iwannabe_Brown, i think the undertone of the question people always ask is : “should i consider the prestige of the undergrad/med school at the time of choosing to attend?”- For every example ( read “case report” ) like the ones you mentioned above, I can counteract with opposite ones, and not because of speculation and analysis of what “may have happened” but because of the hardcore fact of the ** stated preference voiced by the admissions department, medical school dean or residency program director **.
Just a couple of months ago, I can think of my friend with below average step 1 and no honors, who attends a top ivy medical school and was interested in a very competitive specialty. While his stats were mediocre, the program director (PD) at his home institution assured him admission. The rational (verbally expressed to him by the PD was : “we know and like how you work, and you come from (fill in the top med school name). I want you here”. While my friend should have been thrilled, he just did not want to stay there. He wanted to go to another top program, in another city. He was a wreck until match day because his stats and class ranking were subpar. But because he was coming from (fill in the top med school name), the PD at the other school he interviewed at (which he wanted to attend) had told him : **" You come from (fill in the top med school name) and we really like to have you guys in our program. **You have a great chance". Match day, my friend was thrilled. He got his choice.
Here you have with the same student, two examples where the pedigree influenced the decision to admit. And when you have the decision maker stating “matter of fact” the reason he/she wants you, all speculation and analysis of how it should be goes out the window. One important reason my friend with mediocre stats in his top medical school was about to be accepted to two top competitive medical school residency programs was because of the name of the top medical school he was already attending.
And from undergrad to med schools we have multiple examples that illustrate the same behavior. At the end, the subjectivity is there and the bias in favor of the name of the school is there. I am not saying that it is all that matters. I am saying that it is worth considering and not taking it into consideration is an oversimplification of the admission process. And the farther we move along our academic careers, all of us become more aware of the added value of our “brand names”.
The further along I’ve gotten the more aware I’ve become of how little value these things really add outside of the occasional connection. But maybe that’s because I started at a different point than you (growing up at one of the ritzy NYC private schools).
I won’t argue that with similar stats, your medical school is going to come in to play, but the residency applicant with better scores, more honors, and a higher class rank at a lower ranked med school is probably being ranked ahead of your friend. I’ve been in our admissions committee meetings for my MSTP. The schools do come up, but almost everything else is given more weight.
I also think the question is are we talking only about prestige when we talk about brand? In the case of residency programs, which are much smaller than medical school classes personality is going to come into play - especially since a resident is much more likely to become a long term employee of a hospital than a medical student is. If we’re also including softer factors in terms of the brand of a school then I’ll bump up its influence higher - but that’s not necessarily prestige and thats not what people are generally asking about.
Occasional connection? Hardly. If you started at one of the ritzy private NYC schools, your brand has followed you every where you have gone, including Brown University and your current medical school (Columbia, may be?), whether you may have been aware of it or not (or whether you may have liked it or not). This is the society we live in. And you have added additional “brands” along the way. There are a lot of students that did not get the extra “brand” push along the way and they were probably as bright and smart as you are. I grew up in a household that recognized that advantage, and I have followed the same path that you seem to have followed. I have worked hard, I have studied hard, I have excelled academically but the fact that I attended some of the best schools in the country has made the next step just easier. I know it. My classmates know it. We discuss it openly, especially after we share our experiences during applications and interviews.
My friend had below average stats and both program directors told him that his top medical school was the factor that was compensating for his mediocre stats. So, this was not about similar stats. The guy with better stats from State U did not match. My friend from the top medical school took his place. Clearly, this experience is different from what you have seen and from what you and others think it should be.
But, I find it disingenuous to dismiss this advantage and that is why i think students should be aware of it. We all have our personal anecdotes because none of this stuff we discuss here is located in some admissions book somewhere. And that is why they are “case reports”. There are thousands of high schools, yet the top colleges are full of students coming from a handful of schools. There are thousands of colleges, yet a great majority of admissions at top medical schools come from a handful of “brand name” colleges. The number of top scoring and smart students from no name schools could fill up several times the classes of the top medical schools. Yet, that does not happen. My personal experiences won’t allow me to buy into the argument of “what matters is that you work hard and get excellent grades, no matter which school you attend.” That is BS. And it amazes me that the only place I see this point being pushed forward is in these anonymous forums.
The fact is that everything matters. If I had to do it all over again, I would attend the best high school I could, the best college I could get into and the best medical school that would accept me, while taking into consideration fit, finances and location of course. Because if for some reason I happen to fall behind academically like my friend did, I would still have the push of my “brand name school”. I just want everyone to be aware of it. That is all.
I attended a presentation by the medical school that has the name of my undergrad. They told us that they do consider the difficulty of the undergrad when considering GPA (even so, GPA is not everything in your application).
Essentially, there is a little more leeway (so you don’t have to be perfect), but your school name will not save your 3.4-3.5 GPA if you want to apply to a top end medical school.
You also have to consider the opportunities that attending a smaller, top end private university. For example, there are less people to compete for research positions (and there are more opportunities to get a research position as well).
"but your school name will not save your 3.4-3.5 GPA if you want to apply to a top end medical school."
Your statement is not correct. Your 3.4-3.5 from a no name school, will not save you. Your 3.4-3.5 from a well known and prestigious school will increase your chances of getting admitted to a top end medical school, because of the more demanding curriculum, the strength of the recommendations and the opportunities that you should have had to buff your application.
Trust me dude, I’m usually the dissenting voice that school name matters. If it didn’t, they wouldn’t ask for it on the application, but I also don’t think it matters enough to financially cripple yourself seeking out that marginal boost. And that’s ultimately what this usually comes down to. You even said this yourself - after taking inTo consideration fit and finances. That shows right there how much even you think the boost of the brand name is worth.
As you said in your post, as you start to slip it can help pull you back up, but the fact is successful students at flagship state universities (3.7+ GPA/36+ MCAT) will still be fine.
If you want to get into concepts of hidden curricula and the benefits of elite schools in terms of advising and stuff that’s fine but that’s not the “brand name”. Those are the types of things that would benefit you even if no one had heard of the school.
As one of the SDN regulars said, the hierarchy will always be:
Top students at top schools
Top students at not top schools
Not top students at top schools
Not top students at not top schools
If you want to “not use anecdotes” you can look at the PD survey administered by the NRMP and you’ll see that there are many thing that get more weight than attending a top med school. The same thing is true for med school and undergrads.
Now what’s the price point at which point the benefit of a top school is worth it? That I can’t answer.
D was told at a med school interview that her undergrad did matter. They said it gave her a little boost. She earned a 3.7+ at a (depending on the list) top 25 college. She, and we, are grateful that we made the choice to spend (and borrow) that money for undergrad. It’s a drop in the bucket today.
Good. I agree with you. And that is why we always end up relying on our personal anecdotes and drawing our own conclusions. I hope the folks reading the forum get the point.
Do most medical schools show a preference for their own undergrads? I’m curious because I read somewhere that many schools prefer their students to go elsewhere for grad school to avoid being trapped in the same school of thoughts. I think I also read that Harvard Medical school accepts students from 70+ different schools.
Also, as far as residency, do most med school grads end up doing residency near where they went to med school?
Making generalization about residency location is difficult because even at the same med school, the distribution of where students end up varies a great deal from year-to-year. This is because the motivations, preferences and specialties applied to vary so much from year to year.
Students who attend an in-state med school often want to stay close to home and so only apply locally. Students who attend a med school across the country want to return closer to home so only apply near their hometowns. Some students apply to competitive specialties and so need to apply widely to programs all across the country even if they’d prefer to stay locally.
If you attend a med school in certain region of the country–say the Midwest or South, then residency programs directors are more familiar with the quality of those students (and their recommenders) and so might tend to interview and rank many students from the programs they’re familiar with. But, as a MS4, you have the option to do one or more “audition” or away rotations at other programs. These aways can open up additional other of the country to your residency applications even if your home school only has a regional reputation.
Also different programs have different policies about retaining med students as residents. Some will keep their own grads; some strongly encourage their grads to go elsewhere to prevent “in-breeding”. Some programs strongly favor in-state residency applicants even if they’re not graduates of their own school.
So lots of variables.
It depends on the school. Some do; some don’t. Sometimes there’s an appearance of favoring their own undergrad because the school receives a disproportionately large number of applications from its own undergrad which then skews the acceptance data.
I would say that most medical schools do not show a preference for their own undergrads. If they do, they risk becoming less attractive to applicants from other schools and they are limiting themselves to a restricted applicant pool. The case of Brown University Program of Liberal Medical Education (PMLE) comes to mind. This is a specific program where students admitted from high school are guaranteed entrance to Brown University Medical School (with some requirements along the way) -(8 years total). A few years ago, Brown started to lower the number of spots in the PMLE program so that they could have more spots available for students from other colleges that were interested in applying to Brown Med - Translation: they wanted a more diverse medical school class, and not so many from Brown’s undergrad programs.
As far as residency, I feel it is a different story. Some schools really like their own. Also, some med school grads choose to go elsewhere ( i am a good example ), while others decide to stay put for many considerations.
I don’t think that’s why they lowered the spots. I think it’s because PLMEs don’t take the MCAT and MCAT score is a component of med school ranking and they wanted to grow the reputation of the medical school which unfortunately means catering to USNWR at least to some extent.
I also don’t know to what extent the PLME program had people apply out while holding their spot - something that used to be done but now is not allowed. If every year they lost a given number of PLMEs to this, it makes sense to cut the numbers when you remove that policy.
Also admitting a high schooler to your medical school is very different from admitting someone at the end of undergrad.
19 There are no tiers, per se, in med schools. That's a College thing. However "prestige" is thought to closely track research dollars, so those schools higher up on the US News research ranking are thought of by premeds as more prestigious. As a Med student, it may mean better resources, particularly if you hope to do some research. It may mean your school attracts the faculty whose name is on the text book. I'd say networking aspects are actually a wash because the big name guys are often too busy to pick up the phone and try to help med students the way smaller school faculty might. So resources is the biggie, and mostly only if you plan to do high end research...
Will it help you match well? …. PDs get surveyed regularly and never put this toward the top of things they consider. I know from my own experience on such committees this wasn’t really ever a driving factor compared to other things….
20 (responding to statement: Forget bottom. Even a middle of the class ranked Harvard medical student would be ranked better to match than the #1 ranked University of Miami student).
“Actually this is false, and any PD will tell you so (in a survey or personally). But thanks for playing.
There are actually many books on the “Harvard Mystique” that talk about how comments like yours manage to keep this propaganda alive, despite the evidence.
But the truth of the matter is the top guy (top student with high Step scores and good evaluations and good research) at almost any US med school is going to match very very well and better, on average than someone outside of the top chunk of the more prestigious school. The middle ranked Harvard guy is probably going to match, but much more modestly….”
40: “… Take it from someone who actually served on committees, or take it from the regular PD surveys, but school name is very much a Lesser factor, rarely entering into the discussion.”
43 “… Yet when asked, PDs pretty universally state that school name is a lower or nonexistent factor. So who are you going to believe?”
IMO I think there’s a subjectivity to all aspects of med school/residency admission process. Kind of it’s an in the eye of the beholder/reader/decision maker(s) as to what weight, if any, is given to different factors. So I am not saying that prestige never enters into decision making, but I don’t think its magic fairy dust when compared to GPAs, MCATs, Steps, interviews, LORs, etc.
I am a fairly new parent to the medical school application game, but I hate to see parents get hung up on school prestige. My D goes to a decently ranked liberal arts college that is in no way elite. The school does have a rep for grade deflation, and rather than a 10 point scale has +/-, so a 90-92 at her school would be a 3.67, whereas for the other schools in the state, it would be a 4.0. Therefore, one of the med schools she applied to gives a .5 GPA boost to applicants from her school. So yes, though not elite, her school benefitted her, she got 3 med school acceptances, but she would probably have had a higher GPA had she gone to one of our state schools.
Most of the time on CC, the people that feel most strongly that prestige matters are those that go to prestigious schools. I get that, it is their experience, but time and again as jugulator states above, you hear from adcoms and PDs, the people that are actually deciding whether or not you get in to med school (and later on, residency), that where you go matters little.
Bottom line, last year around 59% of medical school applicants did not matriculate to any MD school. Rather than worrying about what undergrad will get you into a top med school, make sure to focus first on GPA wherever you go, then MCAT, EC, shadowing, LORs, so that you can get even one acceptance. The majority of med school applicants don’t get even one.
The problem like was that he’s from a state (Calif) that has a super glut of premeds. If that same student had gone to Purdue or Indiana or Alabama or Florida or Texas…he likely would have had multiple acceptances.
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apply to schools ..beneath him
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oh my! There are no US MD schools that are “beneath” anyone.
BTW…I don’t care how lousy UCLA’s premed advising is. Anyone with access to the internet (and certainly any UCLA student has such access) can find out almost anything they need to know from SDN or here. All a college junior needs to do on either site is make a thread, include stats/resume, and there will be a wealth of input (valuable input) of where the student should apply, and not apply.
15-22% of each class at elite colleges apply to US medical schools. They’re also exponentially more successful in gaining admissions. Disregarding the benefits of the high-achieving atmosphere of a top 10 or top 28 school is off the mark. And ignoring the benefits of your “brand” doesn’t align with reality.
My experience is the opposite. I see a lot of the people that go to prestigious schools having a tendency to say that prestige does not matter. And personally, I have have heard from adcoms and PDs that prestige does matter…and not a little.
Several of us have already said that there is no need to get hung up on the prestige thing because no one knows how much of an advantage it gives, and I think that is the whole point of this discussion.
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15-22% of each class at elite colleges apply to US medical schools. They’re also exponentially more successful in gaining admissions
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? how do you define “exponentially better”?? If 20% of elite school students apply to med schools, so say 250 apply, what percent do you think are accepted, and how is that “exponentially” more successful???