Smart Cookie

Advice for an international student interested in pursuing a career in medicine?

kwijiborjt

Either will suit you just fine academically. There's really no discernable difference. You might want to look into what you find appealing in terms of social environment and location.

junelay

ima give slight edge to princeton if you are going into medicine but its just my opinion

taemi

harvard has a med school. princeton doesn't. interpret it whatever way you like. i think both are very good.

posterX

Top schools for undergraduate premed, based on average applicant placement into the top medical schools, by tier:
1. Caltech, Yale, MIT
2. Amherst, Harvard, Johns Hopkins
3. Swarthmore, Princeton
4. Stanford, Williams, Dartmouth, Columbia, Duke, others

posterX

Ivies + MIT ranked for undergraduate premed, based on amount of research opportunities per student:

Federal Science & Engineering Research Spending , per student 2004/FY03 (National Science Foundation)


Massachusetts Institute of Technology $41k
Yale University $30k
University of Pennsylvania $23k
Harvard University $21k
Dartmouth $21k
Columbia University $20k
Princeton $17k
Cornell University $14k (note, much of this at Cornell's medical school which is 300 miles away)
Brown $11k


When adjusted for the relative number of science students/majors, the ranking looks a bit different. Example: MIT is 90% science students, so it would fall, while Yale is about 30%, so it would rise.

coolness_rookie

Both schools are excellent, but considering that Princeton is an undergraduate-focused school while Harvard is more graduate-focused, I'd say Princeton takes the cake.

RCMan13

Go to Harvard if you are interested in pursuing a career in medicine.

Contrary to what most people in this thread have said, the presence of large graduate programs actually IMPROVES the undergraduate experience. Harvard has possibly the best medical school in the world, which means all of the resources, faculty, facilities, and opportunities that come with it. So if you are interested in medicine and want to spend a summer doing high-level medical research, going to Harvard would give you the opportunity to find a position relatively easily in their medical school.