Hey everyone! I'm a high school senior and right now I have 3 options for undergrad: Westmont College (Santa Barbara), UCSD, or PUC (Angwin). Which of these schools would best increase my chances of getting into medical school? If anyone goes to either of these schools and is pursuing a career in medicine, PLEASE tell me about your experience!!! I need advice!!!!!
Westmont, UCSD, or PUC?
- Thread starter kahlon95
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UCSD
Please go there.
Trust me.
Best opportunities in my opinion, and PUC and Westmont wot give you the options of very credible research.
Also, Westmont is a liberal arts college which will probably mean that it's hard... Not good for Pre meds!
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I don't know much about Westmont or PUC, but I do know that SD is insanely competitive for pre-meds! I know people that go there and they say it's extremely cut-throat. That being said, it's a very good school and has a lot of opportunities in the sciences. It's also a really nice campus.
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Most large institutions will have cut-throat pre meds. It's just life.
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True, but I'd go out on a limb and say that UCSD is especially bad.
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Bump
This is finishing off my junior year at UCSD and also being a transfer student:
Most of the pre-meds are quite cut-throat here. They all want to go to UCSD SOM and they all know what the minimums are to get into the school. A good majority of pre meds here are quiet, determined, and very focused. Not to say there aren't any outgoing personalities here either.
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Hi, I'm from UCSD:
The most noticeable aspect of UCSD is testing. Because we are on the quarter system (10 weeks instead of 20 weeks for a semester), your grade is based entirely on usually one or two midterms, and one final. That puts tremendous pressure on many new students. So that can be a very huge hill to climb coming here as I do not believe your other choices do a quarter system.
We have a multitude of pre-health societies and organizations to get you started as a freshman. They also have an array of research opportunities, MD shadow opportunities, and PharmD as well.
The atmosphere is lively at library walk (you should tour UCSD to know what I am talking about), it would be the closest to high school ASB there. The class sizes for most of the biology courses can range from 150-400 students to one faculty. So that's a huge shock to most students entering. However they set you off with sections which are like smaller classes to review material. PreHealth students are pretty quiet, most of them 😉 , and they are all very determined and "cut-throat" as most want to go to UCSD medical school and know just how hard it is to get there. So you'll probably make more friends during your out-of-major courses than you will all of your biology courses. UCSD really isn't a friend making school if you are pre med I would have to say.
Now in terms of chances to get into medical school? It doesn't matter, it's all up to those 4 years and the outcomes following them that will determine if you will get into medicine or not.
