Ucla Pre Med Acceptance Rate

But while admission to UCLA is competitive enough, succeeding as a premed is even more challenging. So, how do you do it?

UCLA Premed Information (2022-2023)

UCLA has the most medical school applicants of any United States undergraduate institution! Approximately half of applicants are accepted to medical school with an average MCAT of 513-514 and average GPA of 3.72.

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Considered a “Public Ivy,” the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), is a highly selective and prestigious university and member of the University of California system. People across the country (and the world) with a wide variety of interests and goals apply every year.

One particularly popular track at UCLA is premed. Although not a major, thousands of students pursue a program that will prepare them for medical school and a career as a physician. In fact, UCLA often appears on national rankings lists of top premed institutions.

But while admission to UCLA is competitive enough, succeeding as a premed is even more challenging. So, how do you do it?

Undergraduate requirements

UCLA advises all pre-health students to take the following courses :

Chemistry 14A, 14B, and 14BL

Chemistry 14C, 14CL, and 14D

Math 3A, 3B, and 3C

Math 31A, 31B, and 32A

Program in Computing 10A

Biostatistics 100A and 110A

Physics 5A, 5B, and 5C

Physics 6A, 6B, and 6C

Physics 1A, 1B, and 1C

Additionally, these courses are recommended to premeds in particular for MCAT preparation:

• Psych 10: Introduction to Psychology
• Sociol 1: Introduction to Sociology

These recommendations align with requirements for entry to most medical schools, but you should check with individual institutions to ensure you have completed the requisite curriculum for admission into a particular program. Do this early so you can plan ahead while you still have time.

Resources at UCLA

Unlike many universities of its caliber, UCLA does not specifically offer premed advising. Still, students can work with academic advisors, mentors, and counselors for guidance and support. UCLA suggests visiting a Department Advisor for help choosing courses, planning timelines, and more. They can also work with representatives from the Career Center.

Planning your courses and schedule

When planning out your schedule for your undergraduate college career, you should start by taking into account all requirements.

Consider the following additional university-wide requirements when planning your courses. (Specific requirements vary by school and major.)

• GE Requirement
• Diversity Requirement
• Foreign Language Requirement
• Writing II Requirement
• Foreign Language in English Translation

Additionally, look at the requirements for your major, along with the recommended premed courses.

Then, you need to decide when to take different courses. Think about the difficulty and reputation of each class — you can often find this information in student forums or by speaking with upperclassmen — and strive for a balance so that you’re not taking all the easy or extremely difficult courses in one semester.

How to succeed as a premed at UCLA

UCLA is an extraordinarily challenging school, and many students who start out as premeds don’t end up completing that track or gaining admission to medical school. To ensure you do succeed and survive those dreaded “weed-out” courses, here’s what to do.

Develop good study habits early on.

It’s important to understand that your GPA is extremely important for admission to med school, so you need to study hard. Work early to develop a plan and methodology for learning the content, and sustain it throughout college. This might involve going to office hours or working with a tutor — whatever helps.

Balance your course load.

We’ve touched on how critical it is to balance your course load, such that you have a mix of less challenging and more difficult courses each semester, rather than taking all easy or hard classes at once. Consider all requirements and electives, planning ahead on how to best address them.

Collaborate with your peers

Yes, many premed courses are graded on a curve, such that it may seem like you’re competing against other students. However, if you work with them, rather than against them, it will be better for everyone. Remember, too, that your fellow students can be a huge asset. Join or create a premed study group, for example, so that you can work together.

Develop strong relationships with TAs and faculty.

Most medical schools ask for recommendation letters from both science and non-science professors. That’s part of why getting to know your instructors is a pivotal part of your plan. Moreover, you are more likely to succeed if you show that you care about the material and course — you want faculty on your side.

Consider the Cluster Program

UCLA offers a unique Cluster Program , in which students take courses around a single subject as freshmen. According to the university, among other benefits, students who participate graduate with a higher GPA on average than those who don’t. Additionally, they develop key competencies and skills, and students often fulfill many GE requirements this way.

Choose carefully, though, ensuring that you will, in fact, be able to fulfill requirements. Make the most of the opportunity, too, getting to know fellow students, professors, and TAs. Remember to work hard and keep your GPA up.

Plan your extracurriculars.

Being a premed doesn’t end with your academic life. Medical schools want to see extracurriculars — volunteer work, research, clinical participation, and so on — on your resume, too. Fortunately, UCLA has plenty of on-campus activities, from student clubs and organizations to selective societies. Plus, Los Angeles and surrounding areas offer plenty of opportunities.

The key when deciding what opportunities to explore is to create your own niche; don’t simply do what everyone else is doing and try to avoid “common” activities that exist at every undergraduate institution.

Some UCLA Clinical Community Service Opportunities:

• Care Extenders Program
• Student Stroke Force/Team
• SCOPE at UCLA
• ARC Medical Program
• Bruin Beans
• CTSI RAP
• PULSE UCLA
• APA Health CARE
• Fellowship for International Service and Health (FISH)
• Medical Experience through Service in Healthcare (MESH)

Some Community Service Opportunities:

• Mobile Clinic Project
• Bruin Shelter
• Hunger Project
• Pediatric AIDS Coalition
• USAC Community Service Commision (CSC)
• Learning Assistant (LA) Program
• Peer Learning Facilitator (PLF) Program
• CURE at UCLA
• InterAxon
• The Bruin Experiment
• Student Leader Advocates of Music
• CityLab

UCLA Acceptance Rates to Medical School

In 2020, 53% of UCLA graduates who applied were accepted into medical school. That’s significantly higher than the national acceptance rate of 43%. In fact, since 2015, UCLA students consistently saw an acceptance rate higher than the national one.

But that doesn’t mean you can rest on your laurels, knowing that you’re at a top premed school. Nearly half of UCLA students who applied to medical school weren’t accepted in 2020. Remember that all medical schools are extraordinarily competitive — and you must prove that you’re the best of the best, even among top students.

How to Succeed as a UCLA Premed

Everything you need to know to navigate UCLA premed, including UCLA premed requirements and extracurriculars, the best premed major, and the UCLA premed acceptance rate

Part 1: Introduction

Part 2: UCLA premed requirements

Part 3: UCLA premed extracurriculars

Part 4: Getting into medical school from UCLA

Part 1: Introduction

It’s easy to feel like everyone is a premed at UCLA. And that’s no accident. UCLA routinely produces over 1,000 medical school applicants each year, the most of any school in the U.S.

There are good reasons for this abundance of aspiring physicians. UCLA boasts top-notch academics and research opportunities, hundreds of premed organizations and programs, and a hospital system ranked #1 in California and #3 in the nation, making it one of the best premed schools in California.

And while 1,000+ medical school applicants annually is a lot, remember that these applicants are seniors or even alumni. In contrast, it’s safe to say that the number of premeds in any given class of UCLA freshmen is significantly higher. This begs a couple questions: Why? What happens during those four years that winnows out so many premeds?

There are a few common factors. With tons of premeds on campus, it can be easy to feel lost among the stiff competition and large class sizes. You might also feel overwhelmed by the prospects of fulfilling your premed requirements, picking your major, participating in the right extracurriculars, taking the MCAT, and everything else that goes into the grueling process of getting into medical school.

On top of this, it’s hard to earn good grades in the required premed science courses, so many students just don’t perform well enough to have a decent shot of earning a medical school acceptance. An unfortunate reality of UCLA premed life is that many simply don’t make it through to the end.

We’ve created this guide to help ensure that you’re one of the premeds that does make it. Below, we’ll discuss everything you need to navigate, from course selection to shadowing and research opportunities to on-campus resources. We’ve also dug up relevant admissions statistics so you can understand how UCLA premeds tend to fare as they apply to medical school and how you can put your best foot forward as a medical school applicant from UCLA.

Part 2: UCLA premed requirements

First thing’s first: what classes do you need to take as a UCLA premed?

UCLA provides a recommended course of study for pre-health students, highlighting specific courses that fulfill each category, as well as relevant prerequisites. While academic requirements can differ slightly between various medical schools, the following should be sufficient to satisfy the requirements of just about any school.

Sample UCLA premed two-year course plan

There are a variety of ways to tackle your premed requirements. You’ll notice that certain requirements above, like biology and biochemistry, are fulfilled through a specific series of courses that all premeds take. Other requirements, like math, chemistry, and physics, have multiple course sequences from which you can choose. All are acceptable for medical school admissions, but your options will vary depending on your major.

For example, say you major in chemistry. You’d be required to take the Math 31 series, along with the Chemistry 20 and 30 series and the Physics 1 series. On the other hand, if you major in biology, you could take those same courses, but you also might opt for the versions specifically designed for life sciences majors: the Life Sciences 30 series to take care of math, plus the Chemistry 14 and Physics 5 series.

So, when planning out your courses, you’ll want to think about:

• Requirements for your major, which may or may not overlap with premed courses
• General Education requirements
• Courses for your cluster, if you decide to enroll in one (more on that later)
• Prerequisites for certain premed courses, which can be found in the pre-health recommendations sheet linked above and in course descriptions
• When you want to take the MCAT (e.g. if you’re taking a gap year, you might take the MCAT later in your college career and thus will have more time to get through necessary courses)
• The relative ease and difficulty of each course (we’ll discuss this in detail shortly)

UCLA provides handy four-year sample course plans for common majors. In addition, here’s one way that you might distribute your premed requirements during your first two years, assuming you’re going straight through to med school and want to take the MCAT by the fall of your junior year:

How to maintain a high GPA as a UCLA premed

We don’t have to tell you that UCLA is known for its rigorous academics, a fact that can make it challenging to maintain a high GPA, especially in the sciences. Many STEM classes at UCLA are graded on a curve, making it more difficult to earn As, whereas courses in other disciplines tend to be evaluated using a straight scale. Many of these tough science courses are known as “weeders,” because students who don’t do well in them are effectively weeded out of the premed track.

On top of this, many students receive low or middling grades freshman year due to the challenges of adjusting to college and not yet having good study habits in place.

Given how much weight your GPA holds when applying to medical school, it’s no surprise that a low GPA (sub-3.5, in most cases) is one of the most common reasons why many UCLA premeds eventually give up on becoming a doctor.

To avoid that fate, here is some guidance to help you keep your GPA afloat:

• Expect to study hard! Even if you didn’t need to put in a ton of effort to excel in high school, that won’t be the case as a UCLA premed.
• Go to office hours and TA sessions. It’s important to seek out help from your instructors if you don’t understand the course material. The longer you wait, the more likely it is that you’ll fall behind.
• Join a premed study group. If you can’t find one to join, create one.
• Plan in advance which courses you’ll take which semester, making sure that the most challenging classes are spaced out. UCLA’s Reddit community and Bruinwalk (similar to Rate My Professor) are good resources to research specific courses and professors. You can also talk to older premeds about what to expect from different classes.
• Consider taking classes over the summer to spread out your work load.
• Don’t take an unnecessarily challenging course load. Being a premed is hard enough, so attempt to find balance outside of your required courses. Don’t get us wrong—we are certainly in favor of pushing yourself academically. That said, medical school adcoms will be much more concerned with the strength of your GPA and whether you’ve met their prerequisites than with exactly which courses you took to meet them and how difficult those classes were.
• Choose clusters carefully. We’ll discuss this more in just a moment.
• Make use of test banks. UCLA’s Student Activities Center has a bank of midterms and finals given in certain courses. You can print out these resources to use as study material for exams.

What’s the best premed major at UCLA?

Generally speaking, there’s no universal best major for premeds. Contrary to what you might think, majoring in biochemistry over art history has little statistical advantage when it comes to getting into medical school.

That said, there are certain majors that are much more common for premeds than others. Unsurprisingly, the biological sciences take the cake nationally when it comes to the largest numbers of medical school applicants and matriculants.

At UCLA, psychobiology is known as the most popular premed major for two primary reasons: its pre-major course requirements closely align with the premed classes you’ll need to take anyway, and many people think it’s the science major in which it’s easiest to maintain a good GPA.

Other common majors for UCLA premeds include the following, some of which are notoriously tough:

• Biochemistry
• Biology
• Ecology, behavior, and evolution
• Human biology and society
• Microbiology, immunology, and molecular genetics
• Neuroscience
• Physiological science

However, there are also UCLA premeds who major in anthropology, sociology, English, history, and plenty of other non-science disciplines.

Choosing the right premed major really boils down to two questions:

• Does it interest you?
• Will you be able to maintain a high GPA?

Should you participate in a cluster as a UCLA premed?

UCLA’s Cluster Program allows freshman to join a group of 200 students who take classes together revolving around a central subject (e.g., “America in the 60s,” “Frontiers in Human Aging”) for a year. Clusters can be great because they allow you to become part of a more intimate community and knock out a bunch of your General Education (GE) requirements, giving you more academic flexibility in later years.

That said, clusters can have their downsides if not chosen carefully. Since you’ll be studying one subject for a year, you’ll want to make sure it’s a topic that genuinely compels you. Participating in a cluster also restricts your ability to choose classes one-by-one. You can technically leave a cluster after the first or second quarter and still get GE credits for the courses you completed, but finishing out the year nets you your Writing II credit plus another “bonus” GE credit, so it’s typically worth it to stay the course.

On top of that, it’s essential that the GEs you fulfill through your cluster do not overlap with the GEs you’ll fulfill through your major; otherwise, you’ll end up taking extra classes in order to meet all the requirements. For example, if you’re in a science major, an ideal cluster would be one based in the humanities.

As a premed, you’ll also want to make sure that your cluster courses won’t interfere with your ability to keep your GPA up and do well in your premed courses. Certain clusters have reputations for being more demanding than others, so do your research. It’s certainly not necessary to participate in a cluster, and there are plenty of premeds on either route.

When should you take the MCAT?

The best time to take the MCAT depends on a number of factors, including which premed classes you’ve taken and when you’re planning on applying to medical school.

If you’re applying to med school straight through—i.e., you’re not planning on a gap year—we generally recommend taking the MCAT for the first time during the fall of your junior year. This allows you to spend the summer prior studying, and it builds in enough time on the other end in case you need to retake the exam.

And, most importantly, it ensures that you’ve mostly completed your required premed coursework, which is invaluable for MCAT prep. Here are the UCLA courses that are essential to take before you take the MCAT:

• Life Sciences 7A, 7B, and 7C
• Physics 5A, 5B, and 5C
• Chemistry 14A, 14B, 14C, and 14D
• Chemistry 153A

We cannot stress enough that you shouldn’t attempt the MCAT without the above coursework, especially when it comes to biochemistry (Chemistry 153A). Although the fact that you only need to take one biochem class in college might make it seem less important than some of your other science courses, the reality is actually the opposite: biochemistry is one of the most important subjects to master for the MCAT, as it makes up about 25 percent of the C/P and B/B sections.

In addition, you might consider taking Psychology 10 and Sociology 1. The course content will show up on the MCAT, and the classes themselves aren’t too demanding. That said, plenty of UCLA premeds self-teach the material and still do well on the exam, so don’t stress if you can’t manage to fit them into your schedule.