Just curious which Ivy League schools offer the strongest and weakest biology/health sciences program for someone who wants to do pre-med?
All ivy leagues have great programs. Go to one that fits you best. However, I have heard that Cornell is a premed gap killer but I have no experience with it so take what I said with a grain of salt.
Why do people think that to be a successful premed student the school has to have some amazing bio or science program?
The MCAT doesn’t test for high levels of sciences.
The premed prereqs are lowish level science classes that are taught well on 200+ campuses across the nation.
[QUOTE=""]
I have heard that Cornell is a premed GPA killer
[/QUOTE]
Many top schools can be premed GPA killers. The key is to go to a school where YOUR stats are high and you can shine.
From a practical standpoint, for a university to have a very good pre-med program, two conditions must be true: first the school should not have really bad grade deflation and secondly, it should have a top hospital & medical school where undergrads have access to for research and volunteering opportunities, and also that it is right on or close to campus. Having access to the hospital and med school is important not only to beef up the med school application with meaningful research, volunteering experience, letters of rec etc, but even more importantly to get hands on experience in a clinical setting as see if you actually could do this for the rest of your life.
So my ranking would be:
- Harvard
- Penn
- Yale
- Brown 5-6. Princeton/Columbia
- Dartmouth
- Cornell
Amongst the ivies the school with the best pre-med is probably Harvard. Harvard has the biggest grade inflation amongst the ivies, Its affiliated hospitals (MGH,BWH etc) are consistently ranked the best in the country and the world, and its Medical school is considered the best in the world and is a research powerhouse. Also its medical school is close to campus.
Second place I would place Penn. While Penn does not have the grade inflation of Harvard, and sometimes the curves can be harsh, depending on what you study and if you plan out well your courses, it is not hard to get grades competitive for top med schools. Penn has one of the best medical schools and hospitals in the country and the world (generally considered just a notch below Harvard’s, and the second best in the ivies after Harvard’s) and also that it is very easy for undergrads to do research with some of the top doctors and researches in the world and also volunteer there. Also the medical school is right on campus so the physical access is easy.
Third place I would put Yale (although I see why some might instead tie it at #2 with Penn), because it does have some grade inflation and its hospital and medical school are strong and a lot of research is going on there too.
Fourth place I would put Brown. Again considerable grade inflation going on there, and the hospital and medical school is quite near the main campus and are strong enough, but not as highly ranked/research powerhouses as Harvard, Penn, Columbia, Yale or even Cornell.
Fifth place for me it is a tie between Princeton and Columbia. Both of these schools tend to have grade deflation by ivy league standards. Columbia has a top hospital and medical school, and I am sure undergrads have access to research opps there (but I can’t speak to that for sure). Princeton does not have a major hospital and medical school, but its undergrad quality is top notch and life-science related research opportunities are plenty and top notch.
7th place is Dartmouth. More grade inflation than Penn, Columbia, Princeton but no research powerhouse hospital, medical school, research opportunities more limited (but not bad). The upside of Dartmouth is prob the focus on undergraduate education.
Last place is def Cornell imo. It has the harshest grade deflation in the ivies and while its medical school and hospital are actually quite strong, they are not on campus (they are in NYC), so undergrads don’t have easy access to them.
Not so sure…:
[Columbia[/url]
(steady upward trend, 2010 average GPA was 3.45)
[url=http://www.gradeinflation.com/Princeton.html]Princeton[/url]
(after years of proudly “resisting” grade inflation, P’ton reversed course. 2014 average GPA: 3.39)
For comparison, [url=http://www.gradeinflation.com/Pennsylvania.html]Penn’s average GPA in 2015 was 3.44](Columbia University).
[Cornell](http://www.gradeinflation.com/Cornell.html)'s also not really any different.
The pragmatic strategy is to pick a college where you are likely to maintain a high GPA and where you can conserve cash for med school tuition.
I question the effect of a “research powerhouse” med school on undergrads. Are premed students really helping out in clinical trials at Mass Gen? Doubtful.
Sure undergrads help out in clinical trials!
They are are dependable source of test subject guinea pigs.
<<<
it should have a top hospital & medical school where undergrads have access to for research and volunteering opportunities, and also that it is right on or close to campus.
<<<
Having a med school on campus is largely unnecessary. Undergrads do not usually have access to the med school. Undergrads are not milling around med school halls. Oftentimes, the med school isn’t all that close to the campus anyway.
Most, if not all, universities have research opps.
Many, if not most, universities have a hospital and physicians that are “in the area” for volunteering and shadowing opps.
Yeah, I agree. I went to a little liberal arts school and many of my friends were pre-meds and went on to attend top-10 med schools.
Which could also be an Ivy if the families EFC is low enough.
The way this is worded can lead a reader to believe that Dartmouth does not have a med school or hospital. They do:
http://www.dartmouth-hitchcock.org/
http://geiselmed.dartmouth.edu/
The hospital is not on campus but it is a short distance away, and it is a recently constructed facility so it is quite modern.
I would put Brown higher because of PLME.
For an additional opinion on appropriate schools, see “The Experts” Choice: Colleges with Great Pre-Med Programs." Among Ivy League colleges, Brown and Penn appear as “Top Choices.” Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth and Harvard receive “Honorable Mentions.”
@mom2collegekids in most schools they don’t have access, but in most ivies they actually do. I know for Harvard and Penn undergrads have big access to research opportunities in the med school. Of course it is not necessary, but having the opportunity to do research at the lab of a big name researcher at Harvard Medical School, or Penn Medicine or any other research powerhouse is a big deal. That researcher, whose name probably has big clout in medical circles, can write you a letter of recommendation that can go a long way. Admissions at top 5/top 10 medical schools is insanely competitive, anything that can make you stand out is useful. Personally, I have 3 close friends from Penn and 1 from Harvard who had such an experience and managed to get into HMS, Penn and Stanford for medical school.
That’s true of all med schools. I’m pretty sure last year Dartmouth’s med school (ranked mud 30s) had an acceptance rate about half as high as Stanford’s and Harvard’s.
I question your knowledge on the subject if you think the top 5-10 med schools are outliers here.
@Penn95, Harvard’s medical school is not “close” to campus.
@mathyone it is not right on campus but close enough to make it realistic for an undergrad to go back and forth a few times a week and /or during the weekends.
@usualhopeful And where did i exactly say that schools outside the top 10 are not very competitive? but the big names are of course more competitive. competitiveness is not the same as acceptance rate…do you seriously believe that Dartmouth med school admission is more or even as competitive as Harvard or Penn med? …this doesnt mean that Dartmouth med is not competitive to begin with…
The moment you say “big names” with respect to med school, you indicate you don’t know what you are talking about. Medical school curriculum is standardized in the US. You learn the same thing at Harvard Med as you do at State U Med. It is a “flat” field.
As for the idea that undergrads are volunteering at medical schools, that isn’t really all that relevant either. Medical schools and the hospitals affiliated with them have residents to do the dirty work; they aren’t looking for “volunteers.”