<p>I would advise against coming to Caltech for premed unless you are either a UCSD medical scholar or if you are sure you want to do an MD/PhD.</p>
<p>It is true that it is difficult to maintain a high GPA at Caltech. People who had straight As in high school sometimes find themselves struggling to maintain a 3.5 or even lower. Certainly, some people here do very well, but there is no guarantee. This isn’t as much of a problem for graduate schools, but med school admissions tends to look heavily at grades, and if you don’t make a 3.5 or better you probably will have a hard time getting in. </p>
<p>Some of this is mitigated by good research experience and recommendations, both of which I would guess are easier to get at Caltech than most other schools. Anyone can do a SURF at Caltech who wants one, and getting to know pretty famous profs is fairly simple if you are willing to make an effort. </p>
<p>However, unless you are a UCSD med scholar or set on being an MD/PhD, I doubt that coming to Caltech for medical school is worth it. Caltech’s focus is, IMO, research, so unless you want to do research in addition to medical school (an perhaps even if you do want to do research), you’re likely better off somewhere else. There’s no reason to take 5 terms of math and physics to be a premed, so unless there’s something about Caltech that makes you think you wouldn’t be as happy anywhere else, I’d skip it. </p>
<p>(I realized this question is being asked by a parent on behalf of their child, but writing “your child” got tedious and confusing, so I switched to second person.</p>