UW Seattle vs. WashU Premed Experience

[dvl]

Hi guys!

I am an incoming freshmen and I'm currently trying to decide whether to commit to UW or WashU. Could any current students at either school give me some insight into their premed experience? Rigor of classes, competitiveness, research/internship/clinical opportunities, overall environment of the school, etc.

Also, UW would cost about 26k/year and WashU would cost about 50k/year. My parents say they can afford the difference in price, but is it still more practical to go to UW because of the cost? Or would it be worth it to go to a more prestigious, private school like WashU to increase my chances of getting accepted to medical school?

Thank you for any help!




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[flapjack3d]

Hi guys!

I am an incoming freshmen and I'm currently trying to decide whether to commit to UW or WashU. Could any current students at either school give me some insight into their premed experience? Rigor of classes, competitiveness, research/internship/clinical opportunities, overall environment of the school, etc.

Also, UW would cost about 26k/year and WashU would cost about 50k/year. My parents say they can afford the difference in price, but is it still more practical to go to UW because of the cost? Or would it be worth it to go to a more prestigious, private school like WashU to increase my chances of getting accepted to medical school?

Thank you for any help!




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name will help for top ten schools for sure. But you can achieve your goals coming from anywhere. Either way you will have to be exceptional.

 

[deleted838145]

I would pick UW. You have to think about paying for another 4 years of med school too. And plus, while going there for undergrad doesn't guarantee anything of course, UW has a great med school. In the end, you should choose wherever you think you can be successful. Both are good schools.

 

[freak7]

I have an opinion on this but I need to sleep and will share it tomorrow.

 

[dvl]

Thanks! Could someone also speak to grade inflation/deflation at either school? I heard it's pretty rough at UW.


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[freak7]

Thanks! Could someone also speak to grade inflation/deflation at either school? I heard it's pretty rough at UW.


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Grade deflation is huge at UW for undergrad. Most courses grade on a curve and set the median to ~2.7

 

[dvl]

Were you able to make it through those courses with a decent GPA? I know all the premed kids will be pretty intense, but since they're intro courses for a ton of science majors I'm assuming there's some slacker types taking them too.


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[LibBum]

UW is also on the quarter system and gives decimal instead of letter grades.

 

[cactusman]

Grade deflation is huge at UW for undergrad. Most courses grade on a curve and set the median to ~2.7

Yiiikes. Honestly it's a reasonable median, but when everywhere else is inflated, that would really hurt, especially since UW has a pretty solid student body based on GPA and scores.

 

[precisiongraphic]

Hi guys!

I am an incoming freshmen and I'm currently trying to decide whether to commit to UW or WashU. Could any current students at either school give me some insight into their premed experience? Rigor of classes, competitiveness, research/internship/clinical opportunities, overall environment of the school, etc.

Also, UW would cost about 26k/year and WashU would cost about 50k/year. My parents say they can afford the difference in price, but is it still more practical to go to UW because of the cost? Or would it be worth it to go to a more prestigious, private school like WashU to increase my chances of getting accepted to medical school?

Thank you for any help!




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UW alum here...everyone in my family has gone to UW.

UW has huge 400 student classes. Even going to labs and office hours, students have trouble getting real, in-depth letters from science profs (any prof at all really) because unless you TA or do research with a professor it's hard to stand out. Once you get to the upper level classes like anatomy or genetics, the classes get smaller but not "small." I am not very familiar with WashU but have to believe that it has less of the "cattle-call" huge classes that the UW does. And WashU will give you just as good of a chance to get into UWSOM as going to UW would as long as you keep your in-state resident status.

 

[efle]

but there's the "washu bump" where med schools take into account the difficulty of washu premed and give you SOME slack. So, a 3.0 or slightly above from here will still get into med school

this...is a bit of hyperbole. A 3.1 or something like that is going to cause you major issues, even coming out of WashU with a typical competitive (say low 30s) MCAT!

OP, I went to WashU as well. When deciding I would first consider your background and indicators going in - are you on the bottom end of the ACT/SAT range and didn't have a strong background in science AP classes? Or are you on the opposite end with very strong prereqs background and extremely high scores?

Are you the type of person that is happy in a competitive environment and OK with giving up those weekends to study before an Ochem exam? It is a collaborative environment for sure, not at all cut-throat against one another, but for many people it's a significant challenge to stay above-median in the WashU premed population. If you want to have as much time to chill as possible I'd go UW.

Do you have a big preference for school size, student type and location? Small private campus in a smaller, Midwestern city is a very different place to spend four years than the giant UW campus in Seattle. WashU is extremely nice and cushy in terms of dorm, food, buildings, I will say that's one big strength. Heads up if you're female and potentially interested in Greek life, sororities at WashU are not true traditional sororities, there are only houses for the frats. If you want to be surrounded by a bunch of nerdy tryhards (who also still party) then WashU is better for you; if you'd prefer a more typical college student body with less emphasis on academics/resume building, UW wins.

Research is extremely, extremely easy to line up at WashU, there's a class (Bio 200 and Bio 500) with a list of professors that you contact and then just start doing research-for-credits. You can also approach any profs that interest you outside the list too and many are willing to take on undergrads. No idea how easy or hard it is to find a position in a lab of interest at UW.

See this AAMC survey for some evidence that selective undergrad scores you points in the eyes of private MD admissions...but also note that numbers are king and a 3.7 from UW is much better off than a 3.3 from Hopkins or WashU is.

Edit: Also gonna add in case you weren't aware, while pretty much all the most competitive private colleges have a lot of premeds, WashU is one of the biggest premed factories in the country, like Hopkins and Duke. It has 21% of graduates applying to med school, whereas UW is 6%, so if you'd want tons and tons of other premeds to commiserate with through this process it's another thing WashU has going for it.

 

[mwsapphire]

Yiiikes. Honestly it's a reasonable median, but when everywhere else is inflated, that would really hurt, especially since UW has a pretty solid student body based on GPA and scores.

That's the same as the median for a lot of the harder classes at my state school.
Orgo and genetics come to mind. I think the average grade in orgo I class right now is C+, and there's not grade inflation/deflation here.
A 2.7 average (B-) isn't bad at *all*, and a lot of us are pre meds.

 

[cactusman]

That's the same as the median for a lot of the harder classes at my state school.
Orgo and genetics come to mind. I think the average grade in orgo I class right now is C+, and there's not grade inflation/deflation here.
A 2.7 average (B-) isn't bad at *all*, and a lot of us are pre meds.

Orgo and genetics != most classes

 

[mwsapphire]

Orgo and genetics != most classes

Those are what i can think off of the top of my head, and some classmate from Michigan tell me that their orgo class average was like B ish.
Biochem, genomics, P Chem, thermo, Linear Algebra, Physics I, Physics II, Physics III, stop me at any time....have below B averages.