Premed AB Duke vs Harvard vs Stanford vs HPME

College Search & Lists
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I’m really fortunate to be in the position to be choosing between these incredible options. I’m nearly certain that I want to become a physician. I’m interested in the intersection of technology and healthcare, and I’d like to major in biomedical engineering or biology + CS as an undergrad.

In the future, I want to pursue both academic and clinical medicine as a physician-scientist, pursuing translational bio-engineering research.

Here are my preliminary thoughts:

Harvard – It would be incredibly difficult to turn down a Harvard education, and the research opportunities seem amazing, particularly with the strong biotech scene in Boston (Wyss, Broad institutes). It seems like the top 15% of Harvard premeds are matriculating to top medical schools (HMS, UCSF, Hopkins) and the premed advising is incredibly strong when compared to other schools. However, the hospitals and labs are a 30-minute bus ride away from campus. My dream would be the HST program, and I could network in Boston to connect with HST faculty during undergrad.

Stanford – It’s also an incredible option, but the healthcare scene at Stanford seems to be less than Harvard, with fewer hospitals nearby. I like the entrepreneurial culture, but I’m not sure if I’d engage in that during my undergraduate career. I also like the fact that it’s so close to Silicon Valley, as I want to merge my passion for healthcare with technological innovation and Stanford has a specific biocomputation major. However, the premed advising seems weaker and they don’t even provide a committee letter. The hospital is right on campus, enabling easy access.

AB Duke - Duke has a very strong BME program, and the hospital/med school is right on campus, enabling easy access. The AB Duke advising system and the network of peers seems to be unmatched by any other school. The access to professors, research opportunities, and more is definitely a big plus. ABs seem to do incredibly well in Goldwater/Truman scholarships, which could be a big plus for med school admissions. Luckily, the financials are not of great concern to me.

Northwestern HPME – I’d save a year and I wouldn’t have to take the MCAT and could maintain a 3.65+ GPA. You are technically allowed to apply to other medical schools, but the vast majority of students stay at Feinberg. I’d still have to work just as hard academically as Harvard/Stanford, and I still aim to do research anyway, so I’m leaning away from this option. Additionally, I’d have to take the MCAT if I decide to apply to the MD/PhD program.

I’d like to attend a top medical institution where I can match at a good residency and have the credentials to both practice in a tertiary care facility while doing academic research.
What do you all think?

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Harvard and Stanford are obviously excellent schools but the AB Duke provides opportunities that are almost impossible to match. Look at the number of Marshall, Rhodes, Goldwater, Churchill, etc. scholars that have come out of the program. Difficult to beat (on a per capita basis). You have a great shot of getting an MD/PhD at Harvard if you do well as an AB Duke scholar and the university will go out of its way to ensure that you have everything you need to do well.

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If you aren’t certain that you want to be a doctor then don’t choose Northwestern HPME. If you are certain you’ll end up being a doctor then when you are studying for the MCAT and applying to med school and waiting for results you’ll probably wish you’d had chosen Northwestern HPME.

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If I had to choose. Harvard

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Duke and NU are great options. But really. This is between Harvard and Stanford.
Personally, I’d go for Stanford. But Harvard sends more premeds to the best med schools than Stanford does.

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Virtually every AB Duke scholar has turned down at least one of HYPSM. In fact, the main point of scholarships like the AB Duke and Robertson is to lure students away from those universities. We’re talking about the top 0.05% of Duke’s applicant pool. (Put another way, there’s about 100 Harvard admits this year for every AB Duke scholar.)

For biology and bioengineering, especially for students aiming for med or grad school, academics are a wash between the four universities – all have far more resources than any undergraduate can take advantage of. Don’t get too fixated on prestige either; nobody will care where you went for undergrad once you get a graduate degree.

If finances aren’t a concern, go where you see yourself fitting best.

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@nollagam This isn’t about Duke vs Harvard/Stanford. It is about the AB Duke scholarship vs Harvard/Stanford. That makes a world of a difference.

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Great advice in every single post above.

If you were certain on medical school, then Northwestern’s HPME would be the wisest choice because you are not locked in to the program, yet can take full advantage of its benefits if you want to.

Assuming that medical school is out of the picture, you have three outstanding options but I would suggest leaning toward the AB Duke scholarship due to its special benefits.

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A very high percentage of pre-meds change direction in college as they are exposed to alternative paths and explore their interests and passions.

AB Duke at Duke (highly prestigious with strong added benefits at an outstanding university) > Stanford (Silicon Valley has a unique and special tech ecosystem) = Harvard (still the finest university in the world) > NW (really only if you are absolutely convinced you want to go to medical school and be a practitioner rather than a research scientist).

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Wow, tremendous benefits all around. The AB Duke is the premier merit scholarship in the country, with no cost and Oxford in the summer and an incredible network (the Ivy’s don’t offer merit). It is certainly harder to get the AB Duke then to get into Harvard. Duke has outperformed many schools with Rhodes, Truman etc, but it is really the AB Duke’s that have dominated those scholarships. So, being an AB Duke scholar is a unique and recognized distinction. At the same time, not everyone who gets the AB Duke goes because they have such other great choices. At this level, no worry about getting into medical school eventually, so I would not go on med program. Duke loves to get these candidates, but you can’t go wrong anyway. I hope you would go to Duke, as an alum, but this is the classic, can’t make a mistake. Now, if finances have any role, then AB Duke is the way to go. You will go to Duke for free and have numerous graduate options.

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This is between AB Duke and HPME.

The GPA requirements for HPME (science GPA 3.5 and overall 3.65) are fairly easy when compared to the admission stats for NU medical school (Feinberg):

Median GPA: 3.89
Median Science GPA 3.88
New Median MCAT: 520
Old Median MCAT: 37
Acceptance rate: 2%

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@am61517

Northwestern is also outstanding though not Harvard/Stanford, just like Duke. The AB Duke neutralizes any edge Harvard/Stanford has. So does HPME. There’s no right answer here.

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It seems that the HPME program is the safest option. It gives you a guarantee of a top medical school, and if you do well at Northwestern, you can still apply to “better” medical schools, since that seems to be your concern. However, realistically, there aren’t that many medical schools “better” than Northwestern, and even fewer that are associated with strong engineering programs, since you say that your ultimate goal is an MD/PhD program in biomedical engineering. Even some of the programs you mention, like HMS and UCSF, don’t really have engineering programs nearby (unless you want to count MIT/HST, or UC Berkeley, which are each over 30 minutes away from their closest medical schools).

Getting into an MD/PhD program (and even an MD program) is pretty challenging these days. Sometimes it depends on whether you are able to get your research published while you are an undergraduate. And that depends somewhat on luck. If your experiments work out well, that would help with publication. But if your experiments fail (and they might, since that’s the nature of science), you may not have anything to publish.

You say that you would have to work just as hard academically at Northwestern compared with other schools, but I don’t think that’s entirely true. The HPME Web site says you need to maintain a 3.65 GPA overall, and a 3.5 GPA in science courses. Those are pretty generous standards. Your overall GPA will be helped by humanities and social science courses, which are generally graded more leniently. And your science GPA will include upper-level courses, which also have higher grades in general. Therefore, you wouldn’t have to worry so much if you got a B or lower in introductory chemistry or organic chemistry, which are often graded harshly in order to “weed out” potential premeds. If you weren’t in HPME, then getting into Northwestern Medical School would require a science GPA of 3.88 on average, as someone posted above.

As for a good residency, that really doesn’t depend so much on the medical school. Since all medical schools are fairly competitive for admissions, residency programs select from a wide range of schools. Physicians and medical school faculties don’t have the same obsession with “prestige” that high school students seem to. What matters more are your personal qualities, as reflected in your performance in clinical rotations and letters of recommendation from your attendings.

You have many good options. Just don’t discount the fact that you really do have a “bird in the hand” with HPME.

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if i was in your position, i’m not sure i would even look at stanford or harvard given your other options. i know i say that from the outside looking in, but i can’t see why anyone would turn down duke’s ab scholarship for… really anything. my vote goes to duke.

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I’d go for AB Duke

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AB Duke without a doubt…congratualtions!

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Something to consider is the flexibility the AB offers. Yes, you can still go to HMS but you’re also equally well positioned to get a PhD in EE from Stanford, a JD from Yale, or an MBA from Wharton.

Also, with the resources that AB Duke scholars have at their disposal (and the quality of your peer group), you will almost certainly graduate with a high GPA.

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If finances are not a consideration, why is the AB Duke more compelling than Harvard or Stanford? The prestige of the Harvard/Stanford are undoubtedly more and my ultimate goal is to go to HMS/Stanford Med and they do significant infeeding/are biased towards their own.(Harvard’s stats say that the top 10% of their premed class goes to Harvard med).

Wouldn’t going to Harvard/Stanford increase my chances of going to a top medical school?

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For anybody serious about Medicine, and about having the complete college experience at the same time, the HPME would be a no-brainer, but that’s just me. I like to keep things simple and to enjoy the undergraduate experience. All you have to do is maintain a 3.65 GPA (3.5 in the sciences) to be guaranteed admission into a top 20 medical school with a top 10 hospital…and you do not even have to take the MCAT. At any of your other choices, you will need at least a 3.7+ GPA, work hard to do well on the MCAT, and spend the better part of a semester traveling around the nation for interviews, and even then, there is no guarantee you will get into a top medical school. To me, that’s way too much effort when you have the option of sitting purdy and just have to worry about your classes, your research/internships ops, your social life and your extra curricular activities. With the HPME, you can do that. With your other options, you will have to forego your social life and your extra curricular activities in order to focus on getting into medical school.

But you really cannot lose with your other 3 options? Duke is an exceptional, world class university, and the AB program is unique. Attending it for free is an opportunity that is difficult to pass up. And Harvard and Stanford are 2 of the top 3 universities in the US if you ask me. You certainly outdid yourself! :wink:

Really, you cannot go wrong. Go with fit, but make sure that you are certain about medical school before choosing the HPME program. If you are certain, I would say HPME followed by Duke AB followed by either Harvard or Stanford…assuming you can afford NU. If you need to take out a loan, than Duke AB would be the obvious choice. If you are not certain about medical school, I think Duke AB is the obvious choice, unless your parents are extremely wealthy, in which case, you cannot go wrong between Duke AB, Harvard or Stanford.

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^ Great post but the AB is about more than just the money.