<p>UVA has always been the school that I’ve been in awe of. I remember making college visits there with my older brothers, and I loved it each and every time. However, over the years, I’ve learned of a few…“tragic” stories of people I know.</p>
<p>My cousin, a pre-med, graduated valecdectorian of his class but now has a 3.4 as a Bio major at UVA (Something that I would major in).</p>
<p>Are pre-med courses extremely hard?</p>
<p>I hate to back away from a challenge, but I have no give myself the best chances of getting into Med school and that venture might lead me to Tech or Mason.</p>
<p>Pre-med classes are meant to be hard in order to weed out folks. The hardest pre-med class I’ve heard is Biochem. I don’t think your cousin’s GPA should frighten you from wanting to attend UVa. To be honest, a 3.4 isn’t a terrible GPA, especially at UVa where grade inflation isn’t as rampant as the Ivies. If the rules haven’t changed, that’s still good enough to have you graduate “with Distinction” which is our equivalent of “cum laude.”</p>
<p>Correction: if you’ve enrolled in a particular major’s Distinguished Majors Program (which requires that you write a thesis), a 3.4 will allow you to graduate “with Distinction.” A higher GPA will earn you “with High Distinction” or “with Highest Distinction.” If you’re not enrolled in a Distinguished Majors Program, you can still graduate “with Distinction” as long as you have a 3.6. Here’s the info:</p>
<p>Are pre-med courses extremely hard?
I hate to back away from a challenge, but I have no give myself the best chances of getting into Med school and that venture might lead me to Tech or Mason.</p>
<p>Why do you assume that it would be easier to get an A in the pre-med courses at those other schools?</p>
<p>I have a friend who is a Bio major and she basically got straight Bs because she is not pre-med and does not want to put in the ridiculous amount of time it would have required her to compete with those kids. A lot of people come in pre-med and do not leave that way… I would take that into consideration when choosing a school, that you may change your mind.</p>
<p>You have every reason to be scared of U-Va’s pre-med program. It is in fact designed to weed out less able applicants and is extremely competitive. I know this first hand, having had a daughter with credentials almost exactly like yours not stand a chance and bail out well before her senior year at U-Va. She’s perfectly happy with her chosen field and has no regrets about having attended U-Va, but in hindsight she now knows she was being unrealistic in thinking she could rise to the top among such a highly capable and driven group of classmates and get admitted into med school. </p>
<p>It may be blasphemous for me to suggest this on the U-Va board, but if you truly believe that med school is the right path for you then you should strongly consider enrolling at VCU instead of U-Va and shooting for its guaranteed admissions program. VCU is not only a far better school than most U-Va boosters give it credit for, it is much more diverse than U-Va in almost every way except for the percentage of students from out of state. Your path to med school going to VCU would be a much more smooth one than going to U-Va, and you’d be pursuing your dream in a very welcoming environment.</p>
<p>I know this is tough advice for a high school senior in Virginia to consider – your classmates won’t be nearly as impressed when you tell them you’re going to VCU – but it will pay dividends down the road. </p>
<p>I say this as a big fan of U-Va, by the way.</p>
<p>For the most part I agree with novaparent’s point - VCU is better than most give it credit for. I think it’s a fine school. Plus, the guaranteed admission program is a nice incentive. That said, it is nowhere near the same undergrad experience as UVA in so many ways. You’d really have to make an important value judgement to make that particular leap. </p>
<p>Interestingly, I do know some UVA grads who attended MCV which is VCU’s med school. And yes, there are some VCU grads at UVA’s med school as well. Virginians are very fortunate to have such choices. </p>
<p>The pre-med classes at UVA can be challenging, but they are not insurmountable - lots of students go on successfully to med school. So, while i understand the intimidation I’m not sure you should be afraid.</p>
<p>From someone whom went through the med school app process, higher-ranked schools do have a slight advantage (but it is slight). </p>
<p>More importantly, is bio really something you are interested in? Is it something you really want to do if you don’t get in med school? Pure vanilla bio majors aren’t particularly marketable, especially in this economy.</p>
<p>You should beware any publishd acceptance-to-med statistics, jc. There are schools who actively weed out students in order to get their percentages high. You need rec letters/some other stuff, and some schools have policy that they will refuse to do their part if you are not of the caliber that will get in. I don’t think UVA does this, but the amount of students they weed out says a lot about who is left at the end. It would be more realistic to track students from first year., and why they drop the program. The same is true for other science majors, like math and engineering.</p>
<p>Aerodynamics, also keep in mind that you don’t have to major in Biology or a science to be Pre-Med. I have a friend who was a Spanish major at UVa, took all the pre-med classes, got into med school, and is now a doctor.</p>
<p>guys can you stop referring to them as pre-med classes. it’s kind of annoying to real science students.</p>
<p>pre-med students sabotage many science classes with their myopic and less-than-intellectual goals. they dislike class discussions and only want to do a minimum of the work, and complain about brilliant professors with innovative teaching methods. They dislike interdisciplinary connections because it complicates their pre-med path. I find their passion for science to be less than ideal.</p>
<p>there is no pre-med programme at UVA, for that matter. it doesn’t exist. we have some pretty exciting neuroscience and advanced research programmes, and UVA has been for many decades THE leader (and the pioneer) in research on circadian rhythms that regulate about 10% of the human genome.</p>
<p>Actually, UVa does have a Pre-Med Program, but the program I link to below is for those who have graduated from college, but want to fulfill the science requirements in order to apply for med school.</p>
<p>When I was referring to pre-med classes in my previous post, I don’t mean that they are classes that are only for those who are interested in medical school. Yes, they are just regular science classes, but they are the typical courses that med schools require that you have completed when applying. (That’s what I mean by “pre-med”.) For a general list of those classes, check out this link below:</p>
<p>well duh. but pre-med students ruin those science classes for me, generally creating a culture that suppresses intellectual discussion and being hostile to healthy enthusiasms for research.</p>
<p>Being forced to call them pre-med classes means admitting that pre-med students “own” those classes. </p>
<p>I’d much prefer it if we could separate the science classes into two tracks – an easy pre-med track, and a more interesting, real-science track. This is done for chemistry and physics but not biology.</p>
<p>I have some really good pre-med friends, who are actually passionate about science, but most of the time they tend to be the, “I don’t care about issue X in chemistry/biology/physics, this isn’t relevant to my pre-med career”. Is that the sort of attitude Jefferson would have liked to seen?</p>
<p>I think the scariest part of UVA is the admissions. Not the process, which is all neatly laid out on the blog and CC, but the difficulty. I mean it is virtually impossible for OOS students to be accepted with out STELLAR stats.</p>
<p>the scariest part of UVA is not the admissions. admissions is only the beginning of a long and challenging academic career yet to be completed.</p>
<p>(I’m glad to be here though. ) </p>
<p>the scariest part of UVA is probably some of the professors. attending some of their lectures is like a good horror film – like those really cerebral ones like Silence of the Lambs. You are holding on to the edge of your seats, wondering, “What will this crazy man [or woman] do next?”</p>
<p>“That said, it is nowhere near the same undergrad experience as UVA in so many ways. You’d really have to make an important value judgement to make that particular leap.”</p>
<p>I agree with FLVADAD that VCU is a completely different undergrad experience from U-Va’s. But different doesn’t mean “better”. </p>
<p>As for MechWahoo, nobody is arguing that generally speaking higher ranked schools do better when it comes to med school admission. I’m not recommending that the OP go to JMU or ODU over U-Va. We’re talking about VCU’s guaranteed admissions program to VCU’s med school, a program specifically designed to encourage top students interested in med school to attend VCU undergrad. Any Virginia high school student who’s seriously interested in medical school owes it to themselves to consider this option.</p>
) </p>