Yale vs. UC Berkeley vs. UPenn for Molecular Biology/Biochemistry

212DAD
Sun, 20 Apr 2014 14:11:29 +0000

Here’s what I can tell you being the father of a graduating Vagelos MLS student. First of all, it is not for everyone. That’s probably why 2/3 of the students eventually leave the program. It is really geared for people who want to go on doing research after their undergraduate studies.

Negatives:
It has a fairly structured curriculum which turns off a lot of people looking for a more liberal arts education. The head of the program (Prof Ponzy) is not that approachable and I have heard that having the will to push back at his suggestions is important to one’s success. You are required to either do a double major or submatriculate for a masters degree - doing the double major requires a lot more courses. You are required to take at least 5 courses per term, but there seems to be a mentality amongst the students that 6 is the way to go after your first year.

Positives:
Having funding for 2 summers of research and the Vagelos name behind you guarantees you will be doing undergraduate research. It is not only a foot in the door, MLS students generally get their pick of labs to enter from among hundreds at Penn and the medical school. You will probably even get paid for working in the lab of your choice the summer after your freshman year since they want you the next 2 summers for free too. This connection to your lab is invaluable for the required independent research course. If you look at the MLS website you will see an impressive list of where students go on to. What you will not see is that those students probably had the pick of top programs to enter and many top 10 programs were turned down to enter the school of their choice. People say that it is a GPA killer and therefore not for premed students but approximately 60% of them go on to MD/Phd or MD programs.

My son’s experience:
Not being all that interested in humanities until his senior year, he triple majored in biochemistry, physics and biophysics. He also submatriculated since along the way he had almost all of the required courses to do so. When applying to graduate programs I know they were impressed by the fact that he had in excess of 2500 hours of lab research under his belt. He was offered admission to 6 of the 7 schools he applied to and eventually turned down offers to Berkeley, Harvard, Caltech, Yale and Michigan in favor of his final choice. His regrets included not taking more courses outside his field his first 3 years including more computer science.

Like I said, MLS is not for everyone. It is hard to pick Penn solely because of it since so many people eventually decide it is not for them. For those who know for sure they want to do research and stick with the program, however, the experience and doors it opens can be a life changing experience.