<p>is one or the other better for pre-med?</p>
<p>is harvard better because it has more opportunities? is yale better because it focuses more on undergrads? (note: These statements are just debate starters…feel free to argue them or support them).
one other thing i want to consider is difficulty of getting good grades. however unfair it may seem, i have heard many many times that the most important factor in getting into med school is a high GPA.</p>
<p>thanks ahead of time for your input</p>
<p>Both are fine.</p>
<p><a href=“http://wsjclassroom.com/pdfs/wsj_college_092503.pdf[/url]”>WSJ in Higher Education | Trusted News & Real-World Insights;
<p>Yep, aside from a combined degree program, attending these two schools are your surest bets of getting into med school</p>
<p>Both are great.</p>
<p>I would argue that Caltech, Yale and MIT offer easily the best undergraduate science programs, in terms of attention paid to undergraduates, fellowships and research opportunities per student (with Harvard several rungs down the ladder, so to speak). Of course, you’ll also face significantly less competition if you graduate from a place like Caltech or Yale than you will if you go to Harvard, because there are so many fewer premeds to compete with (it also makes it a bit less “competitive”) - which means a better shot at the top medical schools.</p>
<p>However, as you know, being pre-med does not require majoring in science or conducting research as an undergraduate. As long as you get a well-rounded liberal arts education, do well on the MCAT, have a reasonably high GPA and fulfill other requirements, you’ll be very well positioned to get into the top medical schools if you graduate from Yale or Harvard.</p>
<p>LOL! You are a sketch!</p>
<p>I would like to thank both posterx and byerly for making my time on cc very entertaining.</p>
<p>i would like to thank both posterx and byerly for being who they are.</p>
<p>If you’re highly interested in going to medical school, it would be foolish to attend Caltech over Havard or Yale.</p>
<p>That’s not true, provided of course you could handle the workload and (nonexistent) social scene at Caltech. Caltech graduates who do end up applying to medical school, and there aren’t very many, end up doing very well.</p>
<p>There’s the key: those who end up applying. Far, far more end up dropping out of premed at Caltech than at H or Y.</p>
<p>I once spoke one-on-one with a Caltech rep, and one of the questions I asked was about Caltech’s placement into grad schools given the low GPAs of graduates due to the intensity of the program.</p>
<p>He answered that graduate schools know very well what a Caltech GPA translates into and take that into account, but at the very end, he added a “…the only area where it might be difficult for you if you’re looking at med school…”. I assured him I wasn’t, and the conversation moved on.</p>
<p>You get the idea. If you’re looking at a PhD in, say, physics or even a social-analysis field like economics and apply to the top grad schools, they’ll compensate for Caltech’s rigor. But med schools - perhaps because they get so many applicants - don’t; it’s simpler for them to just decide on a minimum GPA cutoff and stick to it.</p>
<p>I imagine the situation is similiar for law school as well, though the subset of Caltech grads interested in law is probably tiny. Those’d be the kids that would be likely to choose HYPS over Caltech :p.</p>
<p>my advice is to choose the school you will be happier at as that might have more of an influence on your med school chances than any other factor.</p>
<p>my advice is to put off this “decision” until you need to make … the schools will likely make the decision for you … I am not trying to be a pain but these are both TERRIFIC schools and you would be incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to go to either one … and, however qualified you are, it is VERY unlikely you get accepted to both … so I’d suggest using your energy and thoughts on something you can control and what is more immediate.</p>
<p>Pick the one that appeals most to you, where you would like to spend four years. All of these schools will try to teach you more than you can possibly learn. Compare trying to drink all the water in an eight lane Olympic size swimming pool with trying to drink all the water in a ten lane Olympic size swimming pool. Pick the swimming pool that feels the nicest to you. You’ll never drink all of the water.</p>
<p>Gallo Pallatino is correct</p>
<p>What other schools besides Harvard and Yale foster good pre-med with high success rates at top med schools?</p>
<p><a href=“http://wsjclassroom.com/pdfs/wsj_college_092503.pdf[/url]”>WSJ in Higher Education | Trusted News & Real-World Insights;
<em>Originally Posted by Byerly</em></p>
<p>supposedly Haverford College has the highest medical school acceptance rate in the country. Hopkins also has a pretty stellar pre-med program.</p>
<p>but i heard that some schools, Johns Hopkins included, are very self-selecting, meaning that only the best pre-med students end up applying to med school because the rest drop out of pre-med due to grade deflation, etc.</p>
<p>Right, hopkins may even be selective in who they recommend to go to med school - refusing to write recs for those with below a certain gpa.</p>