<p>Newmassdad:</p>
<p>Great post, and true to form, you raise some good questions. First, please keep in mind that in my original post, I said this thread would be about admission to a TOP medical school (not “A” medical school). For my advice on acceptance to “A” medical school from Chicago, see my post on the other pre-med thread, available here:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-chicago/674314-neuroscience-psychology-pre-med.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-chicago/674314-neuroscience-psychology-pre-med.html</a></p>
<p>Now, in terms of my assumption that Chicago does the worst in med school placement in comparison to its immediate peers, this is just an assumption, but I feel it is a probable one to make. For top medical schools, GPA and MCAT matter a LOT. Given Chicago’s incoming class is as talented (but not necessarily better) on standardized tests as its peers from Dartmouth or Brown, I’m assuming the avg. MCAT (just like the avg. LSAT for students at all these schools) are roughly similar.</p>
<p>Moreover, given the fact that Harvard, Dartmouth, Brown, Duke, etc. all have documented grade inflation that significantly exceeds anything at Chicago (I don’t believe 50%+ of Chicago grades are solid As, as they are at Brown), and because, as my pre-med friends disclosed to me after meeting with their pre-med advisors, Chicago only gets a 0.1 GPA boost in the med school admissions game, I don’t really see how Chicago could do better than its peers in this process.</p>
<p>In short, I’m assuming student quality, resources and opportunities available to undergraduates, ability on standardized tests, etc. are all roughly equal between graduates of Chicago, Brown, Dartmouth, and the like. The only difference is GPA, and once again, I’m assuming, in a world where only the final hard GPA really matters to top med schools, Chicago falls off the pace here. </p>
<p>Finally, my advice is anecdotal, but it extends across the dozens of students I know pretty well that went through the pre-med process. At Chicago, I kept in good contact with about 30 pre-meds, and all of them displayed characteristics and an attitude that surprised me. They complained of the brutally difficult curve in Chem and O-Chem (which I believe was set to around a C), and the fact that med schools did not adjust enough for the Chicago level of rigor (i.e. the 0.1 boost was not enough). Moreover, unless I’m mistaken, the bar for Honors in Chem is a 3.25 GPA. This low GPA for HONORS seems to indicate just how difficult this discipline is at the U of C. As we all know, you don’t have a chance at a top medical school with a 3.25 GPA. </p>
<p>Additionally, after graduating, one or two of these 30 pre-med friends/contacts went to top medical schools. The other 28 or 29 went to adequate but not superb medical schools (think Univ. of Illinois at Chicago or Southern Illinois Univ Medical School). Getting into a top medical school such as Harvard or Duke was seen as a pipe dream - only the truly brilliant could achieve this.</p>
<p>Again, I contrast this to my grad work at Penn, where of course, many many pre-meds go on to the fine (but not exceptional) state medical schools. There was a much larger and sizable contingent of pre-meds here, however, that worked diligently toward acceptance at a Duke or Columbia Med. This was seen as a tough goal, but it wasn’t as much of an over-the-moon, totally beat the odds effort as it was at Chicago. </p>
<p>Again, all the evidence I can find point to Chicago falling off the pace for TOP medical school acceptance, JUST as it falls off the pace for TOP law school acceptances. There’s no real reason to believe otherwise once we account for what top law and medical schools care about here. I welcome current students to post the law and med placement stats available at the advisors’ office at Chicago.</p>