UPitt vs UC Berkeley for premed

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1

Hey guys, i’m currently stuck between Cal and Upitt for premed. i’ll just quickly list out my thoughts on it so far:

UPitt:
pros:

  • no grade deflation
  • very accessible health institution
  • nice campus
  • good amount of opportunities club wise
  • lower tuition (but my parents are fine with either college +added tuition)
  • honors college —> automatic research
  • CMU??
  • can graduate a year-ish early

cons:

  • in terms of premed feeder school, it’s pretty low in ranks
  • low ranked public school compared to others i’ve gotten into like uwash-seattle, uw madison and berkeley
  • i’ve heard that the environment may not be very competitive but i tend to thrive in a competitive environment that pushes me to do my best. i haven’t visited pitt or talked to anyone from there so this is more research from online forums
  • likelihood of getting into top medical school is lower compared to Cal bc of prestige

Cal:
pros:

  • UCSF + top ranked medical institutions
  • love campus
  • lots of opportunities clubs wise
  • top ranked public institution
  • sends a lot of people to med school (57% but UPitt doesn’t have stats) + sent 599 in the past yr whereas UPitt sent 189
  • very very work hard play hard which is my vibe

cons:

  • grade deflation is pretty bad ( I will say that a lot of my friends who have come here basically said that it’s not grade deflation and you can get a good grade if you put the work in like any other class at a non grade deflating school)
  • it’s insanely competitive to get opportunities or even classes
  • a lot of people end up doing masters
  • prolly won’t be able to graduate early because of the classes being harder so i’d rather keep them spread out rather than ruin my gpa

overall, the campus itself is very beautiful for both and i can imagine myself going anywhere. it more boils down to competition, accessibility, environment, etc. i also got into jhu but eliminated this option due to its insanely high cost, competition, and the fact that everyone we knew (a lot) had to do a masters program after undergrad bc of their gpa.they also didn’t have the major i wanted to do. let me know which one out of the two you guys think is best. Tuition is not too much of a factor by the way.

2

What are the costs of each?

3

What you heard about Pitt is false, imo. Years ago my daughter received a full tuition scholarship from Pitt, and was invited to interview for additional money to cover r/b. She was also invited to apply to their GAP program (med school).

She walked away from the interview very, very impressed with the students interviewing with her, as well as the current students she met at Pitt. She told me they were all brilliant and the experience was very humbling. These students will be your premed peers.

Getting into medical school will depend on you, not the prestige of a school. Pitt is an excellent university.

Remember- med school is crazy expensive and the future of student loans is unknown- and may be capped. I would choose the school you like best, but I would keep that in mind.

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4

I agree the people who actually make it to applying to med schools at Pitt will be a very select group of students and competitive in a positive way. Speaking of which, the premed classes will NOT be easy, and so spreading them out will likely make as much sense at Pitt as at Cal. And actually, if you are in Honors you will be interacting with such students from the start, meaning plenty of kids who will be going on to difficult majors, highly selective grad and professional programs, and so on. Rather than rush through that experience I would try to make the most of it.

That said, it sounds like generally you are more excited by Cal, which is fine. But I would definitely think seriously about the cost difference–your parents being willing is one thing, you actually being better off in terms of student debt and such by the end of med school is another.

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5

do you think that the opportunities being harder to get and being further from campus is something that should deter me from cal? or do you think that it is doable? the one thing i really enjoyed about pitt is that I have a research opportunity readily available to me, but i’m not sure if this is the same at cal.

6

This is a very important piece to plan for. How will you handle this?
Will you take summer school courses? Are you planning on five years of undergraduate? Will you take some of your courses at community college?

Do not plan to graduate early. Unless you have some sort of priority registration, it will be difficult to get your courses. Lectures and labs are scheduled separately so you may get a lecture without the lab or a lab without the lecture. If you are going to spread your education out over five years, have you budgeted for that?

This is a vague pro. I’m not sure what it means. UCSF is not close to Berkeley.

Look at the numbers taking into account total number of students. Are you comparing apples to apples? Is one school calculating any alum that went to med school (ie. after 1-2 gap years) and the other school calculating students that go straight from undergrad?

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7

This is important. Quite a bit of experience in a medical environment is essential if you want to get into medical school.

Medical school is expensive. Eight full years of university are expensive. You are wise to save money that later can be used to help pay for medical school, or for some other graduate program if you change your mind about your career path.

I would be very cautious about this. Premed classes are going to be tough. Premed classes will be full of very strong students, and some classes will be academically tougher than anything that you have ever seen up to now. You will want to pace yourself.

No. Pitt is a very good university and has a very good premed program.

Let’s be optimistic and assume that wherever you get your bachelor’s degree, you do very well, get a high GPA in tough classes, get good medical experience, and go on to an MD program at a very highly ranked university. You will find that the other students in the same MD program come from a very, very wide range of undergraduate universities, and a lot of them will come from schools ranked lower than Pitt.

Premed classes at Pitt will be full of very strong students and will be very competitive. I think that you will be surprised how many excellent students there are at Pitt, and a lot of them will be in the premed classes.

The “prestige” of your undergraduate university does not get you accepted to a highly ranked medical school. What you do as an undergraduate student will be vastly more important compared to where you do it.

We don’t have anyone in my immediate family who went to medical school. I have however discussed “where to get a bachelor’s degree if you are premed” with two very good doctors (specialists who got their MDs at very good programs). Both have said that other students in their MD programs came from a very wide range of undergraduate universities. One said “all over the place” when describing where students had come from.

We do have multiple people in my immediate family who either graduated from or are currently studying in highly ranked graduate programs that are medical or biomedical in nature. All have reported the same thing – the students in their program came from all over the place. As an example, one daughter got her bachelor’s degree at a university ranked in the 100 to 130 range. She is getting her DVM at a top 5 program. Again, the other students in the same program came from all over the place (I got to listen in to the welcome reception – this was during COVID so travel was not recommended and the reception was on zoom).

I would be cautious about these numbers. Pretty much any university will have a large number of students who start freshman year thinking “premed” and end up doing something else. Some will just not be able to maintain a medical-school-worthy GPA in the tough premed classes. Some will just decide they want to do something else. Neither of these will be included in the school’s statistics regarding medical school acceptance. Also, very highly ranked universities such as UC Berkeley (or Harvard or Stanford) sort of inadvertently game these statistics in another way – they only consider students who are academically strong enough to get accepted to UC Berkeley (or Harvard or Stanford). This by itself is a huge part of why highly ranked universities get a high percentage of their undergraduate students into medical school, or into any other competitive graduate program.

That is a premed vibe. This is actually a good sign in terms of your doing well regardless of where you go for your bachelor’s degree.

I think that this is a tough decision. However, I think that Pitt is a stronger university with a better premed program than you are giving it credit for. I do not think that your chances of ending up at a highly ranked MD program, or in any MD or DO program, will be any different regardless of which of these two very good universities that you choose to attend.

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8

UCSF is a completely separate campus, and unrelated to Cal. In contrast, Pitt has a top. ~15 med school on campus. Much, much different.

That said, in answer to your question, whichever is instate, or cheaper if Pitt is offering a merit scholly. No way Cal is worth the OOS fees for L&S.

Do not plan on graduating early. It won’t strengthen your med school app.

As asked earlier, what is the total COA for each?

If you are OOS, what about the pros/cons of housing?

btw: A Master’s doesn’t get you much for med school, as it won’t replace a C+ in Organic Chem.

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9

So it is obviously doable, since so many people go from Cal to med school. Same deal with, say, a lot of rural LACs. No associated research hospital, not a big local medical system, and yet plenty of kids (proportionately) go on to med schools. So they must be able to find the experience opportunities they need.

But that doesn’t mean it is not a convenience. There are in fact a gazillion hospitals of all sorts with walking distance, or at most a short bus/bike ride of Pitt. If you do summer experiences in Pittsburgh, you may be able to sign year-long leases. And so on.

And that lower number of kids going on to med school you quoted in some sense is a pro, because the ratio of such opportunities to such kids, at least once you get past the first three semesters or so, is probably pretty high compared to most places. Again, that doesn’t mean it is not doable at universities where more kids go to med school, indeed that is a question that answers itself. But in terms of how easy it is to get something you want, sure, it might be easier in an environment where the ratio is more favorable.

So my two cents is it is fine to treat this as a pro if you are otherwise very close between two colleges. But if you have a significant preference for one for other reasons, I would not use this factor to trump that preference.

10

This is the crux of it.

This is 100% not true. Whoever told you this is wrong.

As a matter of fact, students in California public universities face an uphill battle in applying to CA’s in-state med schools, because the supply of aspiring med students in California far exceeds the capacity of CA medical schools.

The “how many went to med school” stats aren’t meaningful either, given the complete lack of context re: how many med school aspirants there were in the first place. If Pitt sent 189 students to med school in the past year, that is proof of concept that you can also get to med school from Pitt. A higher number associated with Berkeley could mean, variously, that 1) it’s a bigger school, 2) the high-stat students who have a better chance of making it to med school comprise a higher percentage of the student population, and 3) they may be tracking/counting differently, as lkg4answers explained. None of these things suggest that two identical students, one at UCB and one at Pitt, will experience any difference in their med school outcomes. (One could even argue that stiffer competition at a more highly-rejective undergrad could make the path steeper for a given med school aspirant. That probably doesn’t make much difference either, though.)

The bottom line is… Berkeley is more expensive for you than Pitt, though we don’t know how much more. You may have reasons that make Berkeley worth the additional cost, for you, taking into account your family’s ability to pay and how much they and you value the attributes of Berkeley. But if those reasons exist, they are not the ones you have outlined. Pitt will teach the med school prereqs with the same content and rigor as Berkeley. Your individual chances of getting to a top med school, or any med school, will depend on you at either school. This isn’t something that can be “gamed” by choosing one highly-reputable university over another. (For that matter, why UCB vs. Pitt and not one of the UW’s? Either of those would work equally well, too.)

Here are the true advantages that I see from your post:

  1. Pitt is more affordable.
  2. You have Honors College at Pitt, which in addition to the honors college programming (and significantly better housing than you’d experience in Berkeley’s microscopic freshman triples), means priority registration. This allows you to optimize your schedule, both for time efficiency and most importantly for being able to pick and choose your instructors. This, alone, could to more to elevate your access to the best possible academic experience than any differences between universities.
  3. The projected ability to graduate in 3 years… well, graduating in three years isn’t desirable. But if you have that much of a head start on graduation requirements at Pitt, it means you have more time to pace yourself appropriately, and add electives that will meaningfully deepen your background in areas of interest.
  4. The excellent access to volunteering/shadowing opportunities is also a plus for Pitt.
  5. The grade curve might be more favorable? It’s hard to say whether this will be the case in the crucial med school prereq classes, but there might be an incremental difference. (Thought it could easily vary more by instructor than by school, which brings us back to the value of priority registration.)

Now, you may still prefer Berkeley, and that’s fine. Why do you prefer it? It’s okay to just like the “vibe” and feel that you could be your best self there. Happier students are more successful students. It’s even okay just to like being able to say you go there! But just be honest with yourself about why, because most of the pros you have listed for Berkeley don’t really hold water.

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11

Some random thoughts…

Despite being a fairly large public (~26,000 students), Pitt’s campus feels small and manageable. It is in the Oakland neighborhood, which is pretty nice with restaurants, bars and parks nearby.

Pitt has a cross-registration program with CMU, which is right next door. I don’t think this will really come into play for pre-med, but you have the option to take classes at the Nerd Farm.

If you choose Pitt, you should apply to their Honors College, which is open to all majors. You first apply to the school, then apply to the Honors College after acceptance. You can apply any year, but to get the full benefit apply as a freshman. For a strong candidate like you, the chances of acceptance are pretty strong. I second aquapt on the benefits of the Honors College.

I agree with aquapt that if you have a lot of credits already, you should take more classes to strengthen your transcript and branch out rather than graduate early. You can also spread out the real grind classes a bit and make your experience a bit easier.

What you call “grade deflation” I call honest grading, like we had in the dark ages. UC Berkeley just doesn’t practice grade inflation like so many other schools do (looking at you, Harvard).

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From what I have heard, the two main scenarios in which Pitt students actually do take classes at CMU are:

(1) There is some particular advanced class CMU has that Pitt does not; and

(2) Taking a class at CMU resolves what would otherwise be a scheduling issue at Pitt.

Obviously premed classes are usually planned out so kids can take them in time to apply to med schools, and also work well as part of a plan to do a major with a lot of overlap. And I am sure that is true at Pitt.

However, for a variety of reasons premeds kids may get off that plan–they want to study abroad, they want to do some cool major without a lot of overlap with those classes, they just want to pace out those classes more than the typical four-year plan would require and they are fine taking one or more glide years, and so on.

In cases like that, CMU classes might end up playing a role. Or not. But it is one of those things that might be nice to have as an option, in case it does end up helping you do what you actually want to do.