<p>Holy Cross has no reputation among med schools admission committees that advantage it over the other schools. I can guarantee you that. Holy Cross really has no real reputation in medical/biosciences community because Holy Cross doesn’t get a dime in research or training appropriations from the National Institutes of Health. It has no graduate or professional programs and its community of scientists is almost non-existent. There are virtually no publications coming out of Holy Cross…and you can search for them on PubMed. It is considered a good LAC in its region, but outside of it…even in the mid-Atlantic, no one really knows about it.</p>
<p>Whether one school is an academically superior all-around school is subjective. I can tell you that it is a good idea to check and compare the variety of departments and course offerings of the programs you are interesting in studying. Do the subjects have dedicated faculty? Are they offered frequently? Looking at Holy Cross’ Dept of Biology [url=<a href=“http://academics.holycross.edu/files/biology/0910handbook.pdf]handbook[/url”>http://academics.holycross.edu/files/biology/0910handbook.pdf]handbook[/url</a>], there are only 12 total faculty members. Course offerings are sparse and infrequent. Also compare research opportunities in departments that you might be interested and relevant facilities. Research opportunities at Holy Cross, looking at their website, are extremely limited, which isn’t surprising due to the small faculty and lack of extramural research funding. It seems that most undergrad research has to be done at UMASS or in a summer program at another school, which are limiting because of the restrictive time frame that prevents summer-only student researchers from getting involved in any sort of substantial research project that actually results in publication authorships that admissions committees love to see. </p>
<p>Allegheny faces similar issues, but has a good rep around Western PA as a LAC, but no one outside of the area has heard of it. That isn’t a necessarily going to ding you in a med school application, but these schools aren’t going to get you any bonus points either.</p>
<p>I’m biased toward research institutions because that’s the field I’ve been in. I did my undergrad at Pitt (and was published), I did my PhD at a private research institution in the South, my post-doc and taught at an Ivy and I’ve also taught in a small Catholic LAC like Holy Cross (on the West Coast) and worked at a large public research institution on the West Coast. But regarding Pitt, only four other undergrad universities in the nation do more medical/biological science research than Pitt, Pitt’s medical center is one of the top 10 in the US, its med school is in the top 20 every year as are most all of its health science schools and programs, and the bulk of its facilities are minutes by foot from freshman dorms. The faculty you are learning from are among the top in their field, and they are faculty and medical professionals that you can get recommendations from and volunteer or work with in their labs using cutting edge equipment and techniques. The major hospital is right on campus to get volunteering hours in. There is no better place to be pre-med or pre-bioscience research than Pitt as long as the student is comfortable with the setting and has some measure of independence. There are equivalent places, but Pitt is right at the top with all of them in these particular fields.</p>
<p>Again, LACs can provide a great education, but I’m going to be honest here in that it is simply impossible for them to provide the same type of educational experience as a research institution for research fields like biology, chemistry, neuroscience, etc… and this is simply because the same opportunities don’t exist at the same level as they do at major research institutions. It just a simple matter of faculty, money, and facilities. It is just much easier to get these experiences at major research universities, particularly those that have everything right on the undergrad campus. And while these experiences are the end all, the do strengthen med school applications.</p>