University of Chicago, Pritzker School of Medicine Admission
University of Chicago, Pritzker School of Medicine Undergraduate Program
University of Chicago, Pritzker School of Medicine Application

The Facts

The University of Chicago is a rather large, private institution located in the appropriately titled city of Chicago, Illinois, and has a combined graduate and undergraduate population of over 18,000 students. The university's Pritzker School of Medicine, however, is significantly smaller, and is home to about 420 graduate medical students. The average age of enrollment is around 23, and it is fairly rare for any of the students to enter the school directly from their undergraduate education. The school is perhaps best known for its strong, integrated, rather traditional curriculum, as well for its emphasis on exposing students to various clinical settings. Aside from the basic MD degree, the school also offers joint degrees in the MD/MBA, the MSTP, and the MD/PhD in various areas of the medical and biological sciences.

Admission to the University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Medicine is extremely competitive among the many students who apply; last year, over 3,323 students applied for admission to the school, and approximately 252 of those students were accepted. Eventually however, only about 100 of the admitted students actually enrolled for the coming semester. The admitted students had average MCAT scores of about 10.7 in Biology, 10.5 in Physics, and 10.2 in Verbal, as well as an average undergraduate GPA of about a 3.6. Students are notified of their admissions status on a rolling basis, and are able to take advantage of the school's early application program if they so choose.

The Pritzker School of Medicine has about 982 faculty members, all of whom come from very diverse academic and medical backgrounds. The school also boasts a very manageable student to faculty ratio of about a 2:1, and the small classes allow for plenty of discussion and interaction between students and their professors.

Graduates of the Pritzker School of Medicine are often accepted into some of the most prestigious and competitive residency programs in the nation, and most frequently specialize in the areas of internal medicine, pediatrics, surgery, ob/gyn, dermatology, opthamology, family practice, orthopedic surgery, internal medicine, anesthesiology, as well as emergency medicine.

Clinical Programs

Students are required to complete extensive clinical training including 3 months of internal medicine, 1.5 months of ob/gyn, 1.5 months of psychiatry, 3 months of surgery, 2 months of pediatrics, as well as 1 month of family medicine. Students complete their clinical clerkships at affiliated facilities including the University of Chicago's own Hospitals and Health Care System, as well as the new Comer Children's Hospital.

What's Good

"There are many hands-on opportunities where you can put your newly learned skills to work."

"The professors are incredibly experienced and articulate. They want nothing more than to share their knowledge with you."

"I really enjoy the high amount of patient contact we get. It puts a human face to all the terms."

What's Bad

"There can be some unpleasant competition between students here. The program is fairly small, which doesn't really help much."

"There is no on campus graduate housing, and finding apartments in the city can be tricky."

"The administration can be quite impossible to talk to, particularly about financial issues."

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