<p>How is premed at Iowa? is it overly competitive or difficult to get good grades? Are research opportunities available?</p>
<p>You know, I’m sure, that pre-med is a declaration of intent rather than a major in the usual sense. One can be a history major and be pre-med; it just means that you need to pick up the required undergrad courses as prescribed by the pre-med path.</p>
<p>My son is interested in biomedical engineering and I talked today with a gentlemen from that college who said that YES, many research opps are available. In fact, about 20% of FRESHMAN stay on campus the summer after their first year to do research, and many more BMEs will pick up research gigs at some point during their undergrad. Iowa is a huge biomedical sciences campus and their hospital is the largest teaching hospital in the country (I believe). It’s Tier 1 research school so YES, many profs are doing research.</p>
<p>That said, I advise you to check with someone from your undergraduate college/dept to ask this question. Some majors, such as BME, will probably afford its students more opps than would others less involving medical sciences.</p>
<p>Another interesting thing about Iowa: its Honors program, which is not esp. difficult to get into, has faculty advisors whose job it is to connect undergrads with research opps.</p>