Who Turned Down HPME For an Ivy League?

bluedevilmike
Thu, 26 Apr 2007 23:13:40 +0000

1.) Northwestern is a good undergraduate school. No argument here.

2.) HPME relieves stress. No argument here either.

3.) The rest is what I have problems with.

major in economics/political science/international relations

You do realize that plenty of normal premeds do major in these things, right?



you are free to spend your summers anyway you like. Many students are interested in research

Okay, true, but… normal premeds are supposed to spend their summers doing research. So if a student wants to do research, then that advantage doesn’t mean much.



you could be preparing yourself for a MD/PhD, MD/MBA, MD/JD

Which, again, plenty of normal premeds do.

While I can imagine that HPME relieves some stress, I’m not buying the “freedom to explore other things” argument. Plenty of normal premeds major in economics and plan on going off to get a second degree as well. If anything, that nullifies much of the advantage that you’d get from HPME, since prelaw or preMBA students need good grades.

Besides – that’s only if you’re 100% set on Feinberg for medical school. I’m betting some of the HPME’s are going to want to apply elsewhere, in which case the normal premed track sets in again.