<p>While I know med-schools are always looking for ivy-league students, I heard that it is often easier to get into med-school from a non-ivy league school (which is highly ranked), since it provides diversity at a med school. Is this true or a myth? I am going to Wash U next year- is that advantageous for a med-school application? I would appreciate any feedback. Thanks</p>
<p>Med school adcoms may dip deeper into the applicant pool in the interest of diversity but Ivy v. LAC v. State is not their definition of diverse. They have enough other categories to fill to show their diversification without adding another.</p>
<p>The criteria remain:
- MCATs
- science GPA
- medical related activites performed outside the classroom.
- URM. The amount it helps is dependent on what numbers they are chasing.</p>
<p>college5812: –> NO… not at all… but Wash U is a very good skool… good luck</p>
<p>I think this might be a first.</p>
<p>Is there an advantage to going to a state school over an Ivy?</p>
<p>Although all of the hype about Ivies greatly overstates their value (if similar grades and degress are obtained at each) I can’t see it going the other side of equal resulting in a benefit to going public.</p>
<p>Ivy > state.
end of story</p>
<p>if u have same mcats and same gpa and same extra’s as someone else… and u go to penn state and the other person is from UPENN…</p>
<p>who would YOU choose?
exactly</p>
<p>however, keep in mind, that it is harder to get a 3.7 at penn then at penn state. however, also keep in mind, that 75% of med skool decisions r based on mcat. SAT is impt in college admissions. MCAT is EVEN MORE impt in med skool decsions. every single first year med student i have talked to within the last year has said [after they went thru the entire application process] that in the end, it comes down to mcat’s, and that mcat’s were more impt than they initially thought they would be.</p>
<p>however, also keep in mind, that going to a state skool over an ivy isnt necessarily a bad decision. I would rather go to penn state with a full ride at main campus then go to UPENN for 160 grand over 4 years. I’m pretty confident that my gpa will be higher at penn state than what it would have been at penn… plus, what skool i go to wont determine my mcat… plus… i’d like to have an extra 160 grand in my pocket [or rather, dont want a 160 grand debt going INTO med skool]</p>
<p>i think u understand what im saying… anyways…</p>
<p>Thanks for your responses</p>
<p>By the way gizmo9187 and express2nyc, Wash U = Washington University in St. Louis, so it isn’t a state school.</p>
<p>Actually, I would argue that it is unclear as to whether it is easier to get a top GPA from Penn or most other Ivies (the exception being Cornell) than it is at Penn State. The fact is, most Ivies are heavily grade inflated. Look at the average GPA’s at Penn. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.gradeinflation.com/penn.html[/url]”>http://www.gradeinflation.com/penn.html</a></p>
<p>I don’t know what the exact GPA figures are for Penn State, but it is almost assuredly lower than that for Penn. The upshot is that even if you do only below-average in a class at Penn, you are still probably going to get a decent grade, like a B. Do below-average in a class at Penn-State, and you could be easily looking at a C, or perhaps even worse. I would furthermore point out that it is far easier to flunk out of Penn State than it is to flunk out of Penn. If you go to Penn, then as long as you put in some minimum effort, you are effectively guaranteed to graduate. No such assurance is to be had at Penn State - a significant part of the incoming Penn State class will not graduate, and obviously if you don’t graduate, you have precisely zero chance of getting into medical school. </p>
<p>{True, some people don’t graduate from Penn State because they transfer to another school and graduate from that school, but even that by itself is a problem (although admittedly a lesser problem), because if a person ends up transferring out of Penn State to school X, then clearly that person must like school X better than Penn State and so that person would have been better off just going to school X from the beginning. } </p>
<p>Now, I know what you’re thinking - that while the average grades at Penn are probably higher than at Penn State, the average student at Penn is of better quality than those at Penn State. True, which is why I said that it is unclear as to where you will end up with a better GPA. I would further point to the phenomenom of “random grade generators”. What are those? Well, basically, every school has certain classes that seem to give out grades that seem to bear little if any relationship with how hard you work, or the quality of your work, or much of anything at all. Every school has classes where the guy who worked the hardest and clearly knew the material extremely well ended up with a lower grade than a guy who hardly studied, who didn’t really understand the material, and who didn’t know much of anything. Hence, these classes are basically random grade generators - you might get a high grade, you might get a low grade, and it doesn’t seem to really depend on how well you know the material or how hard you work. The difference is that at a place like Penn, a random ‘low’ grade will probably be no worse than a B. At Penn State, a random ‘low’ grade could easily be a C or worse. </p>
<p>Hence, I would say that it is unclear that going to Penn State will get you a higher GPA than going to Penn. What I would say is that Penn is clearly the safer choice. If you go to Penn and run into problems (academic, personal, romantic, etc.) , then Penn has the resources and the culture to help you out. Penn State is far less forthcoming with such resources, so if you go there and have problems, well, it’s basically up to you to fix them, and if you can’t, well, that’s too bad for you. </p>
<p>However, what I would definitely say is that there are certain schools that are, relatively speaking, a rather poor way of getting into med-school. MIT and Caltech immediately come to mind. Here I would agree that it is clearly easier to get a higher GPA at Penn State than it is at MIT.</p>
<p>By the way gizmo9187 and express2nyc, Wash U = Washington University in St. Louis, so it isn’t a state school.
…yea i know… lol… its a VERY good skool… congrats nd good luck</p>
<p>hey i was just looking around and i saw this post…anyway i was wondering about the pre-med programs at wash u and northwestern (i have just been accepted to wash u and am waiting on northwestern)…my brother is a wash u pre-med and it is kicking his butt…do you think northwestern would be a little less competitive since wash u is such a hot pre-med school?</p>
<p>Yeah, I personally think that ‘hot’ premed schools are often times some of the worst places to go for premed, precisely because the competition at those places is fierce and the grading is merciless. If you want to maximize your chances of getting into med-school, you don’t want to go to a place where the competition is fierce. You want to go to a place where the grading is easy (relatively speaking, of course).</p>
<p>To answer the original question from the OP, I think it depends on which non-Ivy and which Ivy you’re talking about. I think it is fairly clear that arguably the best place to go for premed (relatively speaking, of course), is Harvard, because of the strong grade inflation that exists there. Yale and Princeton are also quite good places to go for premed, for the same reason. Some of the worst non-Ivies to go for premed are probably Caltech and MIT, because of the harsh grading standards there. You would think that med-school adcoms would know that certain schools grade harder than others and would therefore adjust accordingly, but the evidence indicates that they do not do that. They want to see high grades, and they don’t really care very much about how hard it is for you to get them. The bottom line is then that it is better to go to a school where it is easy to get A’s, than to go to a school where it is difficult to get A’s. </p>
<p>Since the OP asked about diversity and whether that is an issue - well, I would simply point to the success rate of Ivy League students in getting into med-school, on a per-capita basis, vs. the rate of any given non-Ivy school, again, on a per-capita basis. Obviously, only a minority of all med-students come from the Ivy League, but that’s because Ivy students are only a tiny fraction of all premeds. It is clearly true that Ivy students occupy a disproportionate number of med-school slots. Hence, it doesn’t seem that undergraduate program diversity is a serious consideration.</p>
<p>thanks sakky, my thoughts exactly…now i just have to wait 6 days for my northwestern decision to see if i will have my butt kicked and raped at wash u or just kicked at northwestern…yikes!</p>