As noted…contact admissions. Ask them to connect you with a current premed major. They likely have someone working in their admissions area and can do so.
I want to say again…
The data you are looking for in terms of undergrad school admissions to medical schools doesn’t really accurately exist. It can be manipulated in many ways.
Fact is, your premed student has the potential to get accepted at medical school from either of these two choices. No guarantees regardless of the %age the schools claim are admitted to medical schools.
And really, students can get accepted to medical schools from just about any undergrad college in this country.
Both of these are fine choices for a premed.
It seems you are looking for the school with the highest %age of admissions to medical schools. This will not guarantee that YOUR student will be accepted. It just won’t.
The most important thing now is for your student to choose an undergrad school where they will be happy and want to live for four years. This will make them more likely to do well in college, which they will need to do if they actually do apply to medical school.
And do keep in mind that medical schools will likely cost $100,000 a year or more if your student actually gets accepted. If you want to conserve some funds to help, you might also want to consider how much you are spending annually for undergrad school.
If I’ve missed something, perhaps @WayOutWestMom can fill in the blanks.
There are folks responding on this thread who have doctor children, as well as some parents of current premed kids.
There is no place where you can track pre-med success rates. Undergrads rely on voluntary participation by students to inform the school of their post graduation endeavors. Undergrads may claim a certain success rate on their HP advising website, but you have no idea of how they arrived at that numbers. HP committee letters will artificially inflate the number of successful applicants. Also each school uses a different definition of “med school”. It might be just MD programs. It might be MD and DO programs. It might be any health profession that involves an advanced degree (MD, DO, DSD/DMD, DPM, OD, MSPA, PsyD, AudD, DPT, DOT, etc .) It might include students who attended an off-shore, non-US med school. It may or may not include alumni applicants , some of whom have completed GPA-improving post bacc programs or SMPs (Special Master’s Programs). It may or may not include alumni career-changers who have taken all their med school pre-reqs at an entirely different college.
Bio is major of choice for many premeds because it has the greatest overlap with med school prereqs. Of all the physical sciences majors, bio is probably the “easiest,” or, at least, the least math-intensive.
Your child isn’t going to be able to escape the need to do well in the pre-reqs no matter what they choose to major in. Medical schools don’t just look at their overall GPA; med schools are especially interested in a student’s sGPA (sGPA is calculated only using biology, chemistry, math and physics classes). So if a student has a high overall GPA, but an unimpressive 3.0 sGPA-- a med school admission will be highly unlikely. Also, with a major outside of science, it’s harder for the student’s sGPA to recover from a poor grade in a science simply because they take fewer science classes than a science major does. A science major has more science classes to “dilute” the effect of a single poor grade than non-science major will.
There is some concern among parents that a bio degree has lesser employability post graduation that other majors like engineering or computer science. Biology is by far the most common science major and the job market for bio majors is pretty poor. The job market for bio degrees is pretty poor even at the PhD level. There are steps a bio major can take to improve their employability post graduation, but there are no guarantees.
RE: ECs. The most common path taken by successful pre-med is to 1-3 gaps years to improve their medical (and non-medical) ECs. More than 78% of matriculating med students now take gap years before starting med school.
Med schools expect that applicants will be able to multi-task efficiently–do well academically while at the same time having a robust schedule of activities since those are critical skills for surviving medical school.
That isn’t happening. First. gathering this type info relies on the voluntary participation by graduated students. Students are under no obligation to report the success of the application cycle to their undergrad.
I know that my daughter who did go thru her college’s HP office for med school committee letter never had any interest or incentive to tell them the outcome of her cycle so she just didn’t. (4 acceptances, 2 high waitlists)
Also the choice of a med school is very personal and individual decision. A person may turn down a top 10 med school because they received a much better FA offer from a lower ranked school. Or they want to attend a med school near family. Or they want to attend a med school close to where the fiancé/finaceé or SO lives/works. Or they feel the fit is better at a certain school. Or they want to live in a certain region of the country (urban vs rural; East Coast vs Midwest vs West Coast)
So simply getting list of where students matriculates tells you absolutely NOTHING about the competitiveness of a student from the undergrad.
Lastly, a destination survey is unhelpful for premeds because the strong trend is to work for a year or two or three in a lower paying clinical job in older to bolster one’s CV for med school. So capturing salaries 1 year post graduation is not especially useful or informative..
Many biology majors continue their education after working for a few years- medical school, law school, phd programs, OT, PT, teaching, PA, MPH etc.. the list goes on.
These numbers are just that- numbers. They do not allow for context.
Many of the jobs that bio majors take come with a 2 year commitment and there is no promise that you can stay longer (although some do). These employers know that they are a stepping stone (at least that is our experience).
Not to mention these are nothing more than simple google searches. I would anticipate those coming to CC are seeking first hand experiences not just information they could source and interpret themselves.
For instance @MomOutWest has extensive experience navigating undergraduate pre med and applying to medical school as a parent of doctors. Her insights I would find invaluable based on their first hand nature.
Similarly @twogirls has relevant lived experience they are drawing from to respond. Best I can do is google a schools website and paraphrase knowingly incomplete data sets. Thank you but I will listen and learn instead.
Or @beishan who has a kid in attendance versus someone looking at LinkedIn profiles.
As someone removed from the medical field I read these threads to learn from others and try deliberately not to post about things I can’t bring a unique and informed perspective to. Yes I go to the doctor, but I suspect no one should or would really care about where my doctors went to school as they are just random individual data points so better left unsaid nor would my Googling prowess be informative. Consequently I read primarily in these posts or in this case warn.
To me the real benefit and value of CC is the informed words from people that have actually lived the various experiences brought forth by OPs. Thank you to those sharing those experiences for enlightening us.
It is most- over half (some schools more, some schools less). My daughter’s degree (BS in biology) specifically states that the major is intended for those who plan to continue their education in health care and biological fields…and that is what she experienced during her 4 years. More students than not intended to continue their education…some right away, others in a few years.
Many/some might not be prepping for the mcats. They might be doing other things that they need to do: gaining relevant work experience before returning to school, volunteering/shadowing etc while also working these jobs, taking an additional class that might be required while also working, etc.
I think some bio students do not have an end game when they start, and that’s ok. Some love biology but need time to figure out where to go with it.
I also think many bio majors start as premed and then pivot (while remaining a biology major) when they discover other interests or do not enjoy the day-to-day job of a physician. That’s why shadowing is important. Some continue to shadow and do informational interviews after they graduate, which explains the first destination surveys.
Have I missed the OP’s request for information on UNC? Posts not answering the OP’s questions about UCB and CWRU have been deleted as off-topic. Thank you for your understanding.
Congrats on some great choices! Regarding question #4, there was a discussion on the “Your college bound kid” podcast. The host, Mark Stucker, visited Berkley and some students told him there are problems getting classes there. He reported that there is a black market of sorts for classes during drop add. I’ll see if i can find the exact episode.
For everyone here or new viewers, just wondering if anyone’s a current/former premed from Cal or Case who did well when applying to med school (or knows someone who is). There’s been great insight shared and it’s been very helpful :), but we’d also love to hear from anyone who personally attended these schools. Thanks!
Regarding course selection at CWRU, I can share a recent example as freshman just did it for their sophomore year next Fall. 400 OChem1 seats were all filled whin minutes when it opened. Approx. 200+ are requesting waiting list on the same day. Parents and students complaint. Next day, students were getting email from the department stating that they are looking into the solution. Another two days passed, additional lecture session is opened so all on the waiting list can get it. Some still not getting OChem lab but are advised to take it in Spring (lab only requires to be 1 semester as it’s 2 credits and covers both OChem I&II). I do feel that overall CWRU is very caring and accommodating on parents’ and students’ needs and opinions.