Is Undergrad Really That Important?

[blieux_monkey]

<p>

1.) Excellent undergraduate programs provide excellent opportunities - opportunities that are technically available at larger schools (like LSU, or for that matter UC Berkeley) but are difficult to find and obtain.

</p>

<p>Could you clarify what you mean by opportunities? As in what kind of opportunities?</p>

<p>

3.) The main point here is that if you go to a program like LSU, you will have to be one of the dozen or so most driven students in your entire university. You will have to be studying when everybody else thinks it’s ridiculous. You will have to have an MCAT score relatively high enough that it is embarrassing and will make you want to hide it from your friends, even your well-meaning ones.</p>

<p>If you are at a top school, your friends will be similarly talented and driven. They will help encourage you to perform at your best, and if anything they will express disapproval if they see you slacking off. This was very important for me, and it is very important for most people. Maybe you’re the exception.</p>

<p>Can you do this? I certainly could not have: the ostracization would simply have been too high. It would have made undergrad miserable. Most people cannot. But maybe you are the exception, since obviously some exceptions do exist.

</p>

<p>While I’ll disagree on what I consider an exaggeration of being ostracized for making good grades/high mcat/studying, I will agree with what I think it’s probably the intent of this point.</p>

<p>That I think it’s a good thing to try and surround yourself with people who have similar ambitions. I think that is the purpose of many school’s residential colleges and honors programs. I encourage those programs (as long as it’s not a detriment to your GPA) because it puts you in an environment where there are people that make you want to push yourself to do just as well, if not better. And, yes, you are probably more likely to find those people at a top university as opposed to a place like LSU.</p>

<p>I agree with the rest of post.</p>