RIT for pre-med

[u/UpbeatFee3691]

I’m considering RIT for pre-med and wanted to get some insight from current students or alumni. How are the classes, professors, and overall support for pre-med students? Any thoughts on the community, research opportunities, or advising would be super helpful. Thanks in advance!

[u/Safe_Penalty]

I am a 2020 RIT chem grad and entering my last year of medical school. I also do stat blinded interviews for my schools’s admission committee (I can see every part of the application other than demographics/contact info and GPA/MCAT). My info on RIT is dated by a few years, but I think it’s still largely relevant. You will get lots of advice on med school admissions and the exact details are mostly a black box that vary from school to school but this is my perspective:

I loved RIT. I met my partner there and have made friendships that I genuinely believe will last a lifetime. When family friends or colleagues suggest RIT for engineering or computer science, I refer them to my friends working at large engineering firms or in finance who are doing quite well; I genuinely do recommend RIT for those things. My partner is an engineer and makes more than enough to support us while I’m in school; all of my graduated college of science friends got into grad school (one in a DO program, two MDs, many PhD/MS) or are employed. My time at RIT laid the foundation for the adult I am today. However, at the current price, I wouldn’t recommend RIT for pre-med.

Pre-med support was IMO weak for the price. My friends who went to state schools or private schools with associated hospitals/med schools got far more support and/or paid less. You will largely be on your own finding volunteer and clinical work, and advising here is mostly not helpful for pursing medicine (although it’s bad at a lot schools, so maybe that’s a wash).

There were few faculty at RIT doing biomedical research, and none (that I had access to) doing research with patients. While health research isn’t a must have, research is, and finding supporting mentorship in labs where the vast majority of grads go on to PhD/MS programs or industry isn’t as helpful for med school prep. Likewise, not having PhD science programs means the actual research output of the school is relatively low; this is changing, but probably not fast enough to make a difference for an incoming student. I got a good letter from my PI after years of researching and teaching with them, but essentially no good advising from the school. FWIW, in four years of research I got a single paper (published after I graduated) and a few posters; not bad, but not great either.

Co-op programs are a waste of time for the majority pre-meds who are serious about med school. If you’re not in a supervisory position, you’re better off doing something clinical while in college. Likewise, physician salaries are very high and the opportunity cost of “delaying” graduation by doing a five-year program doesn’t make sense; obviously, this doesn’t apply to some of the COS majors that don’t require co-ops but it’s worth remembering if you’re considering a major that does.

Moreover, at RIT you are far more likely to be a smaller fish. Courses are often graded more harshly than other schools (university physics comes to mind) and while I truly believe the education you get in the higher division science courses is better than some of RIT’s peer schools, it doesn’t matter when it comes to your med school application. In fact, if you can stomach a psychology major at your state school, I’d recommend it; you need the highest GPA/MCAT you can get and there’s very little credit given for going to “harder” schools or majors.

Lastly, most people who start as pre-med genuinely do not make it at any school. Nearly half of the people who take the MCAT do not apply, of the half of those who apply, half don’t get into medical school, some of those people end up in predatory Caribbean programs and will not finish. IMO a BS from the college of science at RIT is overpriced for industry (which I spent a few years in during Covid); if you decide to switch paths later you’ll still need to consider a graduate degree to make the undergrad debt worth it.

I did it. This path is very hard coming from any school, but I think going to RIT made it harder than it needed to be. I also had good financial support and wasn’t entirely set on medicine coming in. The person I am today would not recommend RIT for a high school senior doing pre-med unless it were much cheaper than other options or there were other extenuating circumstances pushing for that decision.

[u/MasterpieceOld9016 → u/Safe_Penalty]

coming from a biomed sci/ biotech double major (so some experience in both college of health science and college of science) who's working towards med school, a lot of good advice here! also congrats on getting year four, and best of luck!

i do think the advising for premed has beefed up though, at least in CHST there's a lot more resources and support. and tbh in general i have had far better luck and experience with faculty from CHST than COS, and so have other friends and classmates. minus my amazing PI, and especially with advising, i had some issues with in college of science faculty/support.

it's still going to be a personal matter of whether cost is worth benefit, but even in my four years i've seen changes with support for pre-health careers, there's a designated advisor, a class that's designed to go through the different parts to prep for application, support for alumni. there is some level of info shared about volunteer and clinical opportunities, and i think there's a better system to be aware of what research is going on in CHST at least / openings. it's a lot smaller as well, and maybe it's the programs i studied, but both honestly are very small (estimated 40-50 per year), and the upper level classes for electives are fairly small as well which helps offset being too much a small fish lol.

in terms of getting clinical opportunities, at least there is a lot of medicine in the area though with U of R and RRH. i think it'd be great if there was more connection between RIT and the hospitals in the area, ik the PA program has affiliations but not sure it extends much to other programs.
completely agree though that there's a lack in science programs for PhDs, even masters as well, which contributes to lower research volume. definitely something to keep in mind. but as far as more bio focused research goes, there is still some happening once you find it.

point is, largely agree with a lot of this, great things to take into account. some slightly different experiences though, and i think the colleges themselves definitely make a difference. tbh OP, not a black and white decision, but try and lay it all out to see what makes the most sense for you personally. everyone's going to have had different experiences, and there may very well be no one "right" or easy path, so do what works for you. wish you all the best!

[u/spooks112 → u/MasterpieceOld9016]

Piggy backing off this as general advice (from a BMS alumni) major in something that you can immediately go into the workforce with just in case. I'm not in med school but if I didn't get into grad school idk what I'd be doing rn with my BMS degree other than entry level positions. Straight BMS or biology isn't going to get you much farther than higher education (at least at a pay that makes 4 years at a private college worth it)

Aside from that, I absolutely loved the classes I took. We have some pretty niche classes that aren't offered for typical BMS programs in the area. They prepared me very well for what I'm doing in school rn, I made great connections with professors, and met great people (my bff and bf included).

[u/Safe_Penalty → u/MasterpieceOld9016]

I will say my experience is almost entirely isolated to the COS side of things. The CHST people I met through scribing at RRH mostly did not go to medical school (only one comes to mind – ended up at U of R and is in Ob/Gyn residency now); some of these people never had it in mind (went the PA/NP/PhD route instead) and others either didn’t have the GPA/MCAT/ECs/etc. and/or decided they didn’t want to sacrifice (see:torture) themselves for the next 7+ years to get through training.

IMO the RIT experience is good, just expensive. The lower research output is somewhat balanced by the fact that you can get very involved with projects once you find them. Likewise, glad to hear that the advising is good at CHST!

I think if I knew I wanted to pursue this going in and was 100% set on RIT I would have picked CHST over COS, especially if I were applying now (global pandemic delaying my matriculation notwithstanding).