously the committee sometimes wrote their letters, and wanted no part in it. I suppose the part that did irk me was the interesting reason they gave me: "There's no more room for more advisees, all of the pre-med advisors are completely full", which proved to be in glaring contrast to what my letter-writer, someone who also happened to be a pre-med advisor, said. The fault's still mine though, but I'm glad I chose 2nd semester junior grades/MCAT review over the committee process.

And here I was thinking that I was playing it smart -did massive amounts of research on the right professors, taking them and getting into the right classes, buffered my GPA with the equivalence of 5-years of foreign language and I still lost nearly a full head of hair in the process. Oh well, if it didn't come out then it's coming out now.

 

[ThatSerb]

Sure I'll give you that. But can you say with certainty that they only discouraged people with only those level of stats? Not to mention the reason why this is even a problem in the first place is because only 15%-20% of the prospective premeds could even have a passable GPA due to the grading scale. I am literally baffled by why university officials think that grade inflation is a problem that can be combated by a single college screwing over its own dedicated students. I know someone who was discouraged by the committee from applying, applied individually anyways and still got into UPenn. From my personal experience meeting with the chairman of the committee, it seems like anything below 3.6 is their grey zone, which is ample insurance for an application standard, but can't possibly be fit in judging every single applicant based on their personal achievements and interests. That's probably why the portion of applicants who do get into medical school is kept fairly high. Nothing really, it's just simple data manipulation. Happens all the time at educational institutions.

And surely I wasn't angry or anything that I didn't get into their committee process, I didn't really care. My current academic advisor quit the committee years ago because he/she was appalled by how capriciously the committee sometimes wrote their letters, and wanted no part in it. I suppose the part that did irk me was the interesting reason they gave me: "There's no more room for more advisees, all of the pre-med advisors are completely full", which proved to be in glaring contrast to what my letter-writer, someone who also happened to be a pre-med advisor, said. The fault's still mine though, but I'm glad I chose 2nd semester junior grades/MCAT review over the committee process.

And here I was thinking that I was playing it smart -did massive amounts of research on the right professors, taking them and getting into the right classes, buffered my GPA with the equivalence of 5-years of foreign language and I still lost nearly a full head of hair in the process. Oh well, if it didn't come out then it's coming out now.

Sorry, a bit confused. So did you end up getting accepted anywhere ?

 

[HowTragic]

Sorry, a bit confused. So did you end up getting accepted anywhere ?

Yeah, check my status lol. I definitely fought an uphill battle without a committee letter though.

 

[zacharyw]

Sure I'll give you that. But can you say with certainty that they only discouraged people with only those level of stats? Not to mention the reason why this is even a problem in the first place is because only 15%-20% of the prospective premeds could even have a passable GPA due to the grading scale. I am literally baffled by why university officials think that grade inflation is a problem that can be combated by a single college screwing over its own dedicated students. I know someone who was discouraged by the committee from applying, applied individually anyways and still got into UPenn. From my personal experience meeting with the chairman of the committee, it seems like anything below 3.6 is their grey zone, which is ample insurance for an application standard, but can't possibly be fit in judging every single applicant based on their personal achievements and interests. That's probably why the portion of applicants who do get into medical school is kept fairly high. Nothing really, it's just simple data manipulation. Happens all the time at educational institutions.

And surely I wasn't angry or anything that I didn't get into their committee process, I didn't really care. My current academic advisor quit the committee years ago because he/she was appalled by how capriciously the committee sometimes wrote their letters, and wanted no part in it. I suppose the part that did irk me was the interesting reason they gave me: "There's no more room for more advisees, all of the pre-med advisors are completely full", which proved to be in glaring contrast to what my letter-writer, someone who also happened to be a pre-med advisor, said. The fault's still mine though, but I'm glad I chose 2nd semester junior grades/MCAT review over the committee process.

And here I was thinking that I was playing it smart -did massive amounts of research on the right professors, taking them and getting into the right classes, buffered my GPA with the equivalence of 5-years of foreign language and I still lost nearly a full head of hair in the process. Oh well, if it didn't come out then it's coming out now.

An avg of 3.4 in A&S doesn't seem too grade deflating to me. Flagship state schools regularly have ~3.0 and VCU, which is known for grade deflation, has a 2.7 avg. (http://www.gradeinflation.com)

Once in a while, people who doesn't seem good on paper gets discouraged and then gets into top 20, yea that happens, the committee is not perfect at weeding the right people out. There are people with <3.0 GPA and <30 MCAT who are not URM that get into med school, but should you encourage any of them to apply? Of course not. With like 1/3 of all freshmen declaring premed, 15-20% passable GPA is probably generous. I supposedly did very well for my GPA (according to my advisor, and interviewers alluded to my committee letter), because I had some long term extracurricular that I enjoyed doing. So they do take into account of what you wrote and what you did.

Considering anyone who wants to still go through the committee even after being discouraged can, it's not straight up data manipulation. BC premeds who apply generally have avg GPA but a higher MCAT score. That's probably more has to do with the higher than avg acceptance rate.

 

[zacharyw]

My conclusions from the data:

You can look at Uconn (just because they have easy open access to their premed data), ~50/150 applicants got accepted in 2013 to allo (assuming they include alums). They have about twice the enrollment as BC.
http://premed.uconn.edu/uconn-applicant-history/uconn-applicants/

Including alums, BC had ~90/150 acceptance. That means of the 400+ new premeds coming into BC every year, 90 makes it in the end every year. Not a bad ratio.

Everybody wants to complain about their school, hearing about how others go to a school with easy grades or easy professors. But in reality, BC does a fine job preparing their students. I'm sure there are better schools out there, but it hold its own.

 

[HowTragic]

An avg of 3.4 in A&S doesn't seem too grade deflating to me. Flagship state schools regularly have ~3.0 and VCU, which is known for grade deflation, has a 2.7 avg. (http://www.gradeinflation.com)

Once in a while, people who doesn't seem good on paper gets discouraged and then gets into top 20, yea that happens, the committee is not perfect at weeding the right people out. There are people with <3.0 GPA and <30 MCAT who are not URM that get into med school, but should you encourage any of them to apply? Of course not. With like 1/3 of all freshmen declaring premed, 15-20% passable GPA is probably generous. I supposedly did very well for my GPA (according to my advisor, and interviewers alluded to my committee letter), because I had some long term extracurricular that I enjoyed doing. So they do take into account of what you wrote and what you did.

Considering anyone who wants to still go through the committee even after being discouraged can, it's not straight up data manipulation. BC premeds who apply generally have avg GPA but a higher MCAT score. That's probably more has to do with the higher than avg acceptance rate.

A&S itself doesn't represent the medical school applicant pool. Many majors, including but not limited to easy "throwaway" majors like communications, poli sci, etc that undoubtedly comprises the majority of our summa cum laude class, also belong to A&S, raising the average GPA significantly. The actual average GPA of premeds within A&S, to which the current topic is relevant to, is significantly lower. I don't know where you're getting the 3.4 from as A&S doesn't release data reports on their students, but even with a 3.4 overall (assuming that humanities class "buffer" your GPA, though this is not necessarily true since those classes grade strictly on a 93+ = A non-curved scale), your science GPA is pretty much in the gutter. None of this does anything to address the fact that the average aggregate BCPM gpa at BC is somewhere around a 2.5~2.7, which is more than enough to sink your chances at ANY med school regardless of whatever outstanding achievements you might counterbalance it with in easy humanity courses. I remember this well because physics, one of the only class that has a higher average (B- to B) had an announced average GPA of 2.9 for the first semester (and the prof said that he let it inflate to 2.9), which was quite the shocker because it was suppose to have a seemingly high class average. gradeinflation.com has outdated data, not to mention the ~3.0 average gpa from state schools does absolutely nothing to suggest that state schools deflate grades. This trend can simply be explained by a larger portion of less academically capable students who do poorly in classes, which isn't unfathomable as state schools are where these students tend to end up.

This is the part that I don't get. Just because there's a high proportion of premeds, doesn't meant that only the top 15-20% are qualified to be physicians. Not to mention, I'm not even talking about freshmen/sophs, many of whom get weeded out in gen chem or voluntarily find their own calling along the way and drop pre-med. I'm talking about mid-upper electives and courses like Biochemistry II with the same average of a C+/B-, where the majority of the class is filled with bright, hard-working and motivated students who have already given 2 years in full dedication to their goals, and are willing to give their all for a chance at the medical school roulette. The reality is that you're not aiming to do well, you're aiming to do better than others. Even at a stage where BC should be supporting and guiding its students after the initial 2 years of weed-out, we are forced to engaging in more cutthroat competition against our peers. It's a constant competition against your peers for the bread, and when there's only 1 piece of unsharable bread to 5 people, 4 people tend to starve. This is reflected in the dangerous trend that BC_20xx mentioned, where only 26 seniors, in comparison to over 126 alumni, applied to med school in the '13 cycle. I believe my graduating class has about ~150 premed left from a quick headcount in mandatory courses. Imagine that... only about 30 students from a graduating class of 150 even bother applying...

I would argue that MCAT scores reflect an applicant's personal aptitude for work ethics, intake of new information, and subsequent application, not the cumulative efforts of any particular 15-week infodumps.

BC is by no means a bad college. It's just a poor choice to study premed given its recently "rekindled denunciation of high GPAs". Seeing "Class average: C+/B-" in my orgo class is one thing, but when I have to sit through my history professor giving a 20 minute tirade on the first day of class on the evils of grade inflation, and how only a handful of students will get an A in his class of nearly 300 students, I begin to question whether or not this is puts me on the same playing field as a friend who chose to stay in my state school, get As with little effort and then use the residual time to do year-round research in order to publish a manuscript in Nature.

 

[zacharyw]

A&S itself doesn't represent the medical school applicant pool. Many majors, including but not limited to easy "throwaway" majors like communications, poli sci, etc that undoubtedly comprises the majority of our summa cum laude class, also belong to A&S, raising the average GPA significantly. The actual average GPA of premeds within A&S, to which the current topic is relevant to, is significantly lower. I don't know where you're getting the 3.4 from as A&S doesn't release data reports on their students, but even with a 3.4 overall (assuming that humanities class "buffer" your GPA, though this is not necessarily true since those classes grade strictly on a 93+ = A non-curved scale), your science GPA is pretty much in the gutter. None of this does anything to address the fact that the average aggregate BCPM gpa at BC is somewhere around a 2.5~2.7, which is more than enough to sink your chances at ANY med school regardless of whatever outstanding achievements you might counterbalance it with in easy humanity courses. I remember this well because physics, one of the only class that has a higher average (B- to B) had an announced average GPA of 2.9 for the first semester (and the prof said that he let it inflate to 2.9), which was quite the shocker because it was suppose to have a seemingly high class average. gradeinflation.com has outdated data, not to mention the ~3.0 average gpa from state schools does absolutely nothing to suggest that state schools deflate grades. This trend can simply be explained by a larger portion of less academically capable students who do poorly in classes, which isn't unfathomable as state schools are where these students tend to end up.

This is the part that I don't get. Just because there's a high proportion of premeds, doesn't meant that only the top 15-20% are qualified to be physicians. Not to mention, I'm not even talking about freshmen/sophs, many of whom get weeded out in gen chem or voluntarily find their own calling along the way and drop pre-med. I'm talking about mid-upper electives and courses like Biochemistry II with the same average of a C+/B-, where the majority of the class is filled with bright, hard-working and motivated students who have already given 2 years in full dedication to their goals, and are willing to give their all for a chance at the medical school roulette. The reality is that you're not aiming to do well, you're aiming to do better than others. Even at a stage where BC should be supporting and guiding its students after the initial 2 years of weed-out, we are forced to engaging in more cutthroat competition against our peers. It's a constant competition against your peers for the bread, and when there's only 1 piece of unsharable bread to 5 people, 4 people tend to starve. This is reflected in the dangerous trend that BC_20xx mentioned, where only 26 seniors, in comparison to over 126 alumni, applied to med school in the '13 cycle. I believe my graduating class has about ~150 premed left from a quick headcount in mandatory courses. Imagine that... only about 30 students from a graduating class of 150 even bother applying...

I would argue that MCAT scores reflect an applicant's personal aptitude for work ethics, intake of new information, and subsequent application, not the cumulative efforts of any particular 15-week infodumps.

BC is by no means a bad college. It's just a poor choice to study premed given its recently "rekindled denunciation of high GPAs". Seeing "Class average: C+/B-" in my orgo class is one thing, but when I have to sit through my history professor giving a 20 minute tirade on the first day of class on the evils of grade inflation, and how only a handful of students will get an A in his class of nearly 300 students, I begin to question whether or not this is puts me on the same playing field as a friend who chose to stay in my state school, get As with little effort and then use the residual time to do year-round research in order to publish a manuscript in Nature.

I got the avg GPA off of my own GPA, class ranking, and bell curve calculations. It's an estimate.

I don't know where did you get the avg BCPM GPA at BC is a 2.5-2.7, since BCPM GPA is not even on my transcript. I'm certain that the average curve across ALL science classes are not C+/B-, since the only class I can think of that curves to that is orgo. Yes, there are classes that doesn't have the most generous curves, but it's only a few. Plus, do you really think this is a phenomenon that's only happening at BC? It's like MIT engineers grad constantly complain about how they deflate. Everyone thinks their college was the hardest and deflates the most.

I don't know when did you graduate, and who did you take biochem 2 with, but mine was curved to a B+. The other professors who use to teach it I've also heard curves to a B or B+. Biochem 1 was also similar. Genetics when I took it was a B+ avg, cancer biology was B/B+, cell bio, developmental bio, molecular bio, were all B avg. Physics was the only B/B- avg course I took while at BC. I don't know how your experience was so different. One advanced biochem elective had 9 A, 3 A-, and 1 B+. There's also research 'courses', those require some major screw up to not get an A in. Your experience in History was odd, I had the normal B curve talk when I sat through the first lecture. Maybe you had a bad lecturer with pessimistic outlook on grade inflation, that was probably a sign that you should've dropped it. Sometimes the onus is on you to be somewhat smart about the courses you take based on the professors.

Traditional application is slowly becoming the minority recently. As I said, of the 152 people applied, 90 people got in. That's quite good of a ratio. Compare that to uconn (where there's similar number of applicants, much less acceptances, while having twice the enrollment) and BC all of a sudden doesn't look so bad.

 

[HowTragic]

I got the avg GPA off of my own GPA, class ranking, and bell curve calculations. It's an estimate.

I don't know where did you get the avg BCPM GPA at BC is a 2.5-2.7, since BCPM GPA is not even on my transcript. I'm certain that the average curve across ALL science classes are not C+/B-, since the only class I can think of that curves to that is orgo. Yes, there are classes that doesn't have the most generous curves, but it's only a few. Plus, do you really think this is a phenomenon that's only happening at BC? It's like MIT engineers grad constantly complain about how they deflate. Everyone thinks their college was the hardest and deflates the most.

I don't know when did you graduate, and who did you take biochem 2 with, but mine was curved to a B+. The other professors who use to teach it I've also heard curves to a B or B+. Biochem 1 was also similar. Genetics when I took it was a B+ avg, cancer biology was B/B+, cell bio, developmental bio, molecular bio, were all B avg. Physics was the only B/B- avg course I took while at BC. I don't know how your experience was so different. One advanced biochem elective had 9 A, 3 A-, and 1 B+. There's also research 'courses', those require some major screw up to not get an A in. Your experience in History was odd, I had the normal B curve talk when I sat through the first lecture. Maybe you had a bad lecturer with pessimistic outlook on grade inflation, that was probably a sign that you should've dropped it. Sometimes the onus is on you to be somewhat smart about the courses you take based on the professors.

Traditional application is slowly becoming the minority recently. As I said, of the 152 people applied, 90 people got in. That's quite good of a ratio. Compare that to uconn (where there's similar number of applicants, much less acceptances, while having twice the enrollment) and BC all of a sudden doesn't look so bad.

Same as you: off my own GPA, class ranking, announced class averages and conversion to GPA over the course of 4 years. I have more accurate data on physics major premeds from a phys major friend who spoke to a professor from the department (average BCPM gpa: 2.5) but not many premeds come out as phys major anyways, so this figure is of limited usage. I'm pretty sure since you left, BC took a whole other stance on grade inflation. In addition to orgo, gen chem, biochem, and intermediate electives like intro to phys were definitely graded on a C+/B- curve, or at the very least a B- average given my average % above average on exams and my overall grade, rounding out to be about a 2.66 anyways.
Whether or not MIT engineers or whoever else in the world complain about grade deflation is irrelevant to the topic at hand. What is relevant is whether or not GPA is easy to maintain or not at BC, because you're going to be compared to the rest of the US med applicant pool on the same level without any significant "prestige boost" regardless. And if you're running C+/B- science averages against a state school with B/B+ science average (actual data from a friend), believe it or not you're at a disadvantage in the eyes of adcoms, whether they care to admit it or not.

I'm still here. First semester biochem I received 13, 11, and 3 points (basically %s) above class average on the exams which comprises the entirety of my grade. I ended up with an A-. If it was a B+ average, I would have surely gotten an A. Second semester, my close friend got 4% below average and ended up with a C+. Most of the intermediate science electives (cell bio, intro to phys, genomics) had the same repeated patterns: 4-5% above ave: B. 6-8% above ave B+. It's common talk among my class that physics was difficult, with the saving grace being the higher grading curve which still amounted to only a 2.9 average. Some of the senior electives were more lenient with grades, as I stated before. My 2% above average in parasitology ended up in a B, which puts the average at the B-/B average. Another seminar elective I'm taking now has an average of B+/A-. The fact of the matter, though, is that this is almost exclusive to advanced/senior electives, and chances are, your gpa is probably already fairly fixed from the previous 3 years. Lol I'm not going to take a research course the last semester when my previous 3.5 years here have been a ****storm of lab survival. In retrospect I should have picked a different history course (got an A anyways), but I hope you'll forgive me if I said I found that particular class more interesting than the other options.

Again, the problem is not with the overall number. It's with the proportion of seniors vs alumni. If only about 20% of the graduating premed class even bother applying, it makes you wondering why the other 80% didn't. And in most cases, it's because they have to supplement their undergrad with things like postbac, SMP, internship before they are even considered to be competitive to the committee due to their modest GPAs, which I would hope is of vital concern to a prospective student going pre-med. I know many of my peers who really want to apply to med school this year, but do not have the GPA to do so, and thus must take years off to raise GPA and the like. This is reflected in the merely 17% (26/152) of the applicant pool coming from the graduating class. I'm aware that the significant push of the premed committee for applicants to default from the traditional 3-year cycle to the 4- year cycle accounts for part of this figure, but chances are not many people enter college dreaming of taking a glorious gap year before going to med school, and if you were set on the traditional path, it's not going to matter what other people tell you to do.

 

[DokterMom]

UC will cost essentially the same as TCU.

And provide a MUCH better education.

 

[WingedOx]

And provide a MUCH better education.

...but football!