Penn or Williams for pre-med?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The per capita obsession is boring and the only thing people use for LACs. They never can present anything actually unique for the LAC experience. Most classes at top universities these days are small. You aren’t unique for taking a seminar class. There’s nothing interesting out of being able to do research with a professor- if anything, larger universities provide more access to research, because the classes aren’t that large and there’s a lot of research institutes and medical centers to be a part of the action.

I don’t dislike LACs. They’re great for the student who likes them. I just think the benefits are mostly overstated propaganda

for mathy people, per capita is the only way to get a read on outcomes. saying Penn places more students in med school is not at all meaningful.

in this case, looks they both have strong placement. and sure, williams a little stronger. 15th in the country instead of 20 is possibly splitting hairs

That’s my big issue though. It’s always a split hair situation when per capita is brought up. It’s only used because they want to get some “edge” when comparing an elite university to an elite college. There’s no actual value to it other than making useless points.

Per capita is absolutely the correct way to look at it if you are trying to calculate personal odds, which is what someone interested in evaluating schools for pre-med quality is interested in.

Not if you don't account for the initial interests of the school. UPenn is a comprehensive university with 90+ majors, so the percent of pre-meds is smaller than at Williams.

To give an example, about 28% of Harvey Mudd students go on to earn a STEM PhD, compared to 12% of Pomona students. Harvey Mudd is a school where virtually everyone graduates with a STEM degree, and at Pomona, around 40% of their students do. So adjusting for just the proportion of STEM majors at both schools, said grads are almost equally likely to earn a PhD regardless of the institution. Mudd isn't twice as productive as Pomona, rather, Mudd has twice the interest in STEM compared to Pomona.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For premed, there are tons of opportunities at Penn. Multiple hospitals on campus walking distance.

By that standard Northeastern is a great school for pre-med but nobody in their right mind would choose Northeastern over a top SLAC for med school admissions.

Believe it or not, there are. Don't discount the early access to clinical opportunities without having to engage in a gap year, not to mention research opportunities. Especially if Northeastern gives you merit aid. At some point admission to medical schools is more dependent on GPA than quality of undergrad institution. If you sat in on med school admission committees you would be surprised to learn how much you don't know.

[Anonymous]

I think your kid should go to the college that seems like the best fit.

For reference, I went to Wesleyan (probably couldn’t have gotten into Williams even 20 years ago!) and then got an MD,PhD. I can’t remember exactly, but I got into a bunch of med schools - I recall acceptances at Columbia, Penn, Yale, u Michigan, and Pittsburgh (I was applying MSTP, so the in-state preferences didn’t apply to me). I certainly wasn’t the best student at Wes - but Wes was a good fit for me, which made me look better than I would have at a different school.

I say this because I was not pre-med when I started - I wasn’t sure what I wanted to be. I found out about the options and changed my mind in college. Luckily, Wes offered a good learning style for me, so I did well & this opened up lots of options.

I also don’t understand all of this fuss about city vs. country environment. Who cares? If you are premed you won’t be going out much! So it really doesn’t matter where you are. I wasn’t even premed and I felt like I spent >95% of my waking hours in class, lab or SciLi.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'll never understand how parents here believe that research is hard to get at Research universities. There's this mythos of LACs that is incessant.

I was a grad student at a top R1. R1s are set up for grad students, not undergraduates. I know that you don’t like hearing it but we’re not lying to you. It’s not the same everywhere but in the lab I worked in nobody wanted undergraduates around. They just get in the way of work.

There’s a pretty big difference between getting research at say Clemson and research at Yale. Most R1s talked about on dcum are not centered around grad students solely and many are easier to get research than LACs. I went to Pomona. My DS at Stanford has access to so much more research than any of the current crop of kids at Pomona. Just because there was a very real era where top R1s didn’t give a crap about undergrads and retention, it doesn’t mean it’s actually still true today. People who perpetuate this lie are I think mostly misleading and lying to posters here.

PP: Interesting that you brought up Stanford. I did my work at UCB and research is available for undergrads but it isn’t any and the competition is huge. Research at UCB is for grad students by design, it is a public school with lots of grad students who need to be employed as TAs and RAs.

Very close friend at Stanford is openly proud that he hasn’t taught an undergrad in 20 years. There are no undergrads anywhere near his STEM lab. His view is that his labs job is to make breakthroughs which benefit Stanford and undergrads do not contribute to that goal.

I have my personal experience which I admit is a bit stale but I also have my friends lab as a current example and I’m not seeing any difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'll never understand how parents here believe that research is hard to get at Research universities. There's this mythos of LACs that is incessant.

I was a grad student at a top R1. R1s are set up for grad students, not undergraduates. I know that you don’t like hearing it but we’re not lying to you. It’s not the same everywhere but in the lab I worked in nobody wanted undergraduates around. They just get in the way of work.

I’ll also add there are many lac profs who don’t work with undergrads either. I actually know 2 at Pomona in a department who haven’t published once with undergrads.

Link or doesn’t exist….mu money is on doesn’t exist because that is anti ethical to the SLAC model.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People who claim SLACs are great for getting research opportunities due to their low student-faculty ratio, overlook the fact that professors there are typically *not* leading researchers in their areas. After all, if they are doing anything cutting-edge, why are they not at an R1 pulling in millions of research fundings and churning out papers like a well-oiled machine? I mean, professors at lowly directional schools also do research, but their topics in general aren't worthy of support from NSF/NIH/DOE/DOD. If they submit research proposals to these funding agencies, the proposals would be killed right away. So how are professors at SLACs any different? And why do kids want to do research on topics that aren't significant/timely, under the supervision of professors who aren't well-known/respected in their research communities?

The SLAC lab that my kids works in has almost a million dollars across a couple of significant NSF grants. You don’t know what you are talking about. It is true that SLACs aren’t super reliant on fed funding but that means the funding will stay in place. R1s which lose funding will direct all of what is left to keeping their grad students fed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'll never understand how parents here believe that research is hard to get at Research universities. There's this mythos of LACs that is incessant.

I was a grad student at a top R1. R1s are set up for grad students, not undergraduates. I know that you don’t like hearing it but we’re not lying to you. It’s not the same everywhere but in the lab I worked in nobody wanted undergraduates around. They just get in the way of work.

I’ll also add there are many lac profs who don’t work with undergrads either. I actually know 2 at Pomona in a department who haven’t published once with undergrads.

Link or doesn’t exist….mu money is on doesn’t exist because that is anti ethical to the SLAC model.

https://profjorgemoreno.wordpress.com/about/
Prof. Moreno collaborates with professors and grad students at major universities, not Pomona.

Jonathan Lethem takes 0 summer research projects or independent studies with students, because he’s bigger than Claremont.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People who claim SLACs are great for getting research opportunities due to their low student-faculty ratio, overlook the fact that professors there are typically *not* leading researchers in their areas. After all, if they are doing anything cutting-edge, why are they not at an R1 pulling in millions of research fundings and churning out papers like a well-oiled machine? I mean, professors at lowly directional schools also do research, but their topics in general aren't worthy of support from NSF/NIH/DOE/DOD. If they submit research proposals to these funding agencies, the proposals would be killed right away. So how are professors at SLACs any different? And why do kids want to do research on topics that aren't significant/timely, under the supervision of professors who aren't well-known/respected in their research communities?

The SLAC lab that my kids works in has almost a million dollars across a couple of significant NSF grants. You don’t know what you are talking about. It is true that SLACs aren’t super reliant on fed funding but that means the funding will stay in place. R1s which lose funding will direct all of what is left to keeping their grad students fed.

You are exaggerating the funding cut issues at R1s, making it sounds like it's an ongoing crisis while SLACs are safe. An R1 received research funding that is several orders of magnitude larger than that received by any SLAC. Even if there is cut here and there (which, by the way, is an issue that has blown over), the amount available still dwarfs that at any SLAC and is more than enough for the tiny stipends undergraduates receive.

In my twenty years of working as a STEM faculty at an R1, I have never reviewed any journal/conference manuscripts written by SLAC faculty, nor evaluated any research proposals submitted to NSF/DOE that came from SLAC. I'm sure you can point out some papers/grants/contracts here and there, but they are very few and far between. Research at SLAC has never been mainstream and most likely will remain that way.

I rather my kids work with active, accomplished researchers at R1s on projects funded with hard-to-get federal money which says something about the timeliness and significance of the research, than to have them work with lesser known researchers at SLACs on pet projects that have limited impact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is a greater than 50% chance the kid drops pre-med and does something else. So consider that heavily.

What does this mean for this applicant? Is Penn a better choice in case they need to pivot?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The per capita obsession is boring and the only thing people use for LACs. They never can present anything actually unique for the LAC experience. Most classes at top universities these days are small. You aren’t unique for taking a seminar class. There’s nothing interesting out of being able to do research with a professor- if anything, larger universities provide more access to research, because the classes aren’t that large and there’s a lot of research institutes and medical centers to be a part of the action.

I don’t dislike LACs. They’re great for the student who likes them. I just think the benefits are mostly overstated propaganda

for mathy people, per capita is the only way to get a read on outcomes. saying Penn places more students in med school is not at all meaningful.

in this case, looks they both have strong placement. and sure, williams a little stronger. 15th in the country instead of 20 is possibly splitting hairs

That’s my big issue though. It’s always a split hair situation when per capita is brought up. It’s only used because they want to get some “edge” when comparing an elite university to an elite college. There’s no actual value to it other than making useless points.

Per capita is absolutely the correct way to look at it if you are trying to calculate personal odds, which is what someone interested in evaluating schools for pre-med quality is interested in.

Not if you don't account for the initial interests of the school. UPenn is a comprehensive university with 90+ majors, so the percent of pre-meds is smaller than at Williams.

To give an example, about 28% of Harvey Mudd students go on to earn a STEM PhD, compared to 12% of Pomona students. Harvey Mudd is a school where virtually everyone graduates with a STEM degree, and at Pomona, around 40% of their students do. So adjusting for just the proportion of STEM majors at both schools, said grads are almost equally likely to earn a PhD regardless of the institution. Mudd isn't twice as productive as Pomona, rather, Mudd has twice the interest in STEM compared to Pomona.

Do you have any real evidence that the percentage of pre-meds is smaller at Penn than Williams?

Even so, per capita is the way to look at it rather than absolute numbers because the schools are of different sizes. You can refine it using a subset of enrollment (e.g. include only pre-meds), but you will likely have difficulty finding good data.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People who claim SLACs are great for getting research opportunities due to their low student-faculty ratio, overlook the fact that professors there are typically *not* leading researchers in their areas. After all, if they are doing anything cutting-edge, why are they not at an R1 pulling in millions of research fundings and churning out papers like a well-oiled machine? I mean, professors at lowly directional schools also do research, but their topics in general aren't worthy of support from NSF/NIH/DOE/DOD. If they submit research proposals to these funding agencies, the proposals would be killed right away. So how are professors at SLACs any different? And why do kids want to do research on topics that aren't significant/timely, under the supervision of professors who aren't well-known/respected in their research communities?

The SLAC lab that my kids works in has almost a million dollars across a couple of significant NSF grants. You don’t know what you are talking about. It is true that SLACs aren’t super reliant on fed funding but that means the funding will stay in place. R1s which lose funding will direct all of what is left to keeping their grad students fed.

You are exaggerating the funding cut issues at R1s, making it sounds like it's an ongoing crisis while SLACs are safe. An R1 received research funding that is several orders of magnitude larger than that received by any SLAC. Even if there is cut here and there (which, by the way, is an issue that has blown over), the amount available still dwarfs that at any SLAC and is more than enough for the tiny stipends undergraduates receive.

In my twenty years of working as a STEM faculty at an R1, I have never reviewed any journal/conference manuscripts written by SLAC faculty, nor evaluated any research proposals submitted to NSF/DOE that came from SLAC. I'm sure you can point out some papers/grants/contracts here and there, but they are very few and far between. Research at SLAC has never been mainstream and most likely will remain that way.

I rather my kids work with active, accomplished researchers at R1s on projects funded with hard-to-get federal money which says something about the timeliness and significance of the research, than to have them work with lesser known researchers at SLACs on pet projects that have limited impact.

this is an insane statement

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For premed, there are tons of opportunities at Penn. Multiple hospitals on campus walking distance.

By that standard Northeastern is a great school for pre-med but nobody in their right mind would choose Northeastern over a top SLAC for med school admissions.

Believe it or not, there are. Don't discount the early access to clinical opportunities without having to engage in a gap year, not to mention research opportunities. Especially if Northeastern gives you merit aid. At some point admission to medical schools is more dependent on GPA than quality of undergrad institution. If you sat in on med school admission committees you would be surprised to learn how much you don't know.

The vast majority of students now take a gap year including about 85% of those coming out of the Ivies. An R1 provides no advantages in that respect in today’s environment. Research opportunities at SLACs are more accessible and more than any undergraduate premed needs. GPA is key along with test scores but all schools are not created equal, especially for kids on the edge.

My niece actually graduated from Northeastern and is now in med school. She had a perfect GPA, very high MCAT, and multiple internships at Brigham Women’s. She is in a very good school but her school likely held her back a bit. As you tossed out there she took the money.

I don’t sit on an admissions committee and I am sure that you don’t either. However Dr, as I posted before, a close friend is a Professor and sits in committee at Stanford. I have another friend who is on Faculty at Ohio States med school, and we have spent significant time discussing med school admissions since my kid is a junior and working her way through premed as I type. I’m very well informed and guided.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People who claim SLACs are great for getting research opportunities due to their low student-faculty ratio, overlook the fact that professors there are typically *not* leading researchers in their areas. After all, if they are doing anything cutting-edge, why are they not at an R1 pulling in millions of research fundings and churning out papers like a well-oiled machine? I mean, professors at lowly directional schools also do research, but their topics in general aren't worthy of support from NSF/NIH/DOE/DOD. If they submit research proposals to these funding agencies, the proposals would be killed right away. So how are professors at SLACs any different? And why do kids want to do research on topics that aren't significant/timely, under the supervision of professors who aren't well-known/respected in their research communities?

The SLAC lab that my kids works in has almost a million dollars across a couple of significant NSF grants. You don’t know what you are talking about. It is true that SLACs aren’t super reliant on fed funding but that means the funding will stay in place. R1s which lose funding will direct all of what is left to keeping their grad students fed.

You are exaggerating the funding cut issues at R1s, making it sounds like it's an ongoing crisis while SLACs are safe. An R1 received research funding that is several orders of magnitude larger than that received by any SLAC. Even if there is cut here and there (which, by the way, is an issue that has blown over), the amount available still dwarfs that at any SLAC and is more than enough for the tiny stipends undergraduates receive.

In my twenty years of working as a STEM faculty at an R1, I have never reviewed any journal/conference manuscripts written by SLAC faculty, nor evaluated any research proposals submitted to NSF/DOE that came from SLAC. I'm sure you can point out some papers/grants/contracts here and there, but they are very few and far between. Research at SLAC has never been mainstream and most likely will remain that way.

I rather my kids work with active, accomplished researchers at R1s on projects funded with hard-to-get federal money which says something about the timeliness and significance of the research, than to have them work with lesser known researchers at SLACs on pet projects that have limited impact.

The only thing that I am sure of in your comment is that you are not STEM faculty at an R1. If you were you wouldn’t make such a ridiculous statement because 5 minutes spent researching the faculty of any top SLAC will turn up professors with long lists of publications.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'll never understand how parents here believe that research is hard to get at Research universities. There's this mythos of LACs that is incessant.

I was a grad student at a top R1. R1s are set up for grad students, not undergraduates. I know that you don’t like hearing it but we’re not lying to you. It’s not the same everywhere but in the lab I worked in nobody wanted undergraduates around. They just get in the way of work.

I’ll also add there are many lac profs who don’t work with undergrads either. I actually know 2 at Pomona in a department who haven’t published once with undergrads.

Link or doesn’t exist….mu money is on doesn’t exist because that is anti ethical to the SLAC model.

https://profjorgemoreno.wordpress.com/about/
Prof. Moreno collaborates with professors and grad students at major universities, not Pomona.

Jonathan Lethem takes 0 summer research projects or independent studies with students, because he’s bigger than Claremont.

Your example of Lethem is nonsensical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For premed, there are tons of opportunities at Penn. Multiple hospitals on campus walking distance.

By that standard Northeastern is a great school for pre-med but nobody in their right mind would choose Northeastern over a top SLAC for med school admissions.

Believe it or not, there are. Don't discount the early access to clinical opportunities without having to engage in a gap year, not to mention research opportunities. Especially if Northeastern gives you merit aid. At some point admission to medical schools is more dependent on GPA than quality of undergrad institution. If you sat in on med school admission committees you would be surprised to learn how much you don't know.

The vast majority of students now take a gap year including about 85% of those coming out of the Ivies. An R1 provides no advantages in that respect in today’s environment. Research opportunities at SLACs are more accessible and more than any undergraduate premed needs. GPA is key along with test scores but all schools are not created equal, especially for kids on the edge.

My niece actually graduated from Northeastern and is now in med school. She had a perfect GPA, very high MCAT, and multiple internships at Brigham Women’s. She is in a very good school but her school likely held her back a bit. As you tossed out there she took the money.

I don’t sit on an admissions committee and I am sure that you don’t either. However Dr, as I posted before, a close friend is a Professor and sits in committee at Stanford. I have another friend who is on Faculty at Ohio States med school, and we have spent significant time discussing med school admissions since my kid is a junior and working her way through premed as I type. I’m very well informed and guided.

Sure you have friends in all these med schools. Plus, your niece had flaws or you are lying. If you come out of Northeastern with a perfect GPA and high MCAT you will have a very successful cycle. Stop lying.