Getting into a top ten med school

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
1

What kinds of students get
Into the top medical schools? Isn’t it based more so on GPA and the MCAT than the prestige of the undergraduate university, or is that not true?

Should I go to a harder school like northwestern or Johns Hopkins for pre med or stick to a state school? I could get into schools at the level of Johns Hopkins and such, but is spending money at the school worth it when I’m getting full rides to state schools? This just brings me back to the prestige question and if attending a school like iu or university of Alabama would hinder my chances of getting into a top ten med school

2

What’s considered a “top” medical school varies by the kind of medical education you are looking for.

3

Research or primary care?

4

Why do you care about getting into a top 10 med school? What do you think that will do for you?

Do you realize that all US MD schools are excellent?

Are you planning to go into academic medicine?

5

60 undergraduate institutions are represented in Harvard medical school’s class of 165 students who entered in August 2015.
https://hms.harvard.edu/departments/admissions/applying/selection-factors-admissions-statistics

6

@natwhynot The top ten medical schools for primary care are all state schools and most of the top twenty the same.

7

Here’s a WUSTL list for you to consider as you make your decision:

http://mdadmissions.wustl.edu/how-to-apply/who-chooses-wu/

8

How are ALL US medical schools excellent?

I have seen you post that several times and do not understand.

9

Because they hand out MDs?

10

All perhaps is an exaggeration, but most are excellent for the sole reason that they must be excellent in order to produce doctors.

11

The accredited US medical schools provide a curriculum that varies very little from institution to institution. A Harvard Medical school graduate is not any better than a University of Mississippi Medical School graduate. The differences are in research opportunities, clinical cases, and quality of fellow students as it relates to their educational background. But none of these result in a better MD. @mom2coIIegekids is completely correct.

12

I would say their are differences if your goal is to be an academic/research doctor, as the delineation of resources to have an adequate base for such studies is much different.

13

The goal of all medical schools is to prepare students for graduate medical education, whether it be clinical or research.

People tend to forget that there is work required beyond medical school.

14

Any significant research you are going to do is going to be at the residency and/or fellowship level. Medical school education is standardized. Residency/Fellowship is primarily where the division between academic and research begins to develop For instance, do you complete a community oriented residency in pediatrics that trains local pediatricians or do you complete a pediatric residency at a major academic teaching hospital? Both will prepare you for being a pediatrician. But one will prepare you better for academic medicine. Whether you come from Harvard or State U will not matter. As far as your undergraduate education is concerned, just do well.

15

So how would the level of difficulty of the school affect one’s chances? Is it better to go to an easier state school for a higher GPA or a more elite school? Do med schools care what your undergrad school is?

I was linked to list of undergrad schools that had students at Wash U’s med school for the current school year. Can someone link me to a list like that for Harvard or John Hopkins’ med schools?

Thank you for all your help!

16

I’m focusing more so on primary care but would like to attend a more prestigious med school

17

What are you making these assumptions based on?

18

Generally speaking, med schools don’t care if you went to Boise State, Texas A & M, University of Central Florida, or Johns Hopkins. Why? Because they recognize: 1) Organic Chemistry is hard no matter where you take it; and 2) Many potentially great doctors didn’t necessarily have the opportunity to go to an Ivy as an undergrad.

What they will be looking for in an applicant is someone who relates well to people on a personal level, has a solid undergraduate record of achievement, has an excellent MCAT score, has availed herself of multiple opportunities to learn about the medical profession through internships and volunteerism, has shown she can do research, and, increasingly, has taken an extra year or two of postgrad study and/or work in the field. In general, you want to look interested, really smart, and personable. You might be surprised just how many candidates fall significantly short in at least one of these areas.

Having said that, where you do your undergrad work may be important to YOU. If prestige is a priority for you, then by all means go to the most elite school that you can get into and that you can afford.

19

There are medical schools that prepare you primarily to practice medicine (care for sick people) and medical schools that do that and, in addition, also strive to produce leaders in the field through medical research and/or a passion for making an impact beyond care of patients or their immediate institution. If you are aiming at the former, any medical school in the US will enable you to do that successfully - and state medical schools are particularly good at producing excellent practitioners. If you want a career in academic medicine (research, thought leadership, impact on the practice of medicine in your specialty or on medical education), then it helps if you attend a medical school that is well known for producing researchers and leaders in the field - that is a subset of the list of all US medical schools. If you attend a medical school that isn’t known for academic medicine, you can still end up with a career in that area - it just means you have to make it happen with less institutional support.

Back to your question: Any reputable undergraduate institution can prepare you for a career in medicine. If you want to take care of sick people, then avoid the debt. You don’t need a Hopkins undergrad for this. If your goal is a career in academic medicine, your state U can prepare you for that too as long as you demonstrate your potential as a future researcher or leader in the field. But because Hopkins Medical School is synonymous with academic medicine, you may have more opportunities there as an undergraduate for research and mentoring - but also a lot more intense competition.

So, what kind of medical career are you looking for? Or do you even know at this early stage in your life? My answer would be go debt free and if you want academic medicine you can still attend an academic medical school from a state u (as the stats from top academic medical schools clearly show). And if you change your mind about medicine, as most people do, you’ll graduate without a load of debt. If you are 100% committed to academic medicine, and/or the amount of additional debt is small relative to your family resources, and you like an academically intense environment - then Hopkins and it’s ilk might be a good fit.

20

Google the bios of the chiefs of surgery and medicine at whatever schools sound prestigious to you, which are presumably the usual suspects – all the Ivies along with Stanford, WUSTL, Northwestern, Hopkins, UCSF, Mayo. These folks are at the pinnacle of prestigious medical achievement, but you will find amongst them a very mixed bag of undergrad and medical diplomas. High rankings and whatever constitutes prestige certainly aren’t bad things to be avoided, but if your goal is a successful medical career – defined by any metric you choose – then you have to realize that so much more goes into it than than the ranking of your undergrad and medical degree granting institutions.