Med School Placement for U of C

Cue7 · May 9, 2011, 5:43pm

So in the past there have been threads asking about U of C’s med school placement. Additionally, the administration tends to be very tight-lipped about Chicago’s actual placement numbers, so I’m thinking about going at it another way: looking at the undergraduate schools represented at certain med schools. A quick internet search revealed a few links of interest:

Undergrad schools represented at Wash U Med School (1995-2010):

[Who</a> Chooses WU](<a href=“http://medadmissions.wustl.edu/HowtoApply/selectionprocess/Pages/WhoChoosesWU.aspx]Who”>http://medadmissions.wustl.edu/HowtoApply/selectionprocess/Pages/WhoChoosesWU.aspx)

Undergrad schools represented at Vanderbilt Med School (2006-2010):

<a href=“https://medschool.vanderbilt.edu/admissions/undergraduate-schools-represented[/url]”>https://medschool.vanderbilt.edu/admissions/undergraduate-schools-represented</a>

Undergrad schools represented at Case Western Reserve Med School (Class of 2010):

<a href=“http://casemed.case.edu/admissions/images/Entering%20Class%20of%202010%20-%20For%20Communications.pdf[/url]”>http://casemed.case.edu/admissions/images/Entering%20Class%20of%202010%20-%20For%20Communications.pdf</a>

Can people find data for other medical schools? The more data we can accumulate, the better.

Right now, there certainly isn’t enough data to make any strong conclusions, but I was a bit surprised (and disappointed) to note Chicago’s placement at Wash U over the past 15 years. As one of the best midwestern colleges, I was hoping that Chicago’s placement at (arguably) the best midwestern medical school would be a bit better.

Also, to make the above assertion, I am assuming that at Chicago, like at other top colleges, attending a “top” medical school has considerable allure for the top pre-med students.

Any other general thoughts?

JHS · May 10, 2011, 2:34pm

Well, for fun I looked at Michigan. They don’t give complete listings, but for the past 10 years they give every college with more than 3 or 4 people in the entering class (depending on the year). Apart from Michigan itself, Harvard is the clear pace-setter with 81 (it’s listed every year). Stanford has at least 48, probably a few more (it’s only listed in 7 of 10 years); Duke 38-45; Johns Hopkins 25-38. Chicago made the list only one year – 2002 – with three students. The maximum number of students it could have sent would have been 27, but it’s likely to be something less than that, maybe a lot less.

Hmmm.

When my daughter was deciding where to go to college, a neighbor on his medical school’s admissions committee told her, “When it comes time to apply to graduate school, the University of Chicago really means something.” Apparently not as much as he thought.

Cue7 · May 10, 2011, 4:08pm

JHS - thanks for the information. Right now, roughly, this is what we have in terms of colleges represented at some of the top med schools in country:

For Washington University in St. Louis Medical School (from 1995-2010):

Univ of Chicago: 16

Brown: 35

Dartmouth: 26

Duke: 74

Harvard: 86

Johns Hopkins: 35

Northwestern: 45

Univ of Penn: 35

Stanford: 70

Williams: 16

Yale: 44

For Vanderbilt University Medical School (2006-2010):

Univ. of Chicago: 3

Brown: 6

Dartmouth: 8

Duke: 15

Harvard: 24

Johns Hopkins: 10

Stanford: 8

Univ. of Penn: 12

Yale: 14

For Case Western Reserve Medical School (Class of 2010)

Univ. of Chicago: 2

Brown: 4

Cornell: 7

Duke: 8

Harvard: 7

Northwestern: 7

Princeton: 5

Stanford: 7

Univ. of Penn: 7

For the University of Michigan Medical School (2001 - 2010 - rough estimates)

Chicago: roughly 1-2 students per year (3 students went to UM Med in 2002)

Harvard: ~ 5 - 12 students a year

Duke: ~ 6-8 students a year

Stanford: ~ 5-8 students a year

Yale: ~ 4-8 students a year

Northwestern: ~ 2 - 6 students a year (6 in 2003)

Here’s the link for Michigan Med:

<a href=“http://med.umich.edu/medschool/admissions/apply/profiles.html[/url]”>http://med.umich.edu/medschool/admissions/apply/profiles.html</a>

Now, I realize the data pool is still quite small, but, at least for some of the strongest medical schools in the midwest, the U of C’s home region, Chicago sorely trails its peers. At Wash U Med School, Michigan Med School, and Case Western Medical school, the U of C is not really in the same ballpark as some of its supposed peers on this front.

I’m sure Chicago places very well into Pritzker, but, besides that, the placement doesn’t seem to be strong, so far.

Can any current students weigh in on this topic? Additionally, does anyone have data from any other top medical schools?

I’m a big fan of Chicago, and the findings thus far have been quite disappointing.

JHS · May 10, 2011, 6:23pm

I think you are meaningfully overstating the Duke and Stanford numbers for Michigan. They didn’t make it onto the charts every year, so there were years when each school sent 0-3 students there. The yearly average for Duke could not have been as high as 5 (and for Stanford could not have been higher than 6). Harvard averaged 8 per year (about 5% of the class, and 7% of everyone who hadn’t been a Michigan undergraduate).

I am stunned by the number of Harvards at these schools, but I am even more surprised at the number of Hopkins and Duke students.

Now, it’s worth noting, at least when looking at the longer-term cumulative WashU data, that until the class of 2008 or so Chicago was meaningfully smaller than it is today – less than half the size of Penn, and only 60% the size of Duke or Harvard. We also don’t know how many people from each college were applying to medical school. I am fully prepared to believe that the pool of Hopkins med school applicants is larger than the Chicago pool, even though the colleges are the same size.

Still . . . .

If I were Dean Boyer or Dean Nondorf, I would be worrying about this a little. Ultimately, the quality of Chicago’s undergraduate education gets validated by graduate schools and employers, and data like this make it look like there is some skepticism out there. I don’t think it’s Chicago’s job to get kids into med school at WashU, but if there’s some reason that Chicago applicants look uncompetitive for medical school at WashU (and elsewhere), I would sure as heck want to know what it was, and to think about fixing it or doing some marketing to convince the med schools they should rethink their positions.

Cue7 · May 10, 2011, 7:52pm

JHS - in terms of your caveats to include, you’re absolutely right. Up until recently, Chicago was smaller, and there should certainly be more pre med students walking around at Hopkins than at the U of C.

Similarly, I may very well be off in my estimates for Duke and Stanford at Michigan Med - I was clicking through the profiles very very quickly, and I wasn’t thorough in my search. At the same time, I think we’d both agree that there are a heck of a lot more Duke or Stanford grads at Michigan Med than Chicago grads.

Overall, these caveats aside, I think we both agree on the central point - it does not appear that Chicago is particularly competitive vis a vis its peers in terms of med school placement. With regards to your point about the administration taking a hard look at this, what I said before stands: Chicago is not transparent about its placement, and the administration can hide behind that veil.

Accordingly, the point of this thread is to try to get as much information out in the open. It’s not conclusive by any means, but we have data from some great med schools - schools that many U of C pre-meds would probably want to attend - and the results are not good.

I’d urge others to find this information for other med schools, and, again, I’m eager to hear from current students to assess whether this situation is improving.

Right now, with the data I’ve seen, I can’t necessarily recommend Chicago over Duke, Brown, Penn, etc. for students intent on attending a top medical school, and it appears that Chicago is light years behind Harvard on the med school placement front.

Finally, one note about the assertion that “when applying to med schools, having gone to Chicago really MEANS something.” If you compare Chicago to the NATIONAL average, or to probably 90% of the schools out there it’s placement is great. Most chicago pre meds get into medical school, and we send around a couple students a year to the very best medical schools in the country. So, when people praise Chicago, as indicated in JHS’ quote above, perhaps they’re praising the U of C in comparison to the national average or “lesser” schools? Because overall, it certainly seems that med schools are perfectly happy taking 4x the Harvard grads than Chicago grads.

Again, looking at even this small amount of data, the results are disappointing, but the more data we can get, the better and more educated discussion we can have on this issue. In fact, the more data we have, the more informed posts we can make to students considering Chicago and one of Chicago’s immediate peers. I’d welcome hearing from recent grads or others with some info!

Cosmos · May 10, 2011, 8:14pm

I have a friend graduating with me this year who is choosing between Chicago med school and Columbia med school.

Cue7 · May 11, 2011, 10:15am

That’s great for your friend, Cosmos - I’m also curious if anyone has more general, macro-level data to share.

Cue7 · May 28, 2011, 9:13am

Here’s data for the Class of 2010 at Ohio State University:

<a href=“http://medicine.osu.edu/students/admissions/Documents/classprofile.pdf[/url]”>http://medicine.osu.edu/students/admissions/Documents/classprofile.pdf</a>

OSU isn’t the very best medical school in the midwest, but I figure its a very good school in the region that probably draws heavily from top midwestern schools. The class profile seems to reflect this - the OSU Class of 2010 featured 8 students from Northwestern, 4 from Notre Dame, 5 from Wash U in St. Louis, 10 from U of Michigan, and… 1 from the University of Chicago. Of course, this is just one class and the sampling size issue here is very significant.

At the same time, the data collected doesn’t put the U of C in the best light…

Med School Placement for U of C

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