Pitt Honors vs Drexel Honors

wgmcp101
Sat, 31 Mar 2012 00:04:31 +0000

Regardless of honors colleges, the you’ll have a lot more quality research opportunities at Pitt. And most of Pitt’s labs are on the undergrad campus. For the most part, Drexel’s labs aren’t on the undergrad campus in West Philly. They are across the Schuykill River towards downtown…not nearly as conveniently located. That means running in and out of a lab to check on experiments between classes or social activities is likely going to be more difficult.

As far as campuses, I certainly understand if you want somewhere new to explore, and both campuses are urban, but suggesting Drexel’s campus is nicer than Pitt’s pretty much makes me wonder if you have even seen Drexel’s. I lived in West Philly and Oakland, and I think even the the most Drexel-biased person wouldn’t think Drexel has nicer facilities or campus. Beyond subjective aesthetics, Drexel certainly doesn’t have better medical and research facilities. However, preferring Philly to Pittsburgh is a different argument. To each his/her own, and as you mentioned, you might just want to explore somewhere different.

Regarding Drexel’s Star Scholar program, an intramural research stipend awarded before you even start school isn’t going to impress people enough to get you into med school, but it is nice to have, that is for sure. Pitt’s honors college has a [variety of research fellowship programs](http://www.honorscollege.pitt.edu/programs/fall-and-spring-research-opportunities) that you can apply for once at Pitt as well. Of course there is no guarantee you’ll receive those, you’ll certainly be able to get into doing research as early as you want at Pitt.

Now your actual research experience will help get you in to med school, particularly if you are able to get some sort of authorship in a publication out of it. And again, you are likely to have a better research experience at Pitt on multiple levels as it is seriously one of the best in the nation for health/biosciences: #5 in NIH funding (that’s the gold standard right there), top 15 medical school, top 15 medical center, and top 20 in nearly every health-related program. The atmosphere and experiences in these fields, even as an undergrad, and especially in the honors college, will be significantly better at Pitt. Bottom line is that Pitt is a flat out better school across the board, particularly in medical and bio/health sciences.

Regarding Pitt honors, someone did a statistical comparison of honors colleges a while back (see [here](http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1041074-best-honor-programs-public-universities-updated-12.html)) Pitt’s college favorably stacked up against others.

Co-op experiences for pre-med or biosciences aren’t really meaningful at all. You need hospital volunteering hours, physician shadowing, and research experience, along with kick-ass recommendation letters from faculty you have a real relationship with (probably the ones you are shadowing or working in their labs). The research experience will be better if you can settle into a lab you like and do long term project (stretching over multiple semesters/years) in order to get enough research done to present your project at national/local meetings and/or get some sort of authorship. Doing a summer co-op at a company where you may or may not get real lab experience isn’t going to get you that experience and could disrupt your research. And really, in health or biosciences, you’re likely going to end up at med school, some other clinical professional grad school or a research PhD graduate program. Few people go into industry with a BS in bioscience fields, and if they do, they reach a ceiling very quickly and end up in graduate or professional schools, even if they end up back in industry eventually.

Now, that said, Drexel, nor most any other university, isn’t going to keep you from achieving your goals. So if you aren’t going to be happy at Pitt, perhaps you shouldn’t go there.