Premed at UChicago

mermaid123456
Sun, 15 Aug 2010 21:53:06 +0000

I was actually wrestling between Chicago and Duke last April, and quite a bit of my final decision had to do with the pre-med programs.

I absolutely loved a lot of aspects about Chicago, but I too have heard the awful rumors about Chicago having bad med school placement. A lot of this came from reading posts on this forum (especially by Cue7). Basically, from what I understood, Chicago does a lot of grade deflation, which is bad because GPA is so so so important for med school. While some say that med schools know this and account for the grade deflation, I read somewhere on CC (I think by Cue7) that med schools account by giving you a .1 GPA boost when comparing you to peer schools. And as you can probably guess, this is problamatic because grade deflation is rumored to be a lot worse than .1.

Now, I’m not sure how true this is, but my experiences with my visit did kind of back up this impression. The admissions presenter seemed wary of giving out med school acceptance data, and no one I talked at the admissions office could/would give me this information. The presenter actually just kind of brushed aside my question and moved along quickly to the next topic. While this doesn’t suggest anything concrete, I can tell you that other peer schools I considered proudly offerred this information without even being asked. Duke practically boasted about their 85% med school acceptance rate, and WashU did the same. I’m not sure if Duke/WashU discourages unqualified applicants from applying, but none of the students I talked to gave me that impression. If anything, I heard Duke encourages a lot of people to take a gap year, but then again, a lot of college do that. Also, the students that apply after taking a gap year would still be counted in their med school acceptance rate. So, yeah, the fact that Chicago didn’t give me this statistic, let alone offer it up themselves seemed a little shady to me.

Also, when I did my overnight at Chicago, I talked to a lot of premeds there. They all told me that premed at Chicago is pretty much death and is very very very intense. Obviously an exaggeration, but still, very different from what Duke students told me. Those students told me that premed was definitely difficult, but very doable if you were willing to put the time in to it. Also, they told me that they felt quite guided by their school in the med school application/preparation process, something else I did not hear from Chicago kids.

In the end, I cannot say that I have any concrete evidence about the validity of Cue7’s statements. However, they did cast a shadow of doubt in my mind, and in the end, I decided I wasn’t willing to risk this. Because at $55,000 a year, I wanted to be pretty darn sure about the quality of the premed program.

But perhaps quality is the wrong word. UChicago is great in that all the instruction is truly top notch from what I can tell. I always thought to myself that I would completely trust UChicago with training my mind. Chicago teaches you how to think in a completely new way that will be so important later on. And the few classes I sat in on definitely supported this. But, yeah, think about how confident you are about doing well there and maintaining a high-ish GPA when you decide for yourself what is the right premed program for you.

Also, I personally didn’t let pre-med programs be the main reason I didn’t pick Chicago. I considered a lot of other things too, and perhaps for me, the decision was a lot easier because I picked Duke over Chicago for a lot more than the pre-med programs. I’m not sure what other factors you’re going to consider, but I strongly urge to look very closely into Chicago, because as amazing as I think it is, it’s definitely not for everyone.

So, if I didn’t pick Chicago, why am I in the Chicago forum? Ah, nostalgia…(I always kind of wished a bit that Chicago had been right for me.) But don’t get me wrong, I love Duke too! haha.