I think OP means Uwashington, versus University of British Columbia.
Fortunately, I'm from the PNW! Greetings!
I actually had a Canadian friend of mine who is now a pediatrician(?) who went through a similar phase through UW, then med school in the states. I don't know how UBC is, but Canada at large only has a limited number of medical schools, and thus its very hard to stay competitive to get in. I'm assuming you're canadian, right? I think from that perspective you shouldn't have as much of a deal coming BACK to CA to practice.
UW is fine, I think if things haven't changed since I was there, its your average 700 premeds in the gen chem series 1st quarter...and plenty more.Lots of weed out courses, and well I'm gonna assume that you haven't gone through college and thus if you find you're not doing medicine, seattle is a great city to live in and study at, because your education and proximity to many fortune 500 companies should land you a solid job out of college in a variety of fields and specialties. I have friends in Toronto who complain how BC doesn't have as many jobs in business and so forth, everything is based in Toronto. I think you'll have lots of available resources to get involved, do research, whatever your fancy is in seattle. If you can somehow gain resident-status, that should help your odds of getting into UW Med, however do realize UW med is very competitive and I would imagine just as hard as getting into UBC. So, all in all, I guess UW undergrad may give you a leg up in terms of familiarity between UW and med schools when you're applying, since you're applying to US ones and not canadian ones. UW places a greater emphasis on 'interesting people' who have had stuff to share in their life. (unfortunately that doesn't mean "i went to college in america"...LOL). I guess from that perspective, I "feel" that UW probably takes people who have less academic credentials for interesting people where as UBC may take more high-scorers on tests. Those are my two cents.
