<p>JHS, perhaps I was responding to absentions’ comment narrowly, but here’s what s/he said:</p>
<p>“They both have a med school on campus, but Philly has a LOT of hospitals you could get opportunities at!”</p>
<p>So, I read that comment as “Philly = the city of Philadelphia” not just necessarily what’s near Penn. I then contrasted that to the “City of Chicago” - which has just as many, if not more, major hospitals than Philadelphia. </p>
<p>All this being said, I’m not sure that the sheer number and types of research opportunities are pertinent for undergrads. If it was, why would anyone ever choose Brown, Dartmouth, Amherst etc. over Penn or Michigan or Hopkins? I think the original question asks about the pre-med environment at each school, not the extensiveness of the STEM research plant (in which case Penn, Michigan, Hopkins, etc. have clear advantages over the other schools I’ve mentioned). </p>
<p>I think to have a good pre-med program, a school needs:</p>
<p>1.) smart, driven students (who will presumably do well on the MCAT),
2.) some level of grade inflation or “ease” in which students GPAs don’t suffer too much
3.) a research plant that passes some basic threshold (and all of Chicago, Brown, Dartmouth, Williams, Michigan, Penn, Hopkins, etc. pass that threshold, as seen by their med school placement rates)
4.) Good, sensible, and diligent pre-med advising</p>
<p>For a long time, UChicago had (to some extent) #1 and definitely #3, but certainly not #2 and #4. Now, the school more or less hits all four areas, as Penn has done for many years. When you can check all the above boxes (and I think you can for both Chicago and Penn, or Williams and Dartmouth and Hopkins), fit becomes more important than any other factor, including size and prominence of the research plant, or supposed school “acceptance” of pre-med as a pursuit. </p>