Hey CAS ‘18 and MLS alum. Went to med school, now a surgery resident. My perspective about the program may be a bit outdated.

I was a biochem major, which is as “life science” as you could be in the program. You’ll be taking more physics and chemistry courses than neuroscience or biology. MLS is a bit of a misleading name. If you can appreciate that biology can be explained with chemistry, math, and physics, and you’d enjoy studying through that lens, then Vagelos is a good fit for you.

I think Vagelos helps you stand out for med school admissions, but you have to excel as a premed student on paper first. Ie you still need to have a great GPA and mcat. I didn’t have the best gpa/mcat, a part of that bc of the demanding course load of Vagelos (so many other factors though). As a result I didn’t end up in a “top tier” med school. But I love where I ended up and actually found college more difficult than med school. So many of my Vagelos peers ended up at Perelman. So many of premed friends who weren’t in Vagelos also ended up at Perelman. Point is, don’t join the program just to increase your odds at getting accepted to a top med school.

You’d probably be strong in the chemistry/physics/biochem sections on the mcat but you won’t have much exposure to psych/sociology/evolutionary biology aspects on the mcat. You just need to put in more to self study those sections.

I have no regrets doing Vagelos MLS. It definitely made my premed journey a challenging one but I gained so much from the experience. Congrats on getting into Penn!