One of my daughters is a URochester grad. UR bought her with a huge merit award. (Their 2nd largest) She was a pre med and is now a doctor.
Her freshman year about 35 -40% of her classmate identified as “pre med”. However, the percentage of student who quickly drop off the pre-med path was quite high.
(Her joke about UR–Freshmen move in day, you walk down the hall and there’s a pre-med in almost every other room. After winter break-- and after gen chem grades have been posted, you walk down the hall and suddenly everyone is an econ major. In May, as you’re packing up to leave for the summer and spring calc 2 grades have been posted, you walk down the hall and suddenly everyone is a sociology major.)
I don’t think it’s quite that bad, but pre-med required class sizes drop dramatically between gen chem and ochem, and again between ochem and biochem.
UR requires its premeds to take 1-2 semesters of calculus, and 2 semesters of calc-based physics if they want to receive a HP committee letter. Pre meds are not allowed to take their pre-reqs at another university if they want a committee letter. Pre meds will get not credit nor advanced standing for AP bio or AP chem. Not sure about AP physics C.
UR uses a committee letter to screen students who are applying to med school. (And all other health professions, including dental, vet, optometry, podiatry, audiology and PsyD programs)
The advising office gives a med school acceptance rate of 73%. This includes both graduating seniors and alumni. It also includes MD and DO schools. This also includes REMS students with guarantee admission to med school.
UR’s med school class size is small. Class size is 100. 10 of those seats go to BS/MD students every year. Another 6-10 seats are promised to early assurance applicants every year. (UR students cannot apply for the EA program, only students at the 12 partner LACs.) Plus UR offer a guaranteed admission for up to 10 students/year from select post-bacc programs (JHU, Bryn Mawr, etc.) UR SOM really doesn’t favor its own undergrads for admission to the med school, though the med school does interview its top achieving graduates every year.
There was a great deal of research only available at UR so lots of lab positions for those who wanted one. However, all the biomedical/bio research is largely funded by NIH grants-- and those have been slashed so no one knows what the research environment at UR will look like next year.
Because of the high number of premeds at UR, getting shadowing or clinical volunteering at Strong Hospital (UR’s med school hospital across the street from River campus) can be challenging and REMS student get first dibs on available positions. There are several off campus clinical sites around the Rochester area, but getting to those requires having a car or being willing to ride the city buses. (UR student can ride free of city buses with a student ID.)
D found the health profession advising to be of very limited usefulness. She was told “not to bother” applying to competitive summer internship programs because she didn’t have a competitive application. (She was math and biological neuroscience double major who got B and a B+ in ochem.) She applied anyway and was accepted at the NIH’s Summer Internship Program (acceptance rate 7%) and the Amgen Scholars Program (acceptance rate 3%.). A friend of hers was likewise discouraged from apply for the Roosevelt Scholars Program, chose to apply any way and was accepted. (acceptance rate ~5%)
D was from the Southwest and wanted to attend a medical school in the Rocky Mountain states or West Coast. The advisors simply weren’t familiar with western med schools and basically told her she was on her own to figure out which schools she should apply to.
So limited usefulness.
However, I will say she did get wonderful mentoring from a couple of professors. (one has since retire; the other left for another academic position.)
Be aware that although UR does not have GE requirements, it does have required “clusters”. A science major is required to complete 12 credits (3 classes) of thematically-related classes in humanities AND 12 credits of social sciences. There are lot of clusters to choose from, and a student can propose their own cluster if they can’t find they like. So there’s some flexibility, but UR isn’t a completely open curriculum.
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I will second everything that @thumper1 posted above.
Successful pre-med come from all kinds of schools.
I’ll repeat the Tale of Two Daughters: One went to a private research U; one went to a state U. Both found research labs to work in, personal mentoring from professors, opportunities to join activities they enjoyed, both worked as tutors and TAs for the university. Both found clinical volunteering/employment. Both studied hard for the MCAT and scored well. Both had multiple acceptances to med school. Both are now attending physicians in their first choice specialty.
MORAL: It’s the student, not the school, that makes for a successful med school applicant.
