Who Turned Down HPME For an Ivy League?

HPME
Fri, 27 Apr 2007 01:39:51 +0000

I posted this somewhere else:

Time to weigh in after reading from the sidelines. I am a first year HPME student and I cannot even begin to describe what a blessing HPME has been.

In high school I was that kid who signed up for (and eventually became in charge of) every activity, had a perfect GPA, etc. I was pretty anal and would be upset at anything less than superb. Then I came to NU through the HPME, and suddenly the external pressure was lifted. Now my motivation is completely internal. For the first time in my life, I’m doing activities because I know that I enjoy them, not to pad my resume. I volunteer a bunch because I genuinely want to help. I go in to my professor’s office hours to get more insight into a subject or just have an interesting conversation- I know I don’t have any ulterior motives because I won’t need a recommendation. It feels amazing.

So many people run around me constantly looking stressed and frazzled. I’m the exact opposite. I have never before felt so calm and relaxed.

HPME gives you plenty of room for electives, so I’m taking courses far outside of my comfort zone. So many premeds look for the easiest A classes to complement their science courses, while I’m tackling anything that seems interesting, not worrying about the grade consequences. Which is lucky, because NU is not easy by any means. Besides my 4.0 high school GPA (at a competitive high school too!), I’m not getting all A’s in my science courses. And because of the HPME, I don’t need to. My mind has been stretched in ways I couldn’t have imagined. If a class I’m taking is especially interesting, I’ll go to the library and check out more books on the topic. I never would have done that in high school, and I certainly wouldn’t have time to do that if I was stressed about having perfect grades.

And Northwestern is awesome! Our campus is so pretty and the student body is incredibly driven and motivated. I know most HPME kids turned down top ivies, and to be honest, they don’t seem any different from the majority of the NU population. I can’t imagine that yale’s student body is so incredibly different from Northwestern’s. Have you visited NU? It really is a fantastic school. IMO it has the perfect size student body, great location (Evanston is nice and Chicago is…well… Chicago), interesting courses, accessible and talented faculty, lake michigan, quarter system, and the list goes on.

I really am having such a great undergraduate experience. And in 3 years I’ll be at Feinberg, a top notch medical school with my MD by 25. It’s hard to imagine anything much better than this.

But of course you have to follow your heart- do what feels best. HPME obviously was the right choice for me, but that doesn’t mean that it is for you. I picked HPME and have not looked back once.