Getting into a Top Med School

SWHarborfan
Tue, 30 Mar 2010 12:18:01 +0000

Harvard Medical School grad, here, UC Berkeley undergrad student. There were students in my class from every tier of undergrad. school. What matters is your undergrad performance (and MCATs and research/health-care related activity showing ingenuity and commitment).

So, maybe, you want to consider picking a school with an eye to what is a good geo-socio-intellectual-academic-religious-etc. match for you instead of which undergrad is most likely to launch you. It’s really pretty irrelevant.

And, one thing I do hear redundantly, if anything will help re: the undergrad school choice, is that if the school is perceived as having grade deflation (e.g. CAL, Reed, Cal Tech, MIT), and you do well at such a school, medical schools will take note.

The year I applied Brown and Stanford were perceived as having grade inflation, and I know some applicants from both schools who did not do as well as I in terms of acceptance.