My S27 is interested with pre-med, and Furman is on our radar.
From the website it showed very high percentage success rate. Is this real?
The senior applicant sounds like senior from that particular year and no gap year. If so, does the pre-health committee filter out any potential senior applicants with <3.5 GPA. Even if this is true, the success rate is very high.
Be VERY wary of any such statistics. You need to understand exactly what goes into the calculation. A few ideas of things to consider
--Does the school have Committee Letters? If so, only students approved by the Committee can apply to med school with the support of the school. These colleges will have a higher acceptance percentage.
--Are there weed out classes? What percent of students drop pre-med?
--Do acceptances include only domestic MD programs or do the numbers also count overseas med schools, DO programs, chiropractic programs, podiatry programs, etc.
That said, Furman is a fine school and if it an academic, financial, and social fit it is worth considering.
Many schools have weed out classes.
From College Navigator it shows there are about 60 students majored in Biological and Biomedical Sciences. Not sure how many are in pre-med track. But it seems only 10-20 students each year prevail in the end to get committee letter/with satisfied GPA 3.5/survived the weed out classes.
The wording from the website sounds like Furman only counts the real medical schools, although not sure how many overseas/Caribbean medical schools though.
These are all questions for the pre-health peeps and/or admissions officers.
I would also ask if this is MD and DO, and whether they will still give a committee letter to students who take gap years, or who do an SMP or post-bacc.
You won’t be able to get data that’s apples to apples to compare MD/DO acceptance rates across schools.
I am sure that med school required classes at Furman prepare students for MD/DO school. I would make sure to understand the committee letter/packet situation at each school, specifically paying attention to what gatekeeping might be happening.
By the percentage of students who matriculate into medical school, Furman placed 35th among LACs in this analysis:
I do get that classes like organic are weed out classes at every school, but some places are more, shall we say, aggressive about it (ex. grade deflation, counseling students away from pre-med pathway).
In any event my main comment is to take the time to understand what is behind the calculation of any stats regarding med school acceptance rates (not just for Furman, but for any college being considered).
Totally agree.
From my limited research, Richmond is very transparent “At Richmond, anyone who wishes to apply to medical school may use our pre-medical committee, regardless of their GPA and/or MCAT score. Acceptance rates reported by Richmond reflect all applicants to medical school.” But their acceptance rate did not specify fresh senior vs applicants with gap year(s). Thus no data is perfect.
The data on medical school acceptances from undergrad schools is flawed in many ways. First, this info is usually self reported by the student and many never communicate this to their undergrad school…particularly students who have taken glide year(s). My kid never let her undergrad school know about her professional school acceptance, etc. Never has answered any if their surveys or conveyed info to them. And she was accepted. I’m going to guess that students who applied and didn’t get accepted don’t write to their undergrads “I applied to medical school(s) and did not get accepted”. This is my guess.
As noted above this data from the undergrad colleges showing medical school outcomes does not likely include non-traditional applicants (those who took glide years). It might or might not include DO schools. Just too many variables that are not helpful.
Re:Furman. It’s a fine college. If your student likes the school, then they should apply.
I would not base my college application decisions on medical school outcomes. This student might never apply to medical school. And fact is…there are many many hundreds of colleges in this country where a student can take the required courses for medical school applicants.
Look at it another way: on average, a quarter of many incoming classes can be pre-med. In Furman’s case, that’s ~150 entering premeds per class. Of those, 10-15 actually apply.
