Competition among undergraduates - a question

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
1

<p>Hello,</p>

<p>I am currently applying to medical schools. To what extent am I competing with my pre-medical peers at my current undergraduate (ivy-league) college? I know that in the undergraduate admissions process I was rejected by a few schools simply because my high school was already sending a few (athletes) there. </p>

<p>Will medical schools refrain from taking 2-3 students from a particular undergraduate school? I am particularly interested in the behavior of top tier medical schools. </p>

<p>Best,</p>

<p>NN</p>

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<p>No, your undergraduate institution shouldn’t make any difference (except, perhaps, the state in which it is located, for residency purposes.)</p>

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<p>Whatever makes you feel better about a rejection.</p>

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<p>haha, too true.</p>

<p>But no… shouldn’t really matter much unless those other candidates get better LORs, etc. (LORs tend to be easiest to compare when submitted by faculty of one school – but in that sense, you’re really competing against ALL the applicants from EVERY YEAR simultaneously!)</p>

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<p>interestingly, some undergrads (UCs) are notorious for sending out too many applicants to med school. Cornell is also on par with this trend as it is the largest IVY with a dominant premed community</p>

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<p>You make it sound like it’s the school’s fault that a lot of their students send out AMCAS applications each year and that their students might actually be at a disadvantage because of this. I certainly don’t think this is true in any way.</p>

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<p>What I’m saying is that schools within the UC system send out a bulk of outstanding applicants that it’s tough to stand out as exceptional. It is much easier to come from Amherst with the same credentials and get admitted than it is at Berkeley or UCLA or UCSD. There will be a limit as to the number of students who get accepted at a med school according to their undergrad because med schools look for diversity in its community.</p>

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<p>I believe Cornell has produced more doctors than any other school. Something like that.</p>

<p>I don’t think coming from Cornell would hurt your application :stuck_out_tongue: as long as you make the grades.</p>

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<p>Diversity doesn’t matter until you REALLY start getting way too high. Schools aren’t going to care about a fourth kid from Berkeley instead of a third.</p>

<p>With that said, the UC’s are brutal places for other reasons.</p>

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<p>Cornell may produce the most (in terms of the absolute number of applicants) among the Ivies, but do not forget about the sheer power of some of the flagship state universities. </p>

<p>The honor of producing the most applicants may go to UCLA, I think. ZFanatic, since you are from TX: UT Austin, which is in your backyard :-), produces more than Cornell.</p>

<p>[Table</a> 2-7. Undergraduate Institutions Supplying 100 or More White Applicants to U.S. Medical Schools - FACTS - AAMC](<a href=“http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/2008/mwhite08.htm]Table”>http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/2008/mwhite08.htm)</p>

<p>If I remember correctly, UW, Madison, produces most CEOs in Corporate America. State School Power!</p>

<p>BDM: We happen to cross-post. Regarding your comment: “the UC’s are brutal places for other reasons”, I always suspect it is so. Now I confirm it from a person who grew up from that area. Call me overly biased, I even do not like Stanford (unless it is graduate school) just because it is too close to the center of brutal places (for premeds). – I admit that I may not be reasonable here.</p>

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<p>Bet you Cornell’s 513 applicants get more matriculants than UCLA’s 773.</p>

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<p>[UCLA</a> Career Center](<a href=“http://www.career.ucla.edu/Students/GradProfSchCounseling/MedicalSchoolStatisticsForUCLAGraduates.aspx]UCLA”>http://www.career.ucla.edu/Students/GradProfSchCounseling/MedicalSchoolStatisticsForUCLAGraduates.aspx)</p>

<p>Obviously, these are only the 200 students who decided to release their AMCAS info to UCLA (suckers), but I bet 50% is about right for the whole 700+</p>

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<p><a href=“Career Services | Student & Campus Life | Cornell University”>Career Services | Student & Campus Life | Cornell University;

<p>And yep, cornell’s ratio is higher. But total number of matriculants still goes to UCLA. :smiley: (extrapolating based on the acceptance rates on these sites and the total numbers BDM listed)</p>

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<p>U of M is also up there.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/2008/mwhite08.htm[/url]”>http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/2008/mwhite08.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Second column</p>

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<p>mmmcdowe: This list I posted is for the white students only. My bad, because I can not locate the list for the total number of applicants from each college so I just post the list for the white applicants and it is confusing. So you need to read the column for the total number of applicants.</p>

<p>I just notice that Duke produces 24% more applicants than Harvard: 372 vs 300. It is amazing as I believe Duke undergraduate may be a little bit smaller than Harvard undergraduate.</p>

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<p>Oh my bad mcat2, I didn’t even see your link. It’s the same page :D</p>

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<p>According to updated info, Berkeley’s acceptance rate has dropped to 53%. sad.
On the other hand those who got accepted got into more UCs. something’s not right here.</p>

<p><a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/MedStats.stm[/url]”>https://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/MedStats.stm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>? What’s “not right here”?</p>

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<p>I totaled up the acceptees from “Top 20 Medical Schools & California Medical Schools - Graduating Seniors 2002-2008” and it comes out to be about 200 for 2008. But that number is way higher than “graduating seniors” and “one year out” combined. This discrepancy could be a reporting error but I’m not sure.</p>

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<p>It’s probably stacking from a large group of more-than-one-year-out folks.</p>