Med school acceptance rates are often manipulated. The devil is in the details.
Some schools are including overseas MD schools, some are including DO schools in their reported “acceptance rates. DO schools are totally fine, particularly for those who want primary care, but if the student is looking for MD acceptance info or desires a competitive specialty, and a school mixes everything in, then their stats aren’t meaningful.
Some schools just use a broad “smoke and mirrors” phrase like: 85% of our prehealth students gain admission…which obviously is including those who are preDental, prePA, prePT, preVet, preOT. Who knows what their med school admit rate is.
As you’ve noted, a school posts a high med school acceptance rate, but only has a few applying. The same happened a few months ago when a student said he wanted to go to X university because they had a 90% acceptance rate. After some light digging on their website, it revealed that they only had about 10 apply, and their students were admitted to a variety of MD, DO, and Caribb med schools. This is really deceiving because there are Carribb meds that accept virtually all applicants. So for all we know, maybe only a couple got into US MD schools.
And few, if any, undergrad schools report how many of their freshmen premeds actually end up getting into med school. When schools’ post 75+% admit rates, high school students/parents naturally assume that 75% of those schools’ premeds make it into med school. Wrong. Of the 500 frosh premeds, maybe only 200 end up applying to med school. And if 150 get accepted somewhere, that seems great, but really 150 out of the original 500 just means that an incoming frosh premed can’t be thinking, “I have a 75% chance.”
Chances only come into play once an applicant’s stats are known. If you have a MCAT 513 and a 3.85 GPA, then you probably have a 85% chance of admittance (maybe even higher if your app list is particularly well thought out.)
We can’t stress enough that med schools really don’t care about school name. I remember at my son’s White Coat Ceremony, the dean mentioned that the class consisted of students from 58 different undergrad schools. Maybe it’s because adcoms think that true diversity can’t be had if all their students are coming from elite schools, or maybe they realize that there are hidden gem students everywhere. They certainly realize that the nation’s top undergrads aren’t enrolling all of the best and most compassionate future doctors…because undergrad schools aren’t looking for the “best future doctors” when they’re seating a class. In a med school’s adcom’s view, the MCAT is the great equalizer. If someone from a lowly-ranked school has a 3.8 GPA and a 515 MCAT, then they know that the person has what it takes academically for med school.
The few things that can matter about choosing undergrad is whether there is decent support, such as active premed clubs/honor societies (like AED ~ Alpha Epsilon Delta), and does the school conduct Committee Interviews and write Committee Letters. Does the school or AED offer shadowing or research opps. But even schools that don’t have those benefits still have students being accepted to med school.
One thing that really shocks people is how poor the premed advisors are at most/all schools. People naturally assume that someone with such a title must be an expert in all things premed. Wrong. The job is often an entry level low-paying job and the persons are just handed a binder with some info/guidelines to follow. Sometimes there is a more experienced senior advisor, but he/she is usually reserved for the juniors and seniors, while the frosh/sophs get the newbies who are still wet behind the ears.
A couple of times this fall I was contacted by applicants who haven’t received any interview invites. In both cases, their app lists were horrible. Both students assured me that their advisers “approved” their app lists. Well, who knows what the advisors really said. They may have just dumbly nodded because they didn’t know any better, and the student took that as approval. One student applied to an OOS med school that has a strict policy of never admitting any OOS students. What a waste! Might as well have taken $140 and burned it. The advisor said NOTHING during their meeting. One student applied to mostly high reaches even though he was an unhooked average applicant. Sure, Harvard is desperate to accept a 510/3.65 white applicant with some shadowing hours and scribing hours at a hospital…not.
Really, it’s up to the student. As Amherst notes, no school has “magic dust” to help students get into med school. The student has to get the grades, get the MCAT, and build the resume.
Someone attending a school like Wooster certainly can get into a top med school…if they have the stats. A parent who used to post on College Confidential had a daughter attend Rhodes College and she got into Yale Med.
But really, going to a tippy top med school isnt that important. Where you go for your residency is more important. If you’re thinking that you want a competitive specialty, then attending a med school with a MSTP program is probably a better choice. Residency program directors seem to be most familiar with those med schools. Those are typically the top 50 med schools, with some exceptions.