Ok, here’s an out-of-the-box choice: UMN Rochester.
It’s a fit school, not at all the “traditional” college experience. Fewer than 800 students, only 2 majors and both are medical field related. If you want an exciting city, or school spirit, or big sports or big Greek, then this isn’t the school for you.
On the other hand, this school has a great record of shepherding students into medical school (and other medical careers.) It’s located right next door to the Mayo Clinic for mentoring, research, and clinical opportunities. These students are taken under the Mayo Clinic’s wings, and let me tell you, the Mayo Clinic takes care of its own. It also has a terrific track record of outcomes in underrepresented students: Pell, 1st Gen, URMs.
The list is titled “Top Feeders to Medical School”. The problem with such lists is the ranking implies that college name is a primary driver for medical school admissions. That’s not how medical school admission works. College name has little direct influence.
Instead I’d expect the largest contributing factor for the different percentages of alumni who attend medical school is different percentages of well qualified students who apply to medical school at different colleges. More selective colleges are more likely to have well qualified students than less selective colleges, who are more likely to be admitted if they choose to apply to med school. Some particular colleges also have a far larger portion of admitted students who are interested in attending medical school than others.
This is not to say that which college you attend makes no difference for medical school admission. There are many ways in which a college may influence chance of attending – offering BS + MD combination programs, having a greater degree of grade inflation or harsher grading than typical, weeding style approach vs more supportive, different advising, different degrees of committee screening med school applicants, differing distribution of students by state (in-state med school advantages), peer influence due to differing portion of peers who are pre-med, etc. However, such lists tell you little about whether such effects will have a net positive or net negative on a particular student’s chance of admission to med school.
I think both. We have known each other since our now seniors were babies (adopted internationally through the same agency.) Parents with recent divorce and mom with some mental health struggles and non medical dad primary parent. Kid refuses to be more than 90 minutes away from home and single parent makes okay money but doesn’t want kid to go into much debt either. Dad came to me initially as she thought nursing (which is my expertise) but after working as a CNA, kid has decided she wants to be an oncologist. Dad says his research notes that physicians are in great need and she will get a leg up and scholarships due to her heritage. I really hope this girl makes it. She’s a good kid. But I also don’t think they are looking at the schools “pre health advising” specific to med school. I’m sure there have been students who got into med school from this school but not many.
I agree with you that the name of one’s undergrad has little direct influence on med school admissions. Additionally, in my OP I did not make any indication of these schools as “feeders” as in, if you go here, you are more likely to be accepted because of the name on your diploma.
However, I do think that the schools that make it onto that list show that the education they offer is substantive enough that it prepares students for medical school. Not all colleges prepare students equally well. If there is an alternative resource you would suggest that people use to find schools that are more admissions-friendly that have a record of preparing its graduates well for college, I’d be delighted for you to share it. I’m hoping for the CC-community to work together to provide a good resource for students and families to use.
Thank you @NiceUnparticularMan for highlighting some of the additional public schools that were just below my arbitrary cuttoff!
Thank you @WayOutWestMom for sharing the AAMC info on applicants & matriculants in post #9!
Thank you @fiftyfifty1 for making some great additions to the thread with the mentions of Xavier (the Louisiana HBCU) and U. of Minnesota - Rochester!
Interesting thread that I’ll have to digest better when I have more time. My kid’s long desire is to go to Med School. Recently he has really doubled down on that fact and is starting to really show the initiative I expected from him if this really is his goal. So far he got into Miami Ohio Honors, waiting on Cincinnati, accepted at Case, waiting on Denison and Kenyon (though likes Denison much better). Cost is a big factor if you plan to invest another $300k for med school so the knee jerk reaction is that Miami and Cinci at $25/30k per year is a much better idea. He got an okay scholly at Case, but it’s still $60k per year. Denison and Kenyon will be $50k or less depending on the level of scholarships. Every school provides some fuzzy stats on how many students get accepted to med school. None break it down into actual usable information. It’s tough to figure out how to advise him, and harder once you factor in that he could well decide not to go to Med School, in which case the cost for UG isn’t as critical.
He also go into OSU, Kentucky, Xavier (Ohio), Loyola Chicago and Dayton, but seems to have crossed them off as either too expensive compared to Miami/UC, or not as good at Case/Denison.
I’m not convinced that the list is well correlated with colleges that best prepare students for medical school. For example, the top school listed in the first post is Case Western, with 2.1% of students attending medical school. Is that relatively high 2.1% due to Case Western being especially good at preparing students for medical school compared to peers. Or might it instead more relate to things like
Case Western has a BS+MD program, with near guaranteed admission to med school, so long as the student meets basic stat requirements. In addition to direct influence, such programs increase the number of high achieving kids that are interested in attending med school, who choose to apply to and attend CW.
Case Western’s relatively high admit rate is driven by wealthy kids (CW is need aware) with high test scores, who are both more likely to apply to med school than average and more likely to well qualified for med school admission than average. For example, in a previous post, I noted that unhooked Harvard-Westlake applicants to Case Western with 3.6 to 3.8 GPA have an extraodinarily high 91% admit rate. CW is admitting Harvard-Westlake kids, but they aren’t admitting the average relatively low income kid from public HS (at rates comparable to many of their peers).
Case Western students have much higher stats than typical for colleges with comparable admit rate. For example, in 2019… prior to COVID test optional, Case Western had a 28% admit rate. Among all colleges with a 27-29% admit rate in 2019, Case Western had the highest 75th percentile SAT scores. Case Western had a larger portion of high scoring kids on SAT than others in this admit range, which is well correlated with a larger portion of kids who are likely score high enough on MCAT to have a good chance of med school admission (if rest of application is decent).
I could continue. Rather than take shortcuts by assuming attending colleges with a higher portion of students going on to med school will increase chance of a particular student being accepted to med school, I’d instead suggest researching the particular colleges in dimensions that may impact that student’s chance of med school admission.
For example, is he/she interested in a BS+MD program? If so, research which colleges offer such a program and consider applying. Does the college’s advising committee restrict who can apply to med school? How is pre-med advising and support groups, as listed on college’s website? Is the school known for grade inflation or harsh grading? Is there a lot of hand holding, or is it easy to fall through the cracks? Does the particular student do well in as a big fish in small pond, or is he/she more the type to be pushed to achieve further when surrounded by high achieving peers? Are big pre-med classes with hundreds of students unlikely to be a problem, or would he/she do better in small classes? …
So Miami (OH) (0.4%) and Cincinnati (0.3%) per this study were around the same level as many quality flagships and private colleges.
Personally, I think this is supporting the general thesis that for the most part, this is a pretty flat sort of situation, meaning lots and lots of good colleges can do a reasonably good job supporting med school applicants.
Given that, I would personally have no problem with a kid wanting to choose a good deal at colleges like that. And yes, I think they would be good colleges even if that kid decided not to pursue med school anyway.
On the other hand, if that kid was more excited about a private like Case, Kenyon, or Denison, that would be fine too–if the family was comfortable with the cost difference. That is a very personal decision.
But if it were me, I would be less concerned at that point about med school specifically, and more just what sort of overall college experience I think I would really enjoy and appreciate, academically and non-academically. Again, assuming it was all affordable.
Thanks. I appreciate that response. We have discussed it extensively . I feel good that our son would do well at any of those schools. Each for different reasons. Each has an attribute that would serve him well: Case is the ultimate flexible schedule and all the student push to perform; Miami is laid back and has a supportive culture; UC has a great premed setup and gets kids involved early, and has a great band which he loves; Denison has the small personal vibe and a great jazz instructor (he plans to dual major in Biochem and Music). If Denison comes under $45k, I think that is a the best option. If any come in with more merit, money will ultimately prevail. I didn’t mention Kenyon, love the campus but he felt the least connected there.
I’d call that a no-lose situation then. You’ve got a kid who is already looking at great, well-chosen possibilities. If they get more good options to consider, even better. But no matter what happens going forward, this has already gone very well.
Spot checking for Carleton… (and apologies if i misunderstood any of the above…)
The college states that about 50 students apply each year to med school.
Elsewhere they state their acceptance rate is between 77% and 82%.
That implies around 40 Carls a year go to med school. Dividing that both the average number of graduating students from the most recent CDS (496) gives a rate of ~8%. That’s 8x their number in the original table and double the #1 school (JHU). I don’t mean to imply that Carleton has the highest med school matriculant rate, I’m sure JHU and many others are way off too; rather, I mean to highlight how misleading metrics based off LinkedIn searches can be. I trust the NSF’s data on undergrad origin of PhD earners because they actively monitor and publish that information, but I’m not aware of a similar authority doing the same for med schools (please forgive me if I just haven’t seen). As such, I personally think it’s wiser just to look at what each college says, though some are far more transparent than others.
Fwiw, I don’t think Carleton will qualify for the over 20% acceptance rate mentioned in the original post once the CDS for the current first years (class of ‘28) is published.
Before you choose an undergraduate college based on how many alumni who went on to med school, you might wish to consider how those numbers have changed over time. As medicine has become less remunerative over the years, and the cost of attending med school has increased, those numbers may be showing a downward trajectory.
When choosing where to go as an undergrad, a more important factor is your projected major and the college’s course selection within that major. There is always the occasional genius who can major in architecture, take the minimum of med school track prerequisites and still ace the MCAT. For us mere mortals, it will be important to know that the college you are considering has a deep bench when it comes to courses that will give you the academic background you need to support your preparation for the MCAT.
This is especially true these days when so much more of, say, a biology dept’s curriculum (and budget) is given over to environmental studies. Do they offer human physiology? One top 15 NESCAC school I looked at did not, despite touting their pre-med program.
Fifty percent of the MCAT is biology, biochemistry, chemistry and physics, all as they pertain to living systems, so you will want to choose your curriculum wisely. (Another 25% is social sciences, so you might want to check those course offerings, too.)
Yes, you can get all this later in a post-bac program–provided you have a couple of years and a few thousand dollars to spare.
Finally, most med schools are pretty agnostic when it comes to where you took your undergraduate degree, at least within reason. But they are pitiless regarding GPA and MCAT scores.
I think most schools have a gatekeeper to weed out students who, in their experience, won’t make it. If they are publicizing on their website their high percentage of med school admissions, you can be certain that they do.
I’m not sure that is true. Only colleges that have committee letters would have this sort of gatekeeper. Although, there certainly are weed out premed courses at every college.
Also, without a committee letter, students need to get their own LORs. And they would need to be strong ones.
Re: colleges with undergrad acceptance rates over 20%…there are a LOT of those. Start with your instate public universities, and not just the flagship.
And those MD/PhD programs have extremely low acceptance rates too. I wouldn’t count on that.
Anyone interested in medical school should also read through this thread. It talks about careers related to health care. See if something piques your interest.
