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<p>Really? Other than the proverbial propensity for perpetuation of pomposity, what might those be? #:-S 
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<p>^^^
lol</p>
<p>To muddy the waters further: the majority of med school matriculants do not come directly from undergrad any more. The median admission age is 25, and more mature applicants are favored. </p>
<p>Most applicants these days take a “glide year” after UG to do something med related (research, public health travel, volunteer) while they fill out the scads of applications, attend hopefully scads of interviews. It is very hard to combine that much time applying and travel with full time college. Look at med school advising websites at Harvard, Hopkins and Amherst, who all recommend a 5 year plan. Those applications are stronger with senior year sciences and another year to prepare for MCAT. Another large group do “post-bac” year or years to raise GPAs, or complete pre-med requirements if they are late to the scene. Great post-bac programs are out there, some closely affiliated with med schools. Grad school in bio or chem is a common option. The third group has life experience - researchers, PhDs, nurses, etc. that led them to medicine, and may be in their 30s. </p>
<p>So a less than stellar undergrad GPA can be remedied. </p>
<p>I’ve heard that roughly 25% of freshman declared pre-meds remain pre-med through undergrad. Finding other interests, getting a few Cs, changing mind about 4 yrs undergrad plus 4 years med plus 5 years residency plus fellowship is common; peers are making 6 digit incomes with a bachelors degree in fields like consulting, computer science, engineering and finance. Significant relationships entwine. Things change.</p>
<p>Advise going to an undergrad that will challenge as well as support students who change their mind. Most do. </p>
<p>“Post-Bac”: Interesting. Just for my learning, let us say we do M.S. Then applying to MD. How does that work. Do medical colleges ignore UG GPA+ECs+Everything? OR Totally a different ball game?</p>
<p>What is incorrect here is that the general type of search for YOUR best UG college is NOT the correct approach. It is never correct, not for Medical School. not for employment in any field. Applicant needs to have a very clear list of his/her own criteria that is organized in the priority sequence. I can share my D’s criteria list but it would have absolutely no meanning to anybody else. As an example, it is clear to me that for some on this thread the criteria list will start with UG being Ivy / Elite. It was never under my D’s consideration at all. More so, she never even checked any ranking at all, never mentioned it. You see how it could be different from person to person. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the wish to attend Ivy / Elite UG. It just needs to be identified as a top priority on your personal list. Arguing about importance of it or irrelevancy of it is futile, except for one point - it is practically irrelevant for the Medical School admission. However, nobody here is saying that it is irrelevant personally to somebody. Again, when person is choosing the UG to attend, I would strongly advise to forget about Medical School, but choose the best college that fits applicant personality and wide range of interests. Again, there is one exception - applying to combined bs/md programs. Cannot forget about Medical School if you are planning to attend one of these, but still keep in mind that even if combined bs/md is in plan, the UG part (and Medical school part, as my own D. discovered later on) should really fit the the specific applicant. I am bringing this point only because acceptance to bs/md was D’s #1 criteria and I am aware very well that this route is by far not for everybody and many here will dismiss it. Again, criteria list is different from one person to another. Respect your own wishes the most.</p>
<p>"Most applicants these days take a “glide year” after UG - this may be true, but I do not think it is true for D’s Medical school class. There are “older” students in her class, but majority probably came straight from UG. This is just my perception. There is also good number of students with advanced degrees as I have mentioned before. Not sure about number of just “gap” year people. There are many who decide to attend Grad. school if not accepted, there are pople who have tried many cycles (I admire this crowd, got to have a character, determination after being disappointer sop many times, I tell my D. to feel very privileged to get accepted first time around, she said she knows)</p>
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<p>From NPR story about recent Gallup-Purdue poll:
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<p><a href=“Poll: Prestigious Colleges Won't Make You Happier In Life Or Work : The Two-Way : NPR”>Poll: Prestigious Colleges Won't Make You Happier In Life Or Work : The Two-Way : NPR;
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<p>With the exception of parents/grandparents I’ve long thought that as a student moves up the educational ladder nobody really cares about the student’s past education endeavors. When S was in elementary school, parents buzzed about their kids in the GATE program. In junior high, nobody cared about GATE anymore (certainly not students) as the parental buzz turned to whether their kids were in Honors English, Math (pre reqs for advanced high school courses) and 8th grade Spanish. In high school, parental buzz turned away from junior high to AP courses, inflated GPAs, SAT/ACTs scores, etc. When students started college, parents (grandparents) tended to go on about their S/Ds high school achievements, but I’ll bet the students weren’t walking around boasting of their high school prowess, nor did their profs care. For premeds (and their parents/grandparents) the buzz turned towards MCATs and GPAs. If accepted into med school, students weren’t walking around boasting of their high MCAT scores or GPAs, now it was USMLE, AOA, etc. In residency, USMLE, AOA may have come up with the new interns, but like everything previously, interns did not walk around boasting about their lofty USMLE scores or AOA status. Attendings and patients didn’t care. Pretty much nobody cared except parents/grandparents.</p>
<p>My point is that with every new educational/work level, people start with a clean slate. The issue is essentially what you can do now and all your prior educational scores, accomplishments, name at top of diploma,etc doesn’t really matter anymore. Nobody really cares except parents/grandparents. </p>
<p>Well, I found that some people love to be introduced as “Harvard educated”, especially those who seem not be using their education. I have known one “Harvard” lawyer who was staying at home mom and I heard not very good one at that either. But she was always labeled as “Harvard” educated lawyer. There is nothing wrong with that, she has earned it, it was apprently her goal. But knowing her closer, I was always thinking “What a fake” and “what a waste” and "she has bumped out somebody who really truly were planning on the lawyer’s career. I felt much more accomplished at both my education / proffessional career and a motherhood…but I cannot add “Harvard educated” to my name, I can only add that I have an MBA from the local college (which was fully paid by various employers) and employed as “stupid programmer” who does not know much about business processes, but only to the point of being able to perform my job which I absolutely love. </p>
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majority of med school matriculants do not come directly from undergrad any more. The median admission age is 25, and more mature applicants are favored.</p>
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<p>I’m not sure that this is true. while the median age may be 25, there still are a large/huge group coming from undergrad. As for comparing the number of traditional applicants with glide year, I think there are still more trad applicants.</p>
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but I cannot add “Harvard educated” to my name, I can only add that I have an MBA from the local college (which was fully paid by various employers) and employed as “stupid programmer” who does not know much about business processes, but only to the point of being able to perform my job which I absolutely love.
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<p>:)</p>
<p>in the end, you can feel good about what you’ve done. Being H educated and flakey is no accomplishment. I have often thought the same about my BIL…he got his funded-PhD at an elite univ and has done zilch with it…just sits at home playing computer chess and watching Netflix. He robbed someone else of that spot and the univ funded the whole thing. If anyone ever introduced him as being X-educated I probably would say that I’m sure his La-Z-Boy appreciates it.</p>
<p>“but only to the point of being able to perform my job which I absolutely love.”</p>
<p>People can have incredibly fulfilling lives totally unrelated to whether they attended elite or not, public or private schools</p>
<p>“There are benefits to an elite education that can’t be measured on an employment survey.”</p>
<p>I forget about the alumni/alumnae travel discount benefits, car rentals, insurance discounts, etc</p>