If you’re out of state, there’s almost no chance you’re going to get financial aid from UCLA.
What?? If that’s the case, things sure have changed from when I went to school a million years ago. I know lots of people who had a life science or physical science major, and I’d have thought about 10% max were pre-med. My daughter’s major was Food Science and Nutrition, which sounds life sciency, and she never had any interest in going to medical school.
Great point.
@simba9 . . . UCLA makes it pretty easy to major in prehealth; here’s a worksheet that a student can go by to take the requisite courses for the various health fields, generally on page 1, and with specificity on page 2 of the following link:
https://www.aap.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Pre-Health-Requirements-092017.pdf
Obviously, many colleges follow the same type of guideline. But the vast majority of the classes listed are lower-division classes at UCLA, which means that everyone can take them, which is why there are dance, history, economics, English, Philosophy, and a few Engineering majors who take the premed track.
There are more than these. Two more I find appealing are: [ul]
[]Duke overall has students who do better on the SAT, then go on to do better in class and on the MCAT.
[]Duke selects for intangible qualities that continue on to give greater success in med school admission
[/ul]
At UCLA the middle 50% of SAT scores was 1370 - 1540 according to http://www.admission.ucla.edu/FAQ/FR_Not_Adm.htm and at Duke it was 1500-1560 according to https://admissions.duke.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Duke-2023-Class-Profile.pdf So on the upper end the students are just as strong at both schools, but the 25th percentile admit at Duke scored 130 points higher on the SAT.
Second, UCLA does not accept letters of rec but Duke requires them. It’s possible these letters reveal qualities that are therefore invisible to UCLA. Things such as study habits, desire to learn vs grade grubbing, how well they get along with peers and teachers, etc. Students who make a good impression on their HS teachers may go on to do the same with Duke faculty that are going to write their letters of rec, and these intangible qualities may also lead to greater classroom success.
These factors, and others, may account for the difference in med school accept rates.
Med school acceptance rates are notoriously difficult to compare, and I have no interest in doing so. I was addressing why UCLA has a disproportionately small number of med school applicants compared to Duke (or, depending on your perspective, why Duke has a disproportionately high number).
Since I didn’t mention it earlier, I have nothing against either school. I’m possibly the only poster here who’s attended both. I’m not a huge fan of the pre-meds at Duke, and back in the day I switched majors from biology to earth & ocean sciences to get away from them. That said, I firmly believe the attention to undergraduates and advising at Duke is leagues better than what undergrads at UCLA get. Duke at full cost vs. UCLA at in-state cost is one thing, but I don’t think it’s a difficult decision if they’re the same price. YMMV.
@mikemac . . . you’re forgetting about the benefits to society when first-generation students who are premeds become MDs. This would happen with greater frequency at UCLA than Duke, obviously because there are a higher proportion of them at the former, which means some sacrificing of SAT/ACT scores. Different schools, different emphases, top-tier public v. elite private. And there is sufficient amount of time to raise one’s score from the college entry test relative to the MCATS.
Too, UCLA places some really good professors who act as gate-keepers to med school, because they will teach many if not most of the premeds, being in the chem series – perhaps the toughest of the premed courses, with courses like O-chem.
And if you want to make an argument with respect to the OP, he/she might find the premed path at UCLA easier if that seems possible because of the fractionally less competition.
That would only be true if both schools grades on the same ‘curve’. But I highly doubt that they do for the premed prerequisites. (I’m guessing that Duke has joined its grade-inflated peer group and awards more A’s and B’s as a % of the class than UCLA.)
Here’s a quote from Professor Neil Garg:
We give students problems that are extraordinarily difficult, but they are able to solve them. One of the things we teach them is a process of Retrosynthetic Analysis – one of my favorite things in the world, as my students in the room would know. This is a process where we take a complex molecule and think how we would make it from smaller molecules, using the rules of organic chemistry.
What you’re looking at is a question from our final exam from 2013. I didn’t learn how to solve problems like this until I was a grad student at Cal Tech. Here are second-year undergraduates that are non-chemistry students – two-thirds in a class of nearly 400 were able to get this problem correct.
Again, they’re putting some really good professors in the premed pathway.
Many colleges do something similar; it’s the prof’s favorite thing in the world, of course he’ll teach it. This is not unique to UCLA.
For example my D attended a college where they were doing certain tests in Gen Bio lab. When she did a SURP that summer at a top R1, none of the Neuro grad students had even been introduced to that testing so my D showed them how.
@bluebayou . . . you’re forgetting one important component of the teaching process: Dr. Garg brought this learning technique of O-chem into the classroom, even if he’s apparently very humble and wouldn’t say it himself. He’s won teaching awards because of it, as well have some of the others in the Chem 14 series. A good professor will enable learning as has been evidenced. But despite this and your daughter’s ability [edit: to] teach upperclassmen, you’ve said before that premed is just a generic study and can be learned and obtained essentially anywhere, so essentially . . . save your money.
You talk negatively about class sizes and impersonal public colleges, but you state that UC Berkeley Computer Science and Engineering are worth the OOS, non-resident price. Yet the average class size of UCB CS is ~ 500, combined lower- and upper-division from what I was able to determine – I didn’t spend a lot of time on it, so the numbers could have a +/- 25 or so. (I also took an average of a group of 1XX class numbered seminars and only used one input instead of counting them all as individual classes.) In comparison, UCLA’s average was about 90, and Stanford per the student paper from 2017 said its average was ~ 120 despite the University having an overall 4:1 faculty-student ratio, but was more like 10:1 in CS. Popular majors, popular majors => larger classes, saving for a place like Caltech.
“What?? If that’s the case, things sure have changed from when I went to school a million years ago. I know lots of people who had a life science or physical science major, and I’d have thought about 10% max were pre-med.”
10% seems a little low but It may not be the 80%/50 a5ssumption I used, agree. According to ucla, there are about 2,000 students in life sciences and another 1,000 in physical sciences and another 100 or so in biomedical sciences in any given class. With 1000 med school applicants, maybe 40% are from life sciences, and 20% from physical and biomed.
@theloniusmonk . . . I don’t think that’s right.
You’re saying that 40% of the Life Sciences, 2,000, or 800, + 20% of the 1,000, or 200, will total effectively all the 1,000 applicants to med school every year from UCLA, without figuring the stagger (gap) of when they apply.
The purpose for the outlined prehealth schedule was as an informative to students that they didn’t have to major in either of the two. There are dance, social science, and humanities majors who take the premed coursework and apply to med school.
Were you Stanford or UCB? I’ve had a conversation with you before.
Here are the degrees granted per IPEDS.
Here are the possible premeds or generally the prehealth majors from the typical science majors at UCLA:
Major
Life Sciences……1,285
Psychobio…………363(Pych Depart)
Hum Bio………………103(Interdisciplinary)
Biochem………………185(Interdisciplinary)
Chemistry………………56 (Physical Sciences)
Total…………………1,992
I took a guess that an untitled interdisciplinary major was Biochemistry. I’m not going to attempt to apply the stagger, but most probably apply with a one-year gap to medical school; and not very many apply with no gap. Some will go to grad school or a post-bac program to better qualify for med school. Some will be re-applicants to med school or other health programs.
Let me try to guess to what health program UCLA students would apply and their numbers:
Medical School……………1,014 (2019)
Dental School……………….300
Pharmacy School…………250
DO School………………………150
Optometry………………………100
Physical Therapy……………100
Vet School…………………………50
Total………………………………1,964
Then there’s nursing school and PA school, for which I won’t guess numbers.
“You’re saying that 40% of the Life Sciences, 2,000, or 800, + 20% of the 1,000, or 200, will total effectively all the 1,000 applicants to med school every year from UCLA, without figuring the stagger (gap) of when they apply.”
I didn’t want to get into the gaps because that would kind of complicate things. The idea of this whole exercise, I thought, was to see which school had more pre-med students as a percentage, and what kind of weed out was happening at both schools since the initial comment started with how many med school applicants they each had compared to the size of the school.
“Here are the degrees granted”
The issue is not degrees granted but how many kids started out as pre-meds at both schools and how many were able to get through, to apply that year or after gap years.
The 56 pure chem grads sounds low, but I’ll take your word for it.
“Were you Stanford or UCB?”
As in an alum? No, but I have been to both a few times!
@theloniusmonk . . .
That was indeed the idea, but I wanted to follow the path you were leading to see what the numbers were at graduation for the typical premed type majors from the life and physical sciences. Then I wanted to see what proportion might have applied to med school, or as I said, took the “L” and settled for some other health field (not that there weren’t others who had dentistry or pharm as initial goal). It is impossible to really figure with stagger, with attrition, with other majors’ involvements, etc.
I have to actually make an adjustment for the 1,992 life (“LS”) and physical science grads (“PS”) – from the IPEDS numbers (2017 academic year, I believe):
Total Used…1,992
Minus Interdisc Major…185 (Turns out that Biochem was in Life Sci)
…Marine Bio…9 (> since 2017, but not typical premed)
…Ecology…19 (> since 2017, but more sustainability)
Newly Figured Total…1,779, Typical LS and PS Majors for med school
The 204 Biochem majors, were hiding out in the 1,285 LS graduates, when I was looking for them in PS.
I think the interdisciplinary major, Biochem, takes away from those who might otherwise be pure Chem majors. And actually, these pure majors tend to go for PhDs instead of having intentions of the med/health professions. There were also some other physical science majors that totaled to 171, among which were Physics, Astro, Mat Science, etc., but obviously they are more destined for PhDs than MDs. The various Math grads, 583, are not typical PS majors but more applied types and are used as business-type preparatory: Applied Math, Stats, Financial Math, and Computational Math (more CS types), and Data Theory which was added in 2018.
I think my exercise probably proves that there are social sciences and other non-typical premed majors who apply pretty readily to medical and other health-related professional schools.
Let me try to use your figures as some entering cohort.
3,000 LS and PS Majors total incoming class per your rough calcs. Mine at graduation:
Pre-figured Total…1,992
Less: Interdisc Major…185
Re-Totaled…1,807
Add: Math…583
…Other PS Grads…115 (171 Total PS minus 56 Chem)
Total to Figure against Init. Cohort…2,505
Less: Transfers…350 (Transfers in as fraction who graduated)
Final Total…2,155
So if your totals are correct as to the initial cohort who entered in whatever year, typical of the makeup of PS and LS majors, the attrition rate would be ~ 28.2%. So in four years, 28% dropped out of not nec. premed but from PS and LS programs. I don’t think your numbers are all that inaccurate.
And another point of clarification: “Dropped out,” not from UCLA but into another department other than LS or PS, most likely Social Sciences; and not even necessarily dropped out of a premed or prehealth track.