First of all, how do you define “top medical program”? Most of the former top 25 ranked med schools refuse to share their data with USNews so any ranking they assign is guesswork at best.
(USNews used to use NIH funding $$ as a proxy for prestige, but look at what’s happening in the US right now. The NIH has cancelled $2Billion in research grants. in the last month. Harvard’s med school is in dire financial straits, laying off staff and shutting down programs. Other med schools are too.)
If you ask 10 medical professionals what are the top 10 med schools, you’ll get 30 different answers.
So the question is, why does she need a “top medical program” and what does she mean by that? Different medical schools have different purposes and missions. An applicant needs to match the mission of the school.
What kind of career does she envision for herself?
Does she want to be a professor at a med school? Professors come from a wide variety of med schools. Even from unranked and osteopathic med schools.
Does she want to enter a highly competitive specialty? (Like orthopedic surgery, ENT, ophthalmology, urology, plastic surgery, neurosurgery, dermatology)? Again, med students enter those specialties from a very wide variety of medical schools, including unranked and osteopathic med schools.
Does she want to go into healthcare administration? Again, those doctors from a broad range of MD and DO programs enter that path.
Does she want go into public health? Healthcare policy? See my previous answers.
Either of undergrads she considering will offer her all the opportunities she needs to apply to medical school-- yes, even “top” ones, assuming her GPA, MCAT, LORs, ECS, personal statements and application essays are good enough and fit the mission of the medical school. It’s up to her to make the best use she can of the opportunities she finds.
Also, please consider that no matter how sure your daughter is right now that she wants to go to med school, the odds say she will never even apply.
An analysis of data from over 100 US universities showed that only about 17% of freshmen premeds even finish all the pre-reqs. Not necessarily because they don’t do well in the classes, but because they find another career that is a better match for their interests and values. Of those 17% who do finish their pre-reqs, about half have GPAs that make them credible applicants for med school. Of those that actually apply to med school, only 40% get an acceptance.
So put med school aside and focus on which school offers your D the best combination of
- fit (happier students do better academically. Also it’s 4 years of her life she will never get back and there’s no reason those years should be miserable.)
- cost (med school is already $100K/year at some schools and costs go up every year. Pre meds are strongly advised to minimize undergrad debt.)
- opportunity (including the opportunity to pivot to another career, the opportunity to make connections with her professors who will eventually write her LORS for graduate or professional school and for jobs and internships, the opportunity to grow as an individual by meeting & interacting with people who are different from herself in race, ethnicity, religion, political affiliation, values and interests, socio-economic backgrounds, etc. As a doctor, her patients will come in all shapes, sizes, colors, socio-economic statuses, and personal belief systems. She needs to be prepared to deal with all of them.)