It’s like the old Yogi Berra comment- “Nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded”.
On CC, the conventional wisdom is to go to the “less popular” (or less competitive, or average lower stats) college so you’ll “protect” your GPA, stand out, have less competition for research and other med school type EC’s.
And yet every year, students from JHU (which on CC is like poison- you’ll “ruin” your chances for med school), Chicago (grade deflation, horrors), Yale, UVA, Michigan, Berkeley, MIT DO get into med school.
I understand the MIT applicants and their success. The MIT core requirements match up to the med school application requirements, so you can basically major in anything and know that your pre-req’s are taken care of. The town of Cambridge (as well as the surrounding towns) make it easy to work as an EMT; the area is filled with teaching hospitals and labs doing interesting work in relevant areas; even the “grade deflation” doesn’t seem to be problematic (a few guys from my sons frat were successful med school applicants and apparently they had the lowest GPA’s of all the guys in that frat- anecdotal so take it for what it’s worth. But definitely not the “virtually all A’s” . On the other hand, most kids at MIT don’t suffer trying to get a B in orgo…).
The other “don’t go there, it’s too competitive colleges” I imagine have a similar dynamic at play. Experienced advisors who know which classes you need to take and when; professors in relevant disciplines eager to work with undergrads; supportive town/hospital community so that no kid has to essentially create their own “patient facing experience”-- they already exist.
But like Kelsmom- I also know kids who have been successful applying from colleges off the beaten track. Many of them have had to do either an official post-bac or a “do it yourself” post bac; many of them have spent the year after college graduation working or volunteering to get patient exposure; some of them were not successful the first time but applied a year later and it worked. So it seems to be more the kid than the college.
However- EVERYONE needs a plan B. So if it were my kid, I’d be looking for a robust list of colleges where a kid can be successful applying to med school, applying to a grad program in epidemiology or biostatistics, successful getting a job as an analyst at an HMO, successful working at a Think Tank which focuses on health care reform; successful working on Capitol Hill or at an agency tracking legislation which impacts public health, etc. A wide range of options. Not just “If she goes here, she’ll get a 4.0 and will be an academic standout which will be great for med school”. What if she falls in love with something else?