<p>Thanks for the advice bluebayou. I self studied AP Chem and AP Bio last year and am taking AP Physics. If I found these courses to not be challenging, do you think I will do well in those courses at UCLA? I might take humanities/music/other classes to boost my gpa, but I’m concerned about my science GPA. Science is my best subject and comes easily to me, but I hear it’s VERY cutthroat.</p>
<p>Go to a place where you will be happy for four years. And someplace that has alternative majors if premed doesn’t pan out.</p>
<p>^That is the whole problem with deciding bluebayou—in our DD’s case, she has about 4 schools on her list right now ranging from sure thing to get into state school to highly selective. She likes them all. The question is, is there an advantage to going to the highly selective over the relatively easy state school? All list similar med school acceptance rates. One of the state schools she looked at doesn’t weed out med school applications and has a 50% acceptance rate. Other schools weed out and have 90+% rates. How do you really evaluate programs then? Personally I don’t see an issue with weeding out. If you can’t cut and undergrad science course, do you really belong in medical school? Maybe I am off base with that, who knows?</p>
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<p>Kind of a misnomer. Technically, no college weeds kids out of anything. But ALL science courses – no matter where offered – are graded on a curve, actual or nominal; thus, unlike hume/lit courses, it is impossible for 50% of the Frosh science class to earn A’s, for example.</p>
<p>If she likes all four equally, go with the cheaper option, or the one with more perqs, or with the better study abroad program, or with better food, or…</p>
<p>But just understand that a more “difficult” college may have a more liberal grading policy. For example, in my state, the two most difficult campuses (Cal and UCLA), have the highest mean gpa’s of all UCs. OTOH, UC Merced, which is the “easiest” by any measure, has the lowest mean gpa. The point is that the easier UC campus awards fewer A’s and B’s and more C’s.</p>
<p>Some colleges won’t give recommendations to students for med school which “prevents” students from applying. The one school doesn’t prevent anyone from applying which is what I meant by “weeding” out I guess.</p>
<p>I guess what it comes down to is if college #1 has a 95% acceptance rate into medical school, the committees see all of these “qualified” candidates coming across their desks. Does that give them a leg up on college #2 where they see about half of their students as being “qualified” for medical school. Does that prejudice them that maybe college #2 isn’t doing as good of a job preparing kids for med school? Is this something anyone will admit to :)?</p>
<p>All of the schools she has looked at so far have their pluses and minuses. There isn’t one that stands out to her, yet, anyway so what she is looking at now is which will give her the best chance to get into medical school. She is a junior so she has time to decide, but, we are running out of time to look at schools too because of her summer and fall schedules.</p>
<p>Med admission committees really look at the individual–not the name of the school on the diploma. In fact–the first round of screening for med school admission is done by a computer program which screens out unqualified candidates so the adcomms never actually see how many total applications come from college #1 vs. college #2 come across the admissions desk. They only see the applications which meet the school’s standards. Truly once the application passes into committee, it’s considered on it own merits with little regard for the name on the diploma.</p>
<p>So is safe to say that a Diploma from Yale and a Diploma from State U make no difference in med school admissions if stats are the same (or comparable)? Or do they make no difference only in the first round screening process?</p>
<p>WayOutWestMom–what is your background? Do you have experience with med school selections? It’s hard to weigh advice here so I am just curious. If what you say is true your undergrad school has zero effect on med school placement, true?</p>
<p>S turned down Yale in 2004 to accept a Morehead Scholarship at UNC…he was one of 7 from his HS class accepted to Yale and the only one who did not matriculate. He graduated in a class of 82 boys and over 27% of the class ended up ay HPYS with another large number at Duke, Brown, Dartmouth, Penn and other like “elite” schools.</p>
<p>When Med school admission rolled around he landed at a much higher (top 20) school than any of the HPY kids from his prep school or friends from another local coed prep school. One classmate (who went to S) ended up at what is considered a peer Med school to his.</p>
<p>All the others from both schools ended up at much lower ranked schools even a large number of kids with degrees from H, including one who was a double HMS legacy.</p>
<p>Ivy undergrad does not guarantee elite med school admission, in fact it doesn’t even guarantee top 25 Med school admission.</p>
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Wow, this is very impressive!</p>
<p>As a comparison, in my kid’s high school graduating class (which has about 25-30 National Scholar Semi-finalists because of their PSAT scores each year), 0.5% of the class ended up at HPYS. In general, unless you are a hooked student, you do not have a decent chance to get into HPYS colleges if you are not one of the top 5 kids (both in academics and in EC) from your public high school graduating class. This is how the public high school works in terms of college admission. One kid with 2400 SAT but a slightly lower class rank, about 9 or 10, did not get into HPYS (In this case, it is more likely due to a non-top-5 EC among the graduating class, than the class rank.)</p>
<p>BTW, Morehead >= top Ivies, IMO. I believe the medical school adcoms would notice that you S was a Morehead at UNC, not just a typical student at UNC.</p>
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I think its the latter, if there is such a screening at the school. I am not a medschool adcom, I only served in adcom of grad school before. My assumption is that all admission process is handled by people, and people can have differing ways and criteria even in the context of the school-specific goals and the general medical admission norms. One adcom member in a ‘top’ medschool said: she looks at “MCAT scores, gpa, science gpa, other gpa and gpa by year, school attended and major.” She even looks at the highschool classes, AP and such, etc. I think the blanket statement like ‘UG schools do not matter, only the GPA counts’ is quite a misleading statement. They do look at everything. Perhaps, a 3.9 GPA at a State U may be preferred to 3.0 at Yale. But it would be hard to say the StateU 3.9 is better than Yale 3.5, or vice versa.</p>
<p>Which Med. school applicant end up going also depends on which ones they applied and which they choose to attend. I know some people who simply do not apply to the very top schools and there is another group who apply to wide range but choose to go to either cheapest or closest or the one that they can have a car or they use some other (not ranking) criteria . Not everybody is going to the highest ranked that they got accepted. My own D. did not for her specific reasons, despite the fact that the one she has .
So the fact that some Ivy gradutes end up at lower ranked Med. Schools do not tell us whole story.</p>
<p>Just an ignorant parent here, but I cannot believe that undergrad college “makes no difference.”</p>
<p>For one, academics are prestige hounds, by definition. (They can’t help themselves – it’s in their DNA.) Second, Yale is just gonna offer more opportunities to its average student than Podunk State U can offer to its average student. (Yes, premeds need to be above average, but since we have nothing else to go with, ‘average student’ is all that we can assume.) Third, prestige colleges such as Yale are gonna have prestige professors, and lots of ‘em. A rec from a leading professor in his/her field that says the applicant walks on water is gonna receive an interview. And finally, one has to recognize that Yale has much higher curves than Podunk U. With a 3.55 mean gpa, Yale just awards more A’s. (I’d be surprised if it a D is even possible unless a student just didn’t show up.) In comparison, UC Merced has a mean gpa of <3.0. UC Merced awards a LOT of C’s and lower. So it is not so easy to say that a student who would necessarily be middlin’ at Yale (3.5) would be a star at Podunk U.</p>
<p>OTOH, if one is a merit scholar at Podunk U, one gets first dibs on everything, even professors for on-campus research. Then the ‘average’ student does not apply. (And no, I don’t buy the idea that someone who gets into an Ivy is automatically at the top of his/her class at State Uni. I know of several kids who turned down top 10 Unis and LACs and are excellent students at UCLA & Cal (~3.6) , but not stars.</p>
<p>^Well it did not make a diff. for my D’s acceptance to Med. School (graduted from State UG) where she is surrounded by Ivy / other very Elite (including few lawyers, PhD from Harvard, several MS). Without counting, when we went to white coat ceremony, it seems that majority were from Ivy / Elite with official highest representation from Berkeley. Meanwhile others like my D. were accepted from state UGs. The larger % could be explained by the fact that Ivy / Elite graduates have been heavily pre-sected at elast 2 times: on admission to UG an by pre-med committee at their respective UG, which I heard is more stringent at Ivy / Elite since they care a lot about statistics of their graduates getting accepted to Med. School, while state UG might let more people slip thru their pre-med commitee. This is my opinion as a parent of kid who went to state UG.</p>
<p>Again, from my prospective, this seems to be incorrect on all accounts:
“Second, Yale is just gonna offer more opportunities to its average student than Podunk State U can offer to its average student. (Yes, premeds need to be above average, but since we have nothing else to go with, ‘average student’ is all that we can assume.) Third, prestige colleges such as Yale are gonna have prestige professors, and lots of 'em.”
-Opportunities are everywhere for every single pre-med, as you pointed correctly, they are not average students, the average fell out way before they start seeking opportunities. Assumption about average student does not apply to pre-med.
-Prestige profs are often the ones who do ton of research and RESEARCH is their first priority, not teaching UGs. That is how grant $$$ are obtained and school rank is raised. My D. talked to her friends and compared and realized that close relationships with profs that she enjoyed at her state UG (including being hand picked for SI job and profs being available for help) does not exist at many highly ranked / elite places where profs do not treat UG students are their first priority, where TAs paly much more important role than she was used at her UG.</p>
<p>bluebayou–logically I agree with you, but from other information gathered here, the UG information is not part of the initial selection process and it’s in your child’s best interest to go to the school when they have the best chance to get the highest GPA–assuming of course that they have a respectable science department and good pre-med advisers. Looking back over the years, knowing this now, it makes perfect sense why the tiny LAC in our state have higher med school acceptance rates than the “prestigious” schools in our state. When classes are curved, that curve is pretty high if everyone in your class is a 4.0 from a “top” high school vs having a smattering of 4.0’s, a bunch of 3.3’s and some 2.9’s in the same class.</p>
<p>^Also, if peer is a concern, keep in mind that Honors at some state schools have priamrily valedictorians from top/private HS’s. It probably depends on cut for Honors and number of spots. If number of spots is 200 and cut is top 2% of HS class and ACT=31+ you pretty much will insure about the same caliber students as at Ivy / Elite who for various reasons decided to apply to State UG instead (that was the case with my D.)</p>
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Public U has lower mean GPA because in general the revenue is not directly student tuition dollars. But if the student enrollment and tuition dollars directly impact their budget or revenue, then they will have to raise their mean GPA. Now, with the very top high school graduates going to Yale, while the Podunk U getting the above average or even top quartile, if these kids (who turned down Yale and chose Podunk) tried, they will be near top of class. The problem at these top Ivy schools, no matter how brilliant these kids may have been in their highschool, half of them will be below average in the college … this is what the caltech dean said to the parents haha.</p>
<p>The thing is though that if a kid answers all questions correctly and on top gets all extra correctly, then it is 100+% on the test, no matter how others are done. And if this is the goal for every single test in every single class, easy or hard, like the subject or not, then here you get your all A’s. Profs are not suppose to have questions that they did not cover, not in UG. Standardized tests are different sotry, but again, standardized tests are the same at every single UG in the country, that is why they are called standardized.</p>
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<p>Perhaps, but the initial process does not much matter. What matters are the more subjective factors which take over once one meets the interview threshold. It is those holistic factors that turn into an offer. For example, the #1 correlation of getting into Harvard Med is to attend Harvard undergrad. (Yes, Harvard UG also has the best test-takers in the world, so it’s UG mcat scores will be really high.)</p>
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<p>Absolutely correct. (But unfortunately, there is no way of knowing what college that is, with perhaps the exception of Brown: A- average in the premed sciences!)</p>
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<p>Statistically true. Thus, would you rather be “average” at Podunk U with a 3.0 mean, or “average” at Brown with a 3.65 mean? Which will look better for professional school applications.</p>
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<p>That is an untestable/unprovable theory. </p>
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<p>hahahahaha - Profs can do what they want – and they do! Sometimes they have to, just to make that curve. They could not sleep at night knowing that 50% of the students scores 95+ on a recent test. :D</p>