<p>I read that some schools tend to have more pre-med and pre-law students than others, and from what I understand, having a large number of pre professional students in classes can affect the focus and competitiveness of the courses, particularly with pre med students in science related courses. Is there a way to tell what percentage of students are pre med or pre law? How do you think high numbers of pre professional students affect classes, and is that a negative for those students who are not pre-professional?</p>
<p>If you are a student at a place like Johns Hopkins, it’s probably just the nature of the place itself that drives the competition rather than the fact that they are all pre-meds. Plenty of schools have pre-meds without the cutthroat environment.</p>
<p>Probably any good school has a crazy number of premeds at least frosh year. It seems that every A student from high school that likes sciences begins college as either premed or engineering…then the weeding takes place. </p>
<p>I would assume that any top 100 national u, any highish ranking regional U, and any of the better LACs have a lot of premeds…at least at first. </p>
<p>I dont think schools publish how many premeds students they have in each frosh class because the numbers are rather meaningless. Schools try to track how many apply to med schools and how many get accepted…but that isnt going to help your issue.</p>
<p>I dont know if being prelaw makes a difference because there arent any prereqs.</p>
<p>You can get a hint by looking at the breakdown in majors, which is available at NCES College Navigator. Biology majors are likely to be pre-med, poli sci majors are likely to be pre-law. </p>
<p><a href=“College Navigator - National Center for Education Statistics”>http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/</a></p>
<p>Thanks, sacchi. The link is very helpful.</p>
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I think it does affect classes, yes – though the lower level and gen ed classes more than the upper level classes and seminars. I switched majors in college from biology to geology partially because I was quite tired of all the pre-meds in my classes. A whopping 46% of my freshman class came in pre-med, so my undergrad was perhaps worse than most in that regard. Now that I’m on the teaching side of things, I’ve noticed that my pre-med students tend to be by far the most stressed out and grade-conscious students. (It’s understandable but unfortunate and even unhealthy.)</p>
<p>As m2ck mentioned, huge numbers of students at most universities come in thinking they want to do business, law, and/or medicine, mostly because they haven’t been exposed to anything else and don’t really realize what’s out there. (This is very typical of CC as well, except you can add computer science and engineering to the list.) Academic and career interests tend to diversify in the second or third year. </p>
<p>AAMC provides some info about the number of med school applicants from each college. Of course, it doesn’t account for the students who are weeded out along the way. </p>
<p><a href=“https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/86042/table2.html”>https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/86042/table2.html</a></p>
<p>As sacchi mentioned, however, such students often lump into a few popular majors. Less popular programs like classics, religion, or math can be full of very engaged students even at so-called pre-professional universities. </p>
<p>@warblersrule you are making me scared of my pre med classes at duke haha</p>
<p>Almost all college students are pre-professional. If you are talking about pre-med or pre-law, that is a way for people majoring in something else to sound like they are majoring in something important. Many schools don’t really have a pre-program per se. They are still effectively majoring in Biology or Political Science or whatever. (yes, I know some actually do have programs). I don’t know if any actually award a BS in ‘pre-med’ or ‘pre-law’. That seems a bit odd, no?</p>
<p>For the most part, Pre-Med and Pre-Law are ways that kids label themselves while it changes nothing with their course work. Basically a kid is saying they would like to go to med school or would like to go to law school and some schools have them check the box just so their advisor knows that they may need special advising when it comes time to apply to professional schools.</p>
<p>You don’t need any major to go to med school or to law school. I know English, Nursing, and Engineering majors that went to law school and I know English, Political Science, and Engineering students that went to Med School.</p>
<p>Don’t worry about what kids call themselves pre-med or -pre-law since most of them will not end up going that route. That isn’t to say their will fail in their goal. While some will want to go this route and fall short, many more will move into other areas. The kid that wants to be a doctor may decide that he really prefers research and will simply focus on Biology and not want to go to med school while a kid that is pre-law may just like Philosophy or may simply like to argue but really doesn’t like to research and do extensive writing. </p>
<p>Kids grow a lot in college so don’t worry about your label on the first day or in the first year of college.</p>
<p>Some colleges post the number of pre-med/pre-health/etc. entering freshmen on their Common Data sets.</p>
<p>Example: <a href=“http://www.usc.edu/admission/undergraduate/docs/USCFreshmanProfile2013.pdf”>http://www.usc.edu/admission/undergraduate/docs/USCFreshmanProfile2013.pdf</a></p>
<p>Check the sets for the colleges you’re interested in.</p>
<p>Thank you. We’d like to find a school that has challenging academics, but with students who aren’t too intensely focused on grades. It seems that those who plan to head to medical school are likely to worry about grades in order to get into a good medical school, so it’s just another piece of the puzzle to factor in.
The input has been helpful. Thank you.</p>
<p>Honestly, I don’t think such a place exists. Any place that has top flight academics has top flight students that fought to get in there with top flight grades in HS, so they don’t turn off that quest to be top flight when they get to college. But there are places among the top schools that have differing competitive environments, some cutthroat, others cooperative and perhaps that’s what you should look for - many of the top LACs are known for challenging yet low-key supportive environments. Some schools like Haverford are known for kids who constantly push themselves to do well, yet no one ever talks about grades and you are considered rude if you ask.</p>
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<p>Given the selectivity of MD medical schools in the US, pre-meds have no choice but to be extremely grade conscious. The same goes for pre-law students who want to attend any law school with decent law job prospects (top 14).</p>
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<p>Change a good to any if referring to MD medical schools in the US.</p>
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<p>Change a good to any if referring to MD medical schools in the US.</p>
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<p>True…all US MD schools are very good. @Shoboemom : can you name any that arent good? lol</p>
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<p>Yes, grades are a huge deal for premeds. Once GPA drops, it is hard to make up lost ground and stay in the game.</p>
<p>Lol. I didn’t at all mean to imply anything about the quality of medical schools, just the ever present quest to get into “good schools” however each student may define that. </p>
<p>^^</p>
<p>Yes, young people often think that US med schools are like undergrad institutions. A US MD school can be on a rather unheard of campus (University of South Alabama, for instance) and still be a very good med school that any student should be happy to attend. </p>