Just how hard is Wash U's Pre-Med program?

flashmountain
Wed, 25 Apr 2012 00:40:51 +0000

Don’t bind yourself into 7-8 years at a school that has a marginally strong pull pretty much exclusively within the mid-atlantic states. No one is going to care (besides others at Temple) that you are in that special program, because it seems you have to go to Temple med school anyway… which, not to deride them, isn’t in the same peer group as Wash U. Temple:UPenn :: SLU:WashU, and I just can’t imagine anyone choosing SLU over Wash U. I mean, you’re applying to these top schools because you are smart and motivated and because they ARE top schools, and then these schools accept you because you do have the ability to succeed here, and then to actually get accepted and re-consider a top school because it might be too difficult? These anxieties are common but I just can’t see someone rationally choosing Temple/SLU over Penn/Wash U, unless there are significant financial or family considerations. Yes, people don’t finish pre-med, and yes it is hard here, but that is the case at any school, and if you really want to go to med school then do your due diligence, work hard, follow advice, and realize it shouldn’t be easy to begin with.

It’s reasonable to say that for the majority of those students at Wash U who were pre-med but end up choosing to study something else, a major contributing factor in that decision was that they legitimately realized pre-med wasn’t for them and found something else more interesting. They’re not going to be losing much sleep at graduation and end up harboring ill feelings towards Wash U for “weeding them out” of pre-med and crushing their dreams of becoming a doctor.

Also, it seems Temple’s program is accelerated. I’m sure you’ve done your pros/cons list of accelerated programs, but if I made up my pros/cons list of accelerated programs, there would be far more cons than pros, regardless of if the accelerated program was offered at Temple or an ivy league school.