I am guessing that the OP is an international applicant, based on his/her emphasis on the prestige of his desired medical school.
What Frugaldoctor said: Yep!
“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.”
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.
Also…our US MD schools get an amazing amount of funding to ensure that they are excellent. The tuition charged is only a fraction. This country, and each state, has a vested interest in making sure that our MD schools are excellent.
Each US MD med school spends about $150k per year per med student. With that kind of money/spending, they can provide an excellent education.
But, the bottom line, is the MD education is flat in the US. The curriculum is set and is “assessed” regularly with shelf exams and USMLE testing.
If the schools weren’t excellent, we’d have schools where the students couldn’t pass these exams, and residencies would resist accepting their grads.
There isn’t a US med school that isn’t “good enough” for any med school applicant. No applicant is “too good” for any of them.
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I’m focusing more so on primary care but would like to attend a more prestigious med school
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Why? What do you think that will do for you?
And what do you consider to be prestigious?
And since when is any US MD med school “not prestigious”? Every one of them is impressive.
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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?
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First of all…at any “good school,” the premed prereqs will be difficult, so don’t think that if you go to a mid-tier that it will be easy for you to get a high GPA…it’s going to be hard either way.
HOWEVER… Since virtually all undergrads weed their premeds, if most of your premed classmates are “as strong” or stronger than you are, then the question is: How likely will you emerge with the A’s in those weeder classes?
I like following the premed posts here on CC and on that “other” premed forum. I consistently see premeds who attend their reach undergrad schools struggle with their GPAs…because their classmates are stronger than they are (a bunch of curve-breakers in the classroom ).
There’s a parent here whose child attended a top 5 undergrad. Her child went thru the med school app process last year. The student’s GPA was a 3.5, with a competitive MCAT. She didn’t get ANY MD interviews…so obviously, no MD acceptances. Do we think that she might have gotten some interviews/acceptances if she had gone to a lower ranked school? Probably. In this game, a traditional unhooked applicant needs a high GPA.
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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.
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Exactly.
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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.
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Right…and if you are interested in a MD/PhD program, then look for the SOMs with MTSP programs. Some will be SOMs that you’d expect, and some will probably be SOMs that you know little about.
Are you an international applicant? If so, then you have other hurdles to concern you, including the fact that so few int’l applicants get accepted to med schools (or can afford to pay).
Edit…I see that you’re a domestic student…resident of Indiana.
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3.76 unweighted gpa and 4.29 weighted gpa but I have a c on my transcript due to a semester of honors pre calc as a sophomore and all of my Bs are focused in sophomore year could I still get national merit....
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If your goal is truly to become a physician, then choose the best path to get you there.
^In addition to what @mom2collegekids said, the AMA also tightly controls the output of MDs in this country via medical schools. The number of spots each medical school can offer is controlled, as is the opening of new medical schools. Because of that, supply is limited, and the demand for physicians far exceeds the output of MDs. So new MDs don’t struggle to find work because of a glut the way that new JDs do, or the way that new MBAs below a certain rank may. That’s part of the reason why going to Harvard Med is really no different than going to Baylor or Ole Miss med, in terms of primary care.
So don’t worry about the prestige of your eventual medical school - not only because career-wise it likely won’t matter, but also because worrying about it now is moot because it will be so dependent upon your performance in graduate school.
HOWEVER. Every year around 50% of the people who apply to medical school are rejected. And those are the people who apply - large numbers of pre-med students fall off the pre-med track for a variety of reasons: they changed their mind, they realized their grades were too low, their interests brought them to another clinical field. Other students decide to take some time off before entering med school. Consider this when selecting a college; it’s not intended simply to serve as a stepping stone to medical school. It’s also the place where you will study for the next 4 years, and will be connected to through alumni associations and friendships for much of your career.
Also, a “state” or “public” school designation simply denotes where schools get their funding from - not their caliber. There are some truly amazing public universities. IU and Alabama are both excellent public universities, and neither will hurt your chances of going to medical school (anywhere, even top ones).
I think the issue is that the OP is a high school student and doesn’t understand that many aspects of the premed/med school app process are counter-intuitive. Med schools don’t care about school name, majors, minors, and other things that people assume.
I’ve seen kids pick BioMedEngineering as their major because they think it sounds sexy and will impress the med school Adcoms. I’ve also seen those same kids lamenting that their GPAs end up in the low 3s or high 2s…so they never make it to the point of any Adcom even seeing their app! (I’m not dissing premed eng’g majors. My own son was one. But it is a huge risk GPA-wise…an E major is probably the quickest way to end up with a lowish GPA)
I’ve seen kids hang onto double majors or minors that weren’t required…to the detriment of their GPAs.
Premeds often make missteps that end up causing them to go to Plan B…or spend years correcting those missteps to make their apps viable.
It’s safe to say that about 75% of freshman premeds never apply to med school. And, of the remaining that do apply, only about half even receive at least ONE MD acceptance.
And, those who get at least one MD acceptance are absolutely THRILLED!
With odds like that, focusing on a “top ten” med school as a high school student (or even an undergrad) is like focusing on winning a lottery.
Thank you all for your help your comments have been really insightful especially @mom2collegekids I’m currently a senior in Indiana thus all the questions
You need to find colleges that offer a lot of support and resources to their premed students AND where you’ll rank roughly in the top 25%.
The premed classes have nothing “medical” they’re just the foundation med schools want to see. In each of these classes you’ll need to be top 10-20% in order to have a shot at med school.
It could be UIndiana, Earlham, Grinnell, or further away St Olaf, Drake, Allegheny, Denison, or Illinois Wesleyan.
@natwhynot … IIRC, you’re an NMSF hoping to make NMF. If that happens, you’ll be in a position to complete your undergrad pre-med requirements for little or no cost if you find one of the large $$ unofficial NMF scholarship schools to be a fit for you.
If possible, I’d recommend you look into visiting Oklahoma. When my D2 and her bf visited (he’s planning on going to med school) I was very impressed by the pre-med mentoring program they talked about with him. He had set up that info session as part of the personalized tour planned through the National Merit office at OU. If you call them you can arrange your own personalized tour and ask them to include a pre-med info session for you as well.
Given the cost of med school, I’d strongly recommend you try to minimize your undergrad costs as much as possible within schools that are a fit for you. If you are named an NMF, that would give you several great opportunities to do so. Good Luck!!
"Should I go to a harder school like northwestern " - I was smiling reading it, why? D. was accepted to the Northwestern Med. School. Well, it is not top 10. but pretty darn high, definitely in top 20.
Another smile for Wolverine post. If I am correct what Wolverine represents, Michigan completely ignored my D’s application, not a peep from them. You never know…
D. turned down Northwestern for another school. She graduated this year and matched to her #1 residency choice in very selective specialty.
For references, D. graduated from in-state public college in OH. She still thinks that it was the best place that she could imagined for herself for UG. She was accepted to 4 Med. Schools out of 8 that she applied, 2 put her on hold and she withdrew from them, she did not feel that they were a good fit for her. Both were extremely selective and highly ranked. How anybody can tell before going to interviews that they wish to be at top 10 Med. School? Why? What if none of them are a good fit for a specific student?
As far as UG goes, choose the college that matches your personality and very wide range of interest, including potential future interests and do your best there, do your best anywhere, Harvard or your local unknown low ranked college. It is all in YOUR hands, I rather say, brain, attitude, work ethic, your own effort, nobody and no place will do it for you. And if the college is free or close to be free it is a great cherry on this cake. Then you can negotiate with parents paying for the Med. School. My D. was on full tuition Merit at college and she has graduated from Med. School with no debt.
US med school programs are rather standardized. In the world of medical education, med school is referred to as **undergraduate ** medical education. The first two years are for the most part science courses. The third year are required approx. 5-10 week clinical clerkships (aka courses) in family med, internal med, surgery, psychiatry, neurology, peds, OB/Gyn. It’s kind of akin to 31 flavors giving students a taste of various areas of med to, in part, help them decide their future. The last year is for the most part electives. So I like to say that by time they graduate from their undergrad med education, they know a lot of stuff, but they don’t know anything. The real education begins in **graduate ** med education (aka residency, fellowships). Any US med school can be a springboard to get a student into whatever area of med they want and hence all US med schools are excellent schools.
You really should pick your medical school based on what happens in clerkships and electives and, to some degree, any special emphases on clinical skills.
Unfortunately, most of the CC posts I see from doctor wannabees have to do with perceived prestigiosity and name recognition.
I agree about name reputation/prestige. I think people misunderstand med school training in general believing that when a student graduates, hey they’re a doctor, and when they graduate from a more prestigious school, hey they’re a more prestigious doctor. But there are life and death reasons newly graduated med students from all US schools (aka interns) work under the supervision of attendings, fellows, senior residents. Staff Nurses can probably function better initially. There’s truth to the old saying that the worst day to show up as a patient is July 1, the historically first day for newly graduated med students.
I do not know how a college student can pick a med school based on clerkships. Clerkship experiences are unique for every student and few if any college students would be able to distinguish one from another as each clerkship is dependent on where one Is assigned (hospital, clinic, MD’s office, etc) on any given week, what attending, fellow, resident one is working with on the day(s) you’re there, and the patient’s needs on the day(s) one is present. Even picking a school on electives is problematic as not all electives are always available to sign up for as they can be very limited in number of people who can sign up, or a student might be out of town on an interview when it’s offered.
There is actually a big difference in programs at different Medical Schools. And that was my D’s criteria #2 for choosing. Her very first criteria was as always - location. Despite of all the push from the pre-med advisor at her college, she refused to apply further than 6 hours of driving from home and ended up attending Med. School 2 hours away. She choose her school because of the program which was different from many others. They did not teach science courses during first 2 years. The program taught human body systems and applied whatever science was appropriate for this system Also, she liked the idea that her second year ended by March 1 of the second year, giving them more opportunities for various rotations, to include Research as one of the rotations and take time to prepare for Step 1, which is undoubtedly the most important 3 digits number in Medical Student future.
You see you got to go so much deeper than the name recognition. D. was so positive that she would end up attending Fienberg (Northwestern Med. .School) that she dragged us to her Second look so that we could check all apartment options for her. We even took vacation days for that. She was not 100% sure even after an interview, so she went to both Second Look events at her 2 finalists. Well, D. changed her mind after Second Look events primarily because of the differences in the program. Of course, such “important” thing as not being able to have car in Chicago also played a “crucial” role, but joking aside, she did not feel comfy in windy Chicago at all and that was also one factor, while not being at the very top, but certainly something that she mentioned.
How in a world somebody may choose top 10 without much of personal experience with any schools, that is absolutely mind boggling.
I understand that med schools tweak their overall programs. I was talking specifically about a college student picking a med school based on clerkships/electives when these unique experiences are 3/4 years in the future and there are so many unknown variables involved.
Also a lot of accepted med students only have one acceptance and cannot be too picky about a program’s structure.
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I do not know how a college student can pick a med school based on clerkships. Clerkship experiences are unique for every student and few if any college students would be able to distinguish one from another as each clerkship is dependent on where one Is assigned (hospital, clinic, MD’s office, etc) on any given week, what attending, fellow, resident one is working with on the day(s) you’re there, and the patient’s needs on the day(s) one is present.
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I agree with this. MS3’s, at least at my son’s SOM, are assigned places. Right now, he’s assigned to a private hospital for rotations. I’m guessing that this hospital has some sort of agreement with the SOM. There are, I think, 4 hospitals that the students are assigned to.
I don’t think any of this was a consideration (or really would be a consideration) when he was picking where to go. In fact, he mostly just picked by location of the SOM, cost (instate rates MUCH cheaper than private tuition!), lots of research going on, and it is well-ranked (altho he would have been happy to attend any of his accepted SOMs).
Okay so a college student knows that students at whatever med school rotate clerkships at say a county hospital, a VA hospital, out patient clinics, etc? What could that possibly mean to most applicants?
Med student experiences in clerkships are unique to each student. How much, if anything, a third year student gets to do is related to so many variables (which clerkship one is in, at what facilities, who the attendings, fellows, residents are, patient needs) that it is simply impossible for any college student to know how much, if anything, students get to do. If a college student talks to a med student, they might learn what that med student’s experiences were, but that’s it. To then make generalizations that that’s what med students get to do in whatever med school’s say OB/gyn clerkship is a faulty conclusion. Actually OB/gyn is a good example. My S got to “deliver” 3-4 (I don’t remember exact number now) babies in his OB/gyn clerkship. (Also let’s not exaggerate S’s role, he was mainly the catcher who after dad cut the cord S carried newborn to table for nurses to attend to.) But what if those 4 babies turned out to be C sections. Then S may have got to scrub in and watch 4 C sections, but he would have “delivered” 0 babies during his OB/gyn clerkship. What if it had been 2 deliveries, 2 C sections. You just can’t make generalizations about unique experiences.
First point I’d like to highlight is that most pre-meds, even those with immense clinical experiences rarely have an understanding what inpatient medicine in an academic setting is even like. Everyone has enough personal experience as a patient to “get” what outpatient medicine is like, but being on the wards and rounding with the extended team full of interns, residents, (fellows) and attending is typically a black box even well into the preclinical years. Not understanding that dynamic makes it really impossible to make a meaningful assessment of which school offers the “best” clinical experience to students.
I also agree with the legitimate randomness of clerkships for M3’s. WAY too many variables and WAY too much uncertainty about what will be most important to a particular student in their future. So many people change their path from the time they start to when they begin The Match to know that going to a great [insert specialty of choice] program is the right choice before they even start.
Just one example, but pediatrics has a very distinctive seasonality to it. Children’s hospitals and their ED’s swell past capacity during the winter as bronchiolitis season hits from November to March…and are practically empty in June/July. Students, often with limited control over the sequencing of their clerkship order, end up with wildly different experiences on peds depending on when their clerkship lands. And to be honest, even as someone who watched students come through for the past 6 years of my own training, I don’t know which extreme results in a better experience - having a bunch of patients to see (most with the same problem) but with residents who are swamped and will have limited time to give you any attention, or in the other direction having few patients but more time with your residents.
This is independent of all the other variables - attendings, fellows, senior residents and interns and their relative comfort/interest in teaching and “letting the med student do it”. As a resident and fellow, I loved to sit down with the med students and do small group teaching but to have to sit through a med student history and physical…no way. My friends and colleagues had different opinions and preferences.
Multiply the variation to the other clerkships and it’s just impossible to evaluate as a pre-med. In my opinion, beyond looking at schools with accelerated pre-clinical time, or the mix of what a school requires (eg some schools have rural family medicine blocks, others require neurology or EM), clerkships do not represent a data point worthy of stratifying schools.
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