The University of Rhode Island

Date: Oct 30 2010
Major: PreMed and Medical (This Major's Salary over time)
This is a review that actually draws upon my experience as an undergraduate in the late 90's, but also draws upon information gleaned from five other people that have attended the school since then, most recently as a 2009 graduate. Note that BU is very popular school for upper middle class in our area, therefore I have had the chance to know a lot of people who went there. I do realize that you tend to get along better with people who share your point of view. However, without these other people being prompted or knowing what I thought sang the same refrain. Boston is awesome, the social life is great, but a strong nouveau riche attitude permeates. What is worse is the grade disinflation where the school goes out of their way to give you bad grades to weed you out, to the point where it is detrimental to learning, and all the commensurate, anxiety, havoc, and cut-throat competition this punitive attitude to education wreaks on a student body.

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If you are a student that comes from a wealthy family, has a family business that will take you regardless of your grades or recommendations, or don't need high marks, then the pressure is off. BU can be a lot of fun if you aren't focused on academics. And even if BU does not work out, there is such opportunity in the city to immerse yourself in whatever pursuits you wish that if it is out there, you will either find it in a huge school like BU or the surrounding city.

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Unfortunately, BU is run like a fast food joint and a business, this being a pejorative. As a Premed, except for the more obscure courses, most classes tend to be very large, as in hundreds of students. Most of your contact will be with TA's that might have good "book" knowlege of English or the subject but have so little practice and such poor fluency or thick accents as to be incomprehensible.

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The TA's themselves are even more aloof. They are not helpful; often the American ones are all biology or chemistry grad students that were former premed washouts who want to take out their frustrations on you. In one case, I was doing really well all semester in a lab despite some hiccups. For me and a few others in the class that were doing really well, our last lab report had high marks all throughout but we received no points for our conclusions or discussion. I knew we had a good conclusion or discussion, perhaps better than anyone else in the class, but I think he did that because he knew we could not contest it, just to be a jerk.

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Professors are very aloof. They will not be friendly with you because they know there are too many premeds at BU and they need to convince the majority of them to change career as they simply cannot recommend everyone once it comes time to apply to med school. Clearly yes, it is good to recommend only your best students that have a shot at getting into med school, but the way that "best students" is chosen is by basically playing head games. Professors will act like they are giving you clues or tell you something is a bit less important to the understanding of the subject, and then shape the test to emphasize what they de-emphasized.

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With regard to learning, no, the learning of the subjects is not good. You could have an excellent understanding of the topic, but if you are not sure what the test will bring, you can go in there knowing it cold and getting a bad grade. If you're lucky and had an sibling, friend or upperclassman who had tests from a previous years and have some extra time, rather than studying "more" material to know it better, it is actually better to see how they ask the questions. Isn't that sad?

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Professors are very unavailable on purpose. They will only see you once a week if that during office hours which of course are always at very inconvenient times such as just before dinner at the cafeterias start, and since the cafeterias close when office hours end… you get the drift.

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Things like cheating, computer viruses spread to the server, others taking advantage of you academically or even trying to steal your books, falsely accuse you of cheating are common. All of these happened to me. I even knew of one other premed that had a romantic relationship with a girl that we all thought was the

most likely to get in

on purpose and then let her down just before exams.

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There is some diversity on campus. Some campuses have all kinds of religions, races and skin colors, but when you spend more than 30 minutes, you notice they all act the same, talk the same, and are made from the proverbial mold. Not BU. The diversity is very good and works in your favor if you have the time and energy to exploit it after you are done with your academic preoccupations of being constantly beaten down.

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I ended up transferring to a smaller college where the professors literally had lunch with the students weekly, always kept their doors open, and could be approached socially any time they were present on campus, even when doing their research.

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For the record, I actually was a good student, and I got into medical school and now practice medicine. It's not like I am some kind of sore loser, no, but I have very strong reservations about BU's approach to education. You are basically paying a fortune to have access to many fun and diverse opportunities, but if you wish to do well and put the effort in, you will be too burned out or exhausted by the school's abusive, punitive approach to education and all its mind games to properly capitalize upon the school's positives. >

I would not recommend BU for most people who want to go to medical school. Consider a small, accessible, friendly local school or even a state school. It will be less expensive and you will have a much easier time getting in.