The premed courses are typically more difficult at stony. Some think that this is done to overcompensate for the fact that they are trying to compete with private institutions. I know this first-hand because I have tutored premed students from stony and from ivy leagues as well. Medical schools have different requirements when it comes to taking classes, however the vast majority require one year of general chemistry with lab, one year of organic chem with lab, one year of physics with lab, one year of English, and one year of college-level math (calc/stats). At stony there is no premed major. You must choose a major and satisfy the premed requirements either with the major or in addition to the major. Many science majors have prerequisite courses that overlap with premed requirements, but you can major in anything as long as you fulfill them. I don't really know too much about that 73 percent figure that you found. It is true that the classes can get bigger than 500 students. For science majors, classes often remain large ( >100) even for courses at the 300-level. Getting research at stony brook or brookhaven lab through stony brook is as easy as sending 10-15 interest-emails to different departments. Research can be done for a URECA $3k stipend that is fairly easy to obtain, if you have a caring PI.
