Which is exactly my point; it does a disservice to medical school aspirants to claim that a certain school-in this case Centre-offers its students an advantage at certain medical schools. Beyond your anecdotes(which you decline to share), there is no evidence anywhere, apparently, that such a “bump” is offered to students at that college.
It’s a nerve-wracking experience for pre-meds, all the way through application and (hopefully) acceptance and it doesn’t help anyone in the process to make unsubstantiated claims.
And a quick scan of SDN shows several threads on school selectivity and school specific grade deflation. While not dispositive, the two regular contributors who say they are on medical school admission committees deny any “bumps” as described above are offered to any colleges.
The list posted by OP is one person’s opinion, and that opinion does not hold up well under scrutiny. Not a single public school listed, many well known LACs and national universities left out; it’s clearly not something that anyone should use to determine what UG to attend if medical school is the ultimate goal.
First of all, look at the dang website OP mentions. It’s linked to- you guessed it- a pro counseling service. On both sites, it lists a bunch of MD candidates as “advisors.” None of whom, I’d betcha, ever worked in anything related to med school admissions. The closest you get to “experience” is one former reader at UCSD (i.e., not an adcom) and one former Yale alum interviewer.
You want to trust them?
Bottom line: it takes savvy to steer yourself toward a successful med school app. It takes understanding academic and score requirements, the experience in the health field, and more.
Not just going to some prestige college that can very well weed you out. The fact more admits might come from certain colleges is an indication of their awareness, habits, and suitability. Not some magic in the college name. There is no predictor college x will get you to med school.
@lookingforward well you’ve stated once again the truth about universities, its not the university that makes the student, its the students that make the University. Some here can’t really get their head wrapped around that simple statement.
Stupid study. There’s only one stat that matters, which unfortunately the AAMC doesn’t publish.
How many kids from each college enroll in med school year after year? Then you can adjust the number of med school admits for the size of the school.
Everything else is garbage. Especially any kind of med school admit rates, since the denominator can be massively massaged/manipulated.
IIRC, according to their presentation, Notre Dame (which doesn’t make this top 25 list) is a top five undergrad college for producing med school admits on (IIRC) a gross and also per capita basis.
Forget who the other top schools were – probably HYP were in there. Common denominator: (i) start with lots and lots of very smart motivated well-supported kids and (ii) have very good pre-med advising.
But savvypremed says ND is over-rated for pre-med. Amusingly, their criteria has 13 different weighted measures. The number of kids actually gaining med school admittance, however, is not in that 13.
Those who read the original article know that aspects such as research opportunities, early medical school acceptance programs, resources devoted toward advising, and general academic reputations were considered for the rankings. Many students reach medical school without having sought any particular value from their colleges in these areas. Nonetheless, those currently in the college selection process may want qualities that align with at least some of those considered for the analysis – I don’t see the benefit, actually, of arguing to dissuade an applicant from such an approach.
No one is arguing that medical school aspirants not do their research, and I’m aware of no successful medical school applicants to which the following sentence applies-“Many students reach medical school without having sought any particular value from their colleges in these areas.”
But you’ve posted a blog which claims “smart expert medical school advice” when it’s anything but that. The list in the original post is ridiculous, and their top 10 “most over-rated” pre-med schools list equally so. And it’s not an “article” it’s an advertisement, which claims to provide “the best medical school strategies” when it does anything but. Go back and read their “methodology”; to describe it as fluid is being generous. And maybe I’m missing something, but it appears the authors of the blog aren’t physicians, and have never actually applied to medical school themselves. So their expertise would be based on internet research and helping others apply to medical school, which sounds a lot like the folks who offer advice on this site.
OK, let’s (fairly) call it a source, and not an article. However, some comments on this thread (e.g., those regarding Centre in reply #1) indicate they were made before reading the source.
Regarding “particular,” I meant with respect to qualities that would distinguish one generally comparable choice from another in a way meaningful in terms of medical school prospects.
Regarding the rankings themselves, I’m certainly not all-in with them, nor has anyone else stated that they are anything more than a potential point of departure for further research.
Since I wrote #1, I’ll reply: I did read the “source”-again, it’s basically an advertisement. And this advertisement supplies a methodology for ranking schools which is suspect at best, created by individuals with no additional access to information than anyone else has. So Centre may be a great school, but is it better than all the “over-rated” schools-or Colgate, for that matter? Based on their “methodology” there’s no way to tell. And two of the alleged standards are patently ridiculous: “popular with pre-meds”, which is apparently limited to bio majors, and “prestige”(are there 20+ schools more “prestigious” than MIT and Harvard? Well…). And the schools’ “reputation” for being “service-oriented” as judged by Newsweek and the Washington Monthly(?).
You’ve posted an advertisement which offers no more expertise than that given on this site and SDN; it’s puzzling that you insist on calling it a “source” when it’s really an advertisement.
And this advertisement offers only suspect criteria for “differentiating” in terms of medical school prospects.
Calling it a source is technically correct. After all, I can accurately call my 3 year old cousin a source. That does not mean it’s a good source. FWIW, I would not consider a site that is not allowed to be linked here to be an authoritative source.
No one is suggesting that this should be the only source medical school aspirants use. It is one, however, that high-achieving students, in particular, could use to help structure their approach.
Anyone using it should keep in mind that’s it’s an advertisement, and ought to explore its extremely suspect standards for ranking colleges. Information here and on SDN is frankly better and more objective, so it’s puzzling the support that this advertisement has garnered. I would especially advise “high-achieving” students to avoid it, as it offers nothing new regarding the process of applying to medical school.
Want to go to medical school? Start here-and it’s free(but you may decide to buy the MSAR): https://students-residents.aamc.org/applying-medical-school/applying-medical-school-process/medical-school-admission-requirements/
As some people would know, it had been allowed at the time it was posted.
Well, though the above hasn’t been stated categorically, this comment leaves it to appear as if it were.
In terms of its genesis here – for those interested – I found the subject of this discussion in response to a poster being dissuaded from Swarthmore for pre-med on another thread, and sought a different perspective.
This ranking of pre-med programs completely omits any data regarding how many kids get admitted to med school.
So use this ranking only if you are interested in having a pleasing pre-med experience, but are not interested in actually getting admitted to med school.
Merc81-that’s it! You thought Swat was being dissed on another forum, so you searched endlessly for a fact-free unsupportable list that said Swat was great for pre-med.
That explains your adamantine devotion to the list-even though it’s been revealed to be nothing more than an advertisement which uses utterly and hopelessly subjective standards(Newsweek as an authorative source? Really? Citing medicare.gov for proof of clinical opportunities? et al) which are easily manipulated and completely unsupported by objective data.
The committee letter process effectively does weed out marginal pre-meds from applying, effectively raising the school’s medical school admission rate. It may also be good for the weeded-out pre-meds, although it may not feel that way to them at the time, since they know earlier that they should switch to plan B due to extremely low probability of success in the expensive and stressful medical school application process.
But it does mean that medical school admission rate at schools with pre-med committees may reflect more on how selective the pre-med committee’s screening process for pre-meds to get a committee endorsement is, rather than other aspects of the school being good or bad for pre-meds.