<p>“The percentage of Haverford Biology Majors going to med school is like 80% while grad school is about 15%. Why the huge difference?” </p>
<p>I think it reflects the kinds of students HC attracts. HC CAN be a very touch-feely place and, given its Quaker heritage of activism and community involvement, seems to enroll students who like personal interactions (the close student/prof relationships) and using knowledge to directly make other people’s lives better (the community service stuff I posted earlier). These things also describe the medical profession. </p>
<p>HC is also one of the best places to go for pre-med, especially if you don’t want the “pre-med” mentality. HC is very highly regarded among top med schools and this fact draws some student to HC (Most other top LACs have PhDs as pre-med advisors while at HC, the advisor is a clinical professor at Penn and also the daughter of the former chair of the Hopkins Dept of Medicine (a very big deal)… she has built a reputation for HC among top med school adcoms above and beyond… from my experience, she’s on 1st name basis with the head of admissions at HMS and Hopkins to name a few). </p>
<p>“…is the department better suited to prepare students for med school rather than grad school?”</p>
<p>Absolutely not. When I applied to colleges, I was very interested and had some experience with protein chemistry research and molecular bio… and wanted to pursue that. Only 2 LACs at the time taught immunology and gave students hands on experience with the production of monoclonal anti-bodies which I’m sure you know is a basic staple for biomed research (HC and williams). I believe that’s still the case. Other top LACs did not offer as strong a training in molecular research because their bio departments are general and many of their profs teach about fish or birds instead of specializing in molecular research. The ivies I looked at either didn’t (it’s really too time intensive and expensive) or only offered it to immunology majors). HC now has this nano emphasis which is even more geared to research. </p>
<p>Why students do well with med school is because the academic/research training you get at HC (in most departments such as english…) teaches the most important assets for med school… critical thinking, time management, teamwork, sleep deprivation, integrity…</p>
<p>if you google “haverford and molecular bio” there are many interesting links… these are a few from the 1st 3 pages. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.collegenews.org/x1271.xml[/url]”>http://www.collegenews.org/x1271.xml</a>
<a href=“http://www.collegenews.org/x5463.xml[/url]”>http://www.collegenews.org/x5463.xml</a>
<a href=“http://www.haverford.edu/newsletter/may04/hhmi.htm[/url]”>http://www.haverford.edu/newsletter/may04/hhmi.htm</a>
<a href=“http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2003/10_25_03.html[/url]”>http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2003/10_25_03.html</a>
<a href=“http://www.michaeljfox.org/research/researcherbio.php?id=54[/url]”>http://www.michaeljfox.org/research/researcherbio.php?id=54</a>
<a href=“http://www.nature.com/nsmb/journal/v11/n1/full/nsmb0104-16.html[/url]”>http://www.nature.com/nsmb/journal/v11/n1/full/nsmb0104-16.html</a>
<a href=“http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:gH13NAO1FowJ:commprojects.jhsph.edu/sommerscholars/scholar_detail.cfm%3Fscholar_id%3D46+haverford+molecular+research&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=10[/url]”>http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:gH13NAO1FowJ:commprojects.jhsph.edu/sommerscholars/scholar_detail.cfm%3Fscholar_id%3D46+haverford+molecular+research&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=10</a>
<a href=“http://www.mgb.pitt.edu/personnel/view.asp?uid=probb[/url]”>http://www.mgb.pitt.edu/personnel/view.asp?uid=probb</a>
<a href=“http://www.haverford.edu/newsletter/june06/kaback.htm[/url]”>http://www.haverford.edu/newsletter/june06/kaback.htm</a></p>