<p>^ I’ve heard med schools absolutely love UChicago students, even with “low” (relative) GPAs. Everyone knows and respects the fact that UC students are sharp as tacks, relentlessly challenged and understand a 4.0 in that environment just isn’t very realistic. Also, UC students tend to have very strong MCAT scores and access to great research opportunities at the college. They’re also kind to their own when applying to Pritzker, a test enemy to their belief in the product the college develops.</p>
<p>If your daughter has done research and has a decent GPA and is passionately seized with the idea of medicine, I’m confident she’ll get into medical school. Or perhaps you’re worried about the caliber of medical school?</p>
DS’s college is no Univ. of Chicago. But not a single studentbin DS’s class (and likely the class in the prior year) was graduated with a 4.0.</p>
<p>To get an A consistently in every class seems to be very hard at his school - even though many said his college, unlike U. of Chicago or CalTech, has a grade inflation.</p>
<p>I somehow believe that the med school kind of knows roughly that what an applicant’s percentile is if the students are from one of the “premed factories” - which usually means any of the top colleges.</p>
<p>@artloverplus, DS did not choose a college that is a step below and he turned out fine. Actually a quote knowledgable CCer said his school likely saved DS’s skin in his application cycle due to his somewhat “too relaxed” style of being a premed.</p>
<p>There are multiple roads to do premed, I think. (Well, we as parents did pay a little bit more for college – but I think we save a little bit by attending a need-aware med school in the end.)</p>
<p>It appears: For pre-med student, it would be better if the student attends an UG school where that student’s Stats are higher than the most of the crowd. If that is the case, then we ASSUME (3.8GPA+32MCAT) makes a better MD applicant compared to (3.4GPA+32MCAT) and (3.2GPA+32MCAT). </p>
<h1>DETAILS:</h1>
<p>For us, getting into Duke/UNC/ECU is not a question. The BIG question is: Can we get out of these schools as a 3.8 to 4.0 GPA candidate. Unfortunately you get only one chance to attend UG, so one has to make the right decision based on the known facts. My theory is Student+StudentCompetition will decide his/her GPA. I am assuming, in most of the colleges/Universities, Top 10% of students are getting “A” grades. Please correct me if this Top10% stat is incorrect. Based on that, below is my reverse engineering theory. </p>
<p>If he attends Duke:
Top 1 to 80% students WILL be in my S’s caliber
Any one knows the Median GPA of an outgoing Duke UG? If we know then I can assume that is what my S’s likely GPA. If no one has, my assumption is, we are likely to end up with more B’s and few C’s.
Conservatively/Likely a 3.2 GPA</p>
<p>If he attends UNC:
Top 1 to 40% students WILL be in my S’s caliber
We cannot use Median GPA here due to variation of students caliber
We likely end up with more B’s and few A’s.
Conservatively/Likely a 3.4 GPA</p>
<p>If he attends ECU:
Top 1 to 10% students WILL be in my S’s caliber
We cannot use Median GPA here due to huge variation of students caliber
We likely end up with more A’s and few B’s.
Conservatively/Likely a 3.8 GPA</p>
<p>It appears: For pre-med student, it would be better if the student attends an UG school where that student’s Stats are higher than the most of the crowd. If that is the case, then we ASSUME (3.8GPA+32MCAT) makes a better MD applicant compared to (3.4GPA+32MCAT) and (3.2GPA+32MCAT). </p>
<p>Agreements and disagreements are welcome. Thank you for your time and patience.</p>
<p>Yes. Too many assumptions. Anything is possible. You are correct. Unfortunately every one may have to go thru process. </p>
<p>My main point is: For pre-med student, it would be better if the student attends an UG school where that student’s Stats are higher than the most of the crowd.</p>
<p>Correct. PreMed-Advisors should have those data. Not sure whether they would give out to students. Also, are these data pertains to only MD. Or DO also included here? More learning!!!</p>
<p>AMCAS data only deal with MD admissions. School data can include anything they choose to include. There’s no standardization about how data are reported.</p>
<p>That is a good assumption, but a 3.8 GPA student with 36MCAT will assure him get into a med school. Your S may consider to take a full summer plus a gap quarter/semester to prepare for it. And why ECU not a college like Rochester or Syracuse? RU give very high scholarships to IVY quality students. In addition Bama will give more than full ride to high stats. </p>
<p>@stemary,
This is the first time I have heard that Pritzker likes their own UG graduates, if you go to UofC board, the negatives running on Pritzker against taking its own UG graduates are pretty high.
Yes, the research opportunity at UofC is unparalleled, D in her 4 years time had published two major research papers. We were impressed her name was in the displace case at the lab.</p>
<p>^Incorrect way to choose the UG. You are concern with 2 things: first and foremost is the personal match, your personality and wide range of interest should match offerings at UG. Second huge consideration (unless you have unlimited resources) is the cost. Full tuition or close is prefferred if considering Medical School. Then do you best and do not think that if you choose some very low ranked, unknown local 4 year college, your will glide thru getting your As. YOU WILL NOT. You still will have to work very hard. Do not also assume that many Ivy caliber do not end up going to these lower ranked colleges. Cehck out Honors colleges, they are filled with valedictorians and many are from rigorous private schools. You will have plenty of competition no matter where you go, so do not be concerned with this one way or another. In regard to Pritzker, pecifically, apply bu be prepared to get rejected after you make you application fee payment. That is what happens to most, including those who are accepted at other top 20s, including but not limited to Northwestern Feinberg. Nobody knows exactly what Pritzker is looking for. Many apply only because of “why not if I am applying to Norhtwestern anyway”.
Opprotunity for Research is absolutely everywhere, including very long time commitments in both UG and Medical school. Do not be very impressed with some specific school. The are opprotunities for “first author” designation, conferences,…etc. </p>
<p>If a student is accepted to any particular college, I assume that the powers to be at the college have made a decision based on their review of an application that a student, at least on paper, should be able to handle the college’s curriculum. Once offered admission, the final decision to attend a particular college should include other factors including but not limited to things like cost, location, and opportunities offered by any one college, etc. Just as, probably more importantly, and referenced in several other posts above, a student should try to go to college where he/she will thrive, be happy, etc. This can be truly difficult to ascertain in advance as questions about whether a student can handle living on their own; whether a student can successfully time manage on their own; whether they can handle new peer pressures; whether they can deal with terrible profs; whether they can handle.…the myriad of issues that will crop up in every college student’s life, etc; the answers all to which are yet unknown or poorly defined. </p>
<p>My point is it seems like a waste of time to be giving any, even elevated weight, to the “known fact” of the GPAs of current/past students of a particular college in determining where a student should attend college for the best shot at med school. It seems as if you’re seeking some magic formula. To think that students at some college have “X” GPA, I know my S/D will get “X” or better GPA at some college because he/she is of the same/higher/lower caliber equals the best choice for med school. </p>
<p>The road to med school is littered with bright wide eyed premed hopefuls. I suspect other people can provide more accurate numbers but I’ll guess that 130-140K??? students typically show up the first day of college every year claiming to be “premed”, 80-90K (including repeaters) actually end up taking the MCAT, with 40-50K actually applying, with around 19K actually get accepted to at least one med school. Whether they’re one of these 19K will be how any one student successfully navigates or not the many issues they have yet to encounter and not be because of other student’s GPAs. I would argue that the actual formula is student starts as premed at some college plus 18 year old thrust into unknown environment equals will never start med school. </p>
<p>This thread kind of reminds me what my wife often tells me, happy wife is happy life. If med school is your S’s goal, I’d say the same thing applies to a student in college, happy S (not other students GPAs) will give him best shot at med school. </p>
<p>Frankly, this came out of my D’s mouth when she was choosing her UG: “I will do fine anywhere”.<br>
As I keep saying, attitude is everything. Her attitude has proven to be correct. Self-reliency is always a winner. Whatever one chooses, just do your best and you will achieve your goal. Pre-med is very hard, but it is NOT a rocket science. Hard work will prevail, no genius is required. </p>
<h2>Frankly, this came out of my D’s mouth when she was choosing her UG: “I will do fine anywhere”</h2>
<p>I always found the “My kids did just fine at <em>insert lower ranked college</em>” odd because nobody can predict what the child would have done in a different setting. If you are happy with the results, fine, but don’t use the performance of your child as “proof” that school selection doesn’t matter. There is no way to prove or disprove that the child wouldn’t have performed even better, unless they ended up at something like Harvard or Johns Hopkins for medical school.</p>
<p><<<always found the “My kids did just fine at <em>insert lower ranked college</em>” odd because nobody can predict what the child would have done in a different setting. I<<<<</p>
<p>this cuts both ways…I always found it odd when people say things like, “my child’s top school opened doors for him”…the child may have had great success going elsewhere.</p>
<p>^Performance of each student is reflection of his/her effort and NOT anywhow reflection of the UG / Medical School or whtaever other istutuion is chosen. Yes, I agree that if person has reached his/her goal, then the person did very well. Specifically, my D. is attending the Medical School of her dream way back in HS. What better one can ask for. In addition she had other very very good choices and she had very hard time deciding on which Med. School to attend. Again, her attitude of “I will do fine anywhare” has benn working so far. But we are not at the goal yet, she has not applied to residencies. Her general goal was to be accepted at about 50% of Med. Schools that she has applied. It was accomlished precisely. No regrets, looking back with comp0lete satisfaction.<br>
Comment for overall process. Many are using as criteria the aspects that are totally out of student control. Not a good idea at all. But if one wants to waste the time, why not? It is entertaining to say the least. </p>
<p>“You’re confident that she would have selected the med school she’s at, even of all of the rejects were on the table? Just curious.”
-Very confident. First, she had 2 rejects. One was at the location where she was accepted to another highly ranked Medical School (higher ranked than D’s choice). She turned it down while location was one of the primary concern. Another (higher criteria) was her preference for the program at her current Medical school. Do not get me worng. She has plenty, plenty of classmates from Harvard, other Elite colleges, including those with the PhD (Harvard), Masters of science (JHU), lawyers and others, while Berkeley UG is beating all other UGs in number of graduates in D’s Medical School class. Apparently all these applicants (many from CA) have chosen D’s Medical School for whatever reasons (I can guarantee you that location for them was very very undesirable, while fo my D. it was preferrable). There were no instance so far when D. was feeling inadequate in comparison to all others. While she has not been graded in her first 2 years (p/f), her Step 1 score is well in line with her goal and she was told by her dean and many others that she is done well. Again, we still have to see the final result - match (every time I say that, I feel shaking)
Also, D. was surrounded “by the highest concentration of exceptional talent.” at her Honors college in public in-state UG. Vast majority of them were valedictorians, many from rigorous private HS (including my D.). Her Honors college places 100% of Medical School applicants into Medical Schools, good number get accepted to top 20s (again, including my D.). Very many around her had the hardest time deciding on which Medical School to attend.</p>
<p>…as I keep saying, choose whatever pleases you, but be prepared to work hard and you will achieve…and keep yourself away from all ney-sayers, they are loosers, they have nothing better to do but put down others.</p>