On first glance, this might look pretty good. UC BERKELEY: 51% ACCEPTANCE RATEīerkeley’s average acceptance rate to medical school is 51%, or about 9% higher than the national average of 42%. Sadly, though, we can’t.Īs a proxy, we turn to two schools that should be praised for putting their numbers online: Berkeley and UCSD. In a perfect world, these colleges would release this information publicly so that we can compare apples to apples. Unfortunately, many colleges make this information hard to find. Since it's so hard to get into a UC, we would expect these pre-meds to be able to perform at a high level in the classroom and on the MCAT, and as a result, they should get into medical school at an excellent clip. In that case, we would expect the acceptance rate at a UC to be significantly better than the national average. Perhaps medical schools would give these students a GPA boost when compared to students from other colleges to help offset the difference in difficulty between a UC and another school. The counterargument might be that since the courses are so rigorous, medical schools would look favorably on the applicants. Perhaps it's better that they learn their lesson early on instead of waiting until medical school to realize they don't have what it takes to compete, but many of these students compare themselves to a false peer group of hyper-competitive pre-meds, assume they don't have what it takes, and drop out. Hundreds more students at UCs start out as pre-med and switch because of these bad grades. These very same students-had they gone to an easier undergrad-would potentially have gotten much better grades (the students we ask believe they would). No matter how well you perform, if you don't beat enough of your fellow students, you won't get an A.Īs a result, many pre-meds come out of a UC with mediocre grades, which put them at a tremendous disadvantage when applying to medical school. 10% of the class will get A's, 20% B's, and so on. A curve means you're directly competing against the other students in the class. You have to work your tail off to get good grades in science classes at the UCs, which are often graded on a curve. Furthermore, most campuses are connected to awfully good medical centers, so why wouldn't a UC be an amazing place to spend your pre-med years? Aren't the UCs prestigious? The UC system is a veritable pre-med factory, churning out hundreds of applicants to medical school each year. Surprised? The conventional wisdom holds otherwise. This isn't to say that the UCs are terrible places to be pre-med, but merely that they aren't a good fit for a lot of students who want to be pre-med. The other 20% say, "well." and then give an extended list of the pros and cons of going to a UC. "If you had to choose your college all over again for your pre-med career, would you still choose a UC?" We've seen what the applications of UC students look like, from grades to extracurriculars to letters of recommendation.Įvery year, I have asked our pre-meds the following question: Approximately half of those students attended one of the UC schools. We at Passport Admissions have helped 250 pre-meds (and counting) apply and get into medical school over the past nine years.
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