Miami, WashU, UNC-CH Honors, Rice

raksudum
Wed, 06 Apr 2011 00:06:19 +0000

Hey thought I would help you out. I am a current Miami freshman.

Miami’s Coral Gables campus has very good facilities for research. Here’s the thing though, UM’s Miller School of Medicine/ Jackson Memorial Hospital is located in Downtown Miami (about 3 miles from UM’s Coral Gables campus). This means you have to take a train (called the Metrorail) to go back and forth between main campus and medical campus if you were to shadow, or do medical research.

I am also Pre-med and what I have discovered is that research is looked upon positively but not required at all. However, medical schools DEFINITELY want you to have shadowing experience… this is a MUST. It is one of those unwritten requirements to gain entrance into medical school. Here’s the questions then, would you be comfortable with a medical campus on the main campus or does UM’s setup appeal to you? Because when you start looking for shadowing opportunities, a medical campus with a hospital will a higher availability of physicians who will assent to having you accompany them on their rotations.

Finally GPA-wise for medical school you want a high GPA. When you send in your primary application to medical schools the majority of them will set a cutoff point where if a machine will deny you based on GPA and MCAT score. But extracurriculars are also important, and medical schools value one or two leadership positions in clubs/ student orgs. The reason I say this is because no matter how good your GPA or MCAT the WILL deny you if you have nothing else to show. Leading from this point, choose a school where you can perform well in academics and maintain extracurricular interests. So what a lot of seniors do is that they pick the most prestigious college which gives them good financial aid then starts getting bad grades because of the rigor, cut-throat academics, and weed-out courses (such as Chem and Org. Chem). Be smart.

Many friends of mine opted for instate schools because it was cheaper, they could ace public college courses, easier to be above the curve on tests and ease of transition. Mind you, these guys were not stupid having gotten into Yale, Duke, WashU, Northwestern, etc. It really just does not matter what school you go to for undergrad to get into med school as long as you are in either a flagship university or good private school (with aid of course). It’s just that when you are staving off ear infections, strep, mono, or whatever the hell you can catch from being around kids in college, trying to make new friends, and adjusting to the rigor of college it’s gonna make your life pretty damn miserable if you don’t have the comfort environment (parents, friends, comfort food =) ) to fall back on if something doesn’t work out.

Out of those colleges (money-wise stable) I would pick UNC-Chapel Hill though. My friend goes there and he’s having the time of his life (Chemistry major, premed, soccer team. The school offers: Great Carolina Spirit, college-town, research triangle (DUKE, UNC, and NC-State), southern hospitality, and very mild weather).

So that’s my two cents on UM and a bit of college life so you can make your decision more easily.