Hey, so I am choosing between Columbia and Stanford and I plan on majoring in one of the humanities (philosophy, history, etc.) in addition to a premed track. None of the four similar threads I looked at discussed Columbia or Stanford undergrad, only their medical schools. I know for sure that Stanford takes the most applicants from their own undergrad, and presumably the same thing goes for Columbia. Right now, I'm leaning 70% Stanford and 30% Columbia, but I haven't actually talked to anyone intimately familiar with premed. Any solid advice on which school would be better for premed (in terms of faculty and curriculum) would be greatly appreciated.
Also, any general advice on the following would also be sincerely appreciated:
- How to prepare for college science courses? (I 3ed the AP Biology, Chemistry, and Physics tests so I know I need to work extra hard; however, I did get interviewed for both my state college's BS/MD program and Case Western's BS/MD program so I think I have the personal qualities and work/volunteer experience to succeed in the medical field)
- How to best be a humanities major while doing premed? (balancing courses advice)
- How should a general four-year plan be formulated? (my current knowledge consists of: 1st year - general chemistry and calculus, 2nd year - biology and physics, 3rd year - organic chemistry, 4th year - upper-level biology)
- What kind of research (biology, chemistry, etc.) is most attractive to medical schools?
- What unique opportunities exist at Columbia and Stanford?
I went to Stanford and can offer some insight.
First off, I don't think the regional bias or school bias is a very big deal. For example, I interviewed at nearly every school in NYC (Columbia, Cornell, NYU, Sinai, and Einstein) , but only had three interviews in California (UCSD, UCD, and UCI, but not Stanford, UCLA, USC, or UCSF). There are more Stanford students at Stanford med and Columbia students at Columbia med, but thats largely a function of applicant volume.
At Stanford the normal premed schedule looks like this (for people on top of their game).
Year 1: Gen chem, start organic chem + lab
Year 2 (toughest year): Finish orgo + lab, Biology + lab (some do physics this year too)
Year 3: Physics + Biochem + advanced courses
Year 4: Advanced courses
Let me first say that where you go for gen chem or organic chem or intro Bio doesn't matter. It will be a big lecture with some great lecturers, some not so good, and you'll learn the same things regardless of where you are.
The truly amazing things about Stanford were:
-Availability of reseearch (getting funding is ridiculously simple, and I got more funding in college then my med school offers).
-Upper level courses. There are amazing classes at Stanford that I never would have even heard of if I wasn't just browsing the course guide. Like an 8 person seminar about tumor immunology by the guy who developed the first FDA approved cancer vaccine. Or the 6 person medical entrepreneurship seminar that combined medicine, business, law, and engineering to bring together a device prototype for arterial blood glucose measurement that we filed a provisional patent for.
-Stanford is in the biotech and venture capital hub of the world. If you're at all interested in medical business, devices, etc then this is the place.
-Organized shadowing program (SIMS) that makes it ridiculously simple to get clinical exposure
-Its sunny damn near all the time, and people study in bikini's on lawns in winter (though it does rain or get chilly sometimes).
-A lot of other things.
That being said, I'm sure columbia has great opportunities also. go with your gut.
