My son is very interested in going to med school. He is highly gifted and excels in math and science. We’ve been wondering if we should shoot for our local flagship State U’s honors program, or let him apply to a top 15 private school for pre-med. Is it better to get a high GPA from a flagship state U pre-med program, or is it better to get a lower GPA from a top tier private pre-med program for med school admissions? How much does prestige of undergrad matter in med school admissions?
GPA and MCAT scores matter. The name of the college/university on the diploma doesn’t. The cheap flagship will be fine, and you can keep saving your money to help pay for Med School.
go to the school that is the best fit . many factors nobody can predict will influence getting into a medical school or not.
some undergrad schools have a dual admissions , muhlenberg has two dual admissions programs.
http://www.muhlenberg.edu/main/admissions/templemedprogram/
http://www.muhlenberg.edu/main/admissions/cooperativeprogramdrexel4-4/ and muhlenberg is a great all around school.
There is virtually no such thing as 'premed programs" …the exception is maybe one or two schools (I think Penn State has one). I don’t think any elite schools have a “premed program”. Those couple of schools that offer them are really just adding a few other classes that have some sort of 'medical" flavor…such as “medical ethics” or “medical spanish”. other schools offer those classes, too.
since virtually no schools have "premed programs’ there is nothing to have a “reputation”. Do you understand that premed med classes are just basic run of the mill classes (bio, chem, physics, etc) that every school offers and the other STEM majors are taking as well. There is nothing unique about them. They don’t prepare you for the MCAT or med school.
Being premed is not like other undergrad professional programs. It’s not like nursing, or accounting or engineering, where there are “programs”…courses that are unique for those intentions. Those are programs. Taking bio, chem, orgo, and physics is not a program.
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or is it better to get a lower GPA from a top tier private pre-med program
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It is NEVER better to get a lower GPA…no matter where the school is. There is a parent here on CC whose child went to an elite school and got a “lower” but still good GPA and she got ZERO interviews from MD schools. All you have to do is go to the “other” premed forum and you’ll see those from elite schools with no acceptances because their GPAs weren’t top.
med schools do NOT care where you went to undergrad unless you went to some Podunk school (really podunk). A flagship is fine…absolutely fine. My son went to a mid-tier flagship, he only applied to 6 MD med schools, and was accepted to 3…which is a pretty good average. he had a 4.0 BCMP GPA and a 3.99 cum GPA major: Chemical Engineering.
" My son went to a mid-tier flagship, he only applied to 6 MD med schools, and was accepted to 3…which is a pretty good average. he had a 4.0 BCMP GPA and a 3.99 cum GPA major: Chemical Engineering."
-Practically the same story for my D. Went to in-state public, attended in combined bs/md, got GPA=3.98 (4.0 BCMP), major: Zoology, Music minor. One can have any combo of major(s)/minor(s), applied out of her bs/md. Total applied - 8, accepted at 4.
Maybe it will be easy for your kid to be at state UG, was not easy at all for my D. Lots of very hard work to achieve high college GPA, even after graduating #1 from the most rigorous private High School in our area. She said that she had adjusted her academic efforts at college upwards considerably. Those valedictorians who did not realize that adjustment is required, got derailed after the first sememster of very first college Bio (after having AP Bio in HS).
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Maybe it will be easy for your kid to be at state UG, was not easy at all for my D. Lots of very hard work to achieve high college GPA, even after graduating #1 from the most rigorous private High School in our area. She said that she had adjusted her academic efforts at college upwards considerably. Those valedictorians who did not realize that adjustment is required, got derailed after the first sememster of very first college Bio (after having AP Bio in HS).
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No, it wasn’t easy for my son. I hope I didn’t imply that. he worked very hard for his grades, often missing out on the fun offerings around him.
The only reason you see lots of top schools represented among medical school admissions is because that’s where good students go. A good student going to a state flagship is not going to be disadvantaged in any way.
@MiamiDAP College Bio was easy. We saw far more drama with premeds in Chemistry and Physics.
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reason you see lots of top schools represented among medical school admissions is because that’s where good students
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while that is true, the majority of med students are likely from state schools or other non-elites.
mom2collegekids, “No, it wasn’t easy for my son. I hope I didn’t imply that. he worked very hard for his grades, often missing out on the fun offerings around him. " - I did not mean your kid. I commented on OP’s remark " Is it better to get a high GPA from a flagship state U pre-med program, or is it better to get a lower GPA from a top tier private pre-med program for med school admissions?”. I apologize for not making it clear. I know that Engineering is the hardest major of tem all, your S. had to work hard to achieve his outstanding GPA in such a hard major.
“reason you see lots of top schools represented among medical school admissions is because that’s where good students”
-Absolutely true. It is type of student, not the palce that they attended makes the difference. All around my D. (in-state public , Honors program) were accepted to several Med. Schools. The requirement of Honors program was top 2% of HS class, ACT=31+, top 200 out of applicants pool got in. These requirements pre-selected the applicants just as Ivy / Elite colleges do. In fact many of them probably would be accepted at some Elite colleges but choose free UG covered by Merit award instead.
“College Bio was easy. We saw far more drama with premeds in Chemistry and Physics.”
-Interesting difference from one college program to another. Chemistry was the easiest science class at college for my D. She never had a grade below 100%+ with exatra credits in this class. Result - was hired as Supplemental Instructor by chem. prof., the best job on campus, was working for 3 years and did not need to prep. Chem. for the MCAT at all, still loves Chem.
All of her Bio classes, including the first one were the hardest in every sememster. The first Bio went thru AP Bio material in the first 2 weeks of the class…and then everybody started “pulling their hair”…3 profs were lecutring at every lecture, each teaching their sub-specialty…you see what may be happenning at “easy” state publics.
Thanks for the great input so far everyone. You actually confirmed my suspicion. Our flagship(UWa) has a Departmental Honors program for many departments, where students get to work on independent research projects while working closely with the Profs. I think that’s probably more valuable in terms of getting good experience not to mention LORs. It sounds like it’ll be hard to get the same opportunity at an elite school because most of the profs only teach grad students. If S commutes we can save the $$ from his undergrad and help him with med school instead. Plus he doesn’t need to worry about the IB Diploma, ECs and all the crap you have to do to look pretty for the Ivies.
I graduated from a flagship in STEM and know first hand how hard it is to get a STEM degree from a state U.
I’m ambivalent about the prestige factor. The only reason I even care is because I thought it might help in his med school admission. He cares a lot more about the prestige than I do. I think the prestige of the med school is more important than that of the undergrad but ultimately, most of us could care less where our doctors went to med school, we just want good doctors. My favorite doctors are all graduates of UW Medicine!
“I think the prestige of the med school is more important than that of the undergrad”
After med school, students go through on the job training (aka residency). In fact senior med students will find out this Friday where this training will take place. Keep an eye on above thread “residency comes next.” You can assuredly see this thread light up like mad this Friday as many students/parents will be screaming for joy, and some not so much.
But look at 2014 Program Director (PD) survey below (figures 1 and 2) and you’ll see that where med students match at is much like admittance to med school in that med school performance (like college performance) is a more important factor than the name on diploma according to decision makers (i.e. PDs).
Much the NRMP document above that Jugulator20 posted, AAMC has released briefing papers that show the results of Adcomm surveys:
https://www.aamc.org/download/261106/data/aibvol11_no6.pdf
https://www.aamc.org/students/download/267622/data/mcatstudentselectionguide.pdf
Undergrad selectivity (not prestige) isn’t even listed a factor in the first briefing paper, and it’s way down on the list of factors (and then only for private med schools) in the second.
Good data guys. From the residency-match-data, it looks like the top 40 NIH funded medical schools(research intensive med schools) get some advantage. The list of schools differ by specialty but many of the top schools are state universities. The survey of program directors shows “reputation of medical school” is more important for some specialty than others.
From the aamc survey, Science/Math and overall GPAs and MCAT scores are important for getting an interview, but interview results and LORs are more important than GPA or MCAT scores in determining admission to med schools.
The practice of medicine is beginning to look like a tightly controlled cartel. Members carefully select who gets to join the cartel. Hopefully brilliant would be doctors are not passed up for bogus reasons like connections, likeability or diversity, especially in highly skilled fields like oncology or neurology.
The assumption is that anyone who makes to the interview stage is highly qualified already.(Brilliant.) The interview and LORs speak to the “soft skills” required to make a good doctor-- like interpersonal communication skills, empathy and mental toughness.
That’s because there are nearly 3,000 four year institutions in the US, while the number of of “elite” schools is, by definition, quite a bit smaller than that.
^exactly. Make no mistake - the elite schools are overrepresented - but that’s just because smart students are overrepresented at elite schools.
“The practice of medicine is beginning to look like a tightly controlled cartel. Members carefully select who gets to join the cartel.”
As to admissions being a cartel: you do have to wonder sometimes as the hoops premeds have to jump through and weight given to various admission criteria is all rather subjective in nature. I think you just have a lot of qualified applicants and with limited space, adcoms have to make tough decisions.
Being hard working and nice and always true to yourself will reach any goals as D. concluded after brutal residency application cycle, the one that made all her previous application cycles look like relaxed experiences.
On the other note, members of any group select very carefully who will join them, call it cartel or not. Medicine requires certain set of stats / experiences / personality traits and so are most others. Sometime it is not that clear, but it actually works to person’s advantage. Not everybody fits into medicine, not every fit into engineering for that matter. I spent 11 years working and waiting for the moment when I start enjoying my engineering job, it has never happened. I swithced. Medical field requires that person fit into it, too many lives are at stake. If you cannot prove in UG that you belong to this group, then Med. School is NOT for you. Med. School entrance requirements are nothing in comparison to requirements of successfully completing a Med. School, not even close.
I am going to be the dissenting voice here. While there is no formula that guarantees acceptance to any medical school, the reputation and prestige of the undergrad school does matter. An elite school will always open doors by facilitating networking, name recognition and making your application that much “personal”. I have lived through this and I have witnessed it way too often during two interview cycles: one for medical school and the second one for residencies. A lot of med schools have a clear bias toward students from specific elite schools. It is a branding game that perpetuates itself for multiple reasons. Further along the way, program directors from residency programs also show the same preference. I have not been surprised to see that the majority of students being accepted to some residency programs, not only share the same pedigree of medical schools but also the undergraduate schools.
There always a lot of talk in these forums about “self selection”, but the numbers don’t add up. Someone always comes up with the example of the Valedictorian from State U who made it to Hopkins Medical School. It does not work that way, and that is the exception rather than the rule. A lot of these schools prefer their own and it is interesting to see how sometimes a change in a medical school dean, or a change of a department chair affect the make up of future classes and residents. I think that this actually makes for a great social and behavioral study.
Culturally, and socially, “brand” names matter. And not taking this into consideration is an oversimplification of the medical school admission process.
It’s definitely not 0, but I also think you’d be surprised @MyOpinion at how skewed the distribution of students is at the undergraduate level and how much that can factor (which whether or not you want to say that means “the name matters” is debatable, but to me thats not what people are asking when they ask this question).
I always think of this series of posts from @bluedevilmike (emphasis added)
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/12420743#Comment_12420743