Medicine from Georgia Tech

OldTimer1234
Wed, 15 Jan 2020 17:30:08 +0000

In my opinion, neither UGA nor GA Tech are particularly great choices for pre-med as they are both fairly competitive admissions with no hospitals on their undergraduate campuses. Realize that U.S. medical school admission’s rates are only at about 50% nationwide, and that is NOT counting the tremendous amount of students on the pre-med track who never apply to medical school because they do not get the grades needed and switch what they are working on mid-way through undergraduate school or are counseled against applying to medical schools. You cannot really use the published “medical school acceptance percentages” because many undergraduate universities artificially manipulate them. For example, Duke University will not write department letters of recommendation for students earning below a certain science GPA, thus in essence the university decides which students will be applying to medical schools or not. They do this for their own benefit, to keep their medical school admission’s rate high for marketing purposes. However, not all universities do this - it is actually something to ask about before making a final decision of where to attend, if you plan on a pre-med track. My oldest is at a similar private to Duke which allows individual faculty members to decide for themselves if they want to write medical school recommendations, regardless of the student’s GPA.

In my opinion, there are two TOTALLY opposite routes you can go for pre-med. Either you want to go to a relatively easy university where you can keep your GPA up super high - in which case one of the other GA state universities, if GA is in-state for you, which has less competitive admissions works just fine OR (what my oldest daughter decided to do) you go to the most prestigious medical research university you can afford that allows undergraduates to work in hospitals and help with research, get their names on publications, get doctor recommendations, etc. to get a “leg up” on the types of extracurricular experiences and networking that might set those apart from each other who DO get the GPAs and MCATs needed for medical school admissions (Duke, Vanderbilt, John Hopkins, UNC, UT Austin, UVA, Michigan…). If you go route number two, do not expect to party much in undergraduate school - to maintain the GPA needed, you will be working HARD. However, in return you will have clinical/research experience that is harder to come by if attending a university without an affiliated research hospital nearby.

My oldest is attending a university with four hospitals on campus. Last semester she had a five minute walk from class to work in a medical lab a few days a week, and other days she attended a clinic with the doctor who runs the lab. This semester she is working within the pediatric hospital instead to get a wide variety of medically related experiences. She IS having to spend a tremendous amount of time studying to keep her grades up - in general you will need a 3.7+ science GPA to remain competitive, and her school curves many pre-med class so the average student earns a C+. This meant giving up on some activities, like joining a sorority. For her, she is happy with her choice and feels she should be well prepared to do well on the MCAT because the rigor of her classes is super intense, but honestly so is medical school so she feels this will best prepare her and give her medically related experiences so she is sure medical school is really what she wants to do.

Finally, ALWAYS have a “plan B” if on a pre-med track. In her case, she is making sure to complete some additional prerequisites to study physical therapy, just in case medical school admissions is a bust. She also has enough Chemistry she could work in a lab post graduation, but she’s found she prefers an environment dealing with patients to lab work - and that is precisely the advantage to attending a university with a hospital and medical labs on campus - you get to test out what you really like in a real setting.

With that said, medical school is a LONG and EXPENSIVE road, so you should NOT go somewhere undergraduate if it is a financial burden. If that is the case for you, option #1 of attending an easier in-state university and concentrating on GPA may be the best option.

GOOD LUCK!