<p>I answered this question recently on this thread: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/northeastern-university/1412229-northeastern-pre-med.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/northeastern-university/1412229-northeastern-pre-med.html</a></p>
<p>“the road to medical school is long enough”-- most medical students do not come straight from undergrad. They generally take a year or two (or three) while they work, study for the MCAT, get together a stronger application. Medical school is very competitive. It is not easy to become a solid applicant by the time you are 22, and it’s really really difficult to take the MCAT and apply while you’re in school. People do it, absolutely, but it’s becoming less and less common, and because of this, if you attempt it, you’ll be competing with people with more life experience/more ECs/better letters of rec/etc etc.</p>
<p>Five years of college seems like a lot to an 18 year old. It will not seem like a lot when you are 22/23. I’m 25 now and a biomedical graduate phd student. Most of my peers, and most of my med student friends, did not go straight to med/graduate school at 22. The extra year was simply some extra time to organize my life and prepare for what I wanted to do next… I would 100% do 5 years of co-op again.</p>
<p>(That being said, you could still graduate in 4 years, but this shouldn’t make or break a NEU decision)</p>