@NASA2014 no, NJ. What is your basis for your statement about academics being much harder at Mich?
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Umich will be much harder than Georgetown in academics.
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I doubt that is true
@ OP
I went to G’town a long time ago and was a science major though I had no intention of going to med school and instead proceeded to grad school at one of the Harvard/Yale/Princeton. I took classes with all the premed kids and knew at least 50 premed students both within my major and outside. These are my perceptions from looking at med school attendance for students within my peer group and also from other years. I know nothing of Notre Dame and Michigan, and I am always wary of using public data to form conclusions without actual experience of the university:
(1) You will not get into a top med school with just a 3.6 except you have something impressive going on such as multiple research publications including first author. This was the distribution I saw when I was in college:
3.7+: Top 15-30 medical school. You still need publications, 3.8-3.9 and a slew of ECs to get a shot at the top 10.
3.5-3.7: Top 30-35 medical school. Better chances if you are resident of a state with a good medical school
3.3-3.5: Osteopathic Medical School or Med school ranked 30-50.
3.3: Med school in the Caribbean or Australia
Research publications is king especially if you can get a first author. Schools like Harvard Med, Washington U, Yale and Johns Hopkins med are not remotely impressed by 3.9’s even from G’town. They have seen better. You need to show them medical publications and ability to do research.
(2) The students at Georgetown are very very sharp especially those who are focused on premed. Be aware the average student at a college is not usually Premed. You probably have the top 25% of incoming students concentrating on Premed.
For example, In my major class of 30 students, a sizable number of students at the bottom quartile of the class did not go to medical school but ended up at top PhD programs like Northwestern, Yale e.t.c. They were productive scientists in those programs. Another “weak” student took the LSAT and got a score that would easily get her into Harvard Law School if she had a better GPA and majored in something less difficult. She ended up instead at a top 20 law school.
Even the top students struggled to get into top 10-15 medical schools no matter their GPA or MCAT scores (see my opinion about perception on academics in my next note). You need to publish.
I had a lab partner who once memorized a 400 page biochemistry textbook in 2 days. He had a 3.89, and got rejected at nearly every top med school he applied to except Washington University and was placed on the waitlist. He got off the waitlist after he showed them a first author publication he submitted based on 3 years of research at the cancer center. He is asian though so …
(3) Perception versus Actual Academics: This is the only time I will talk about Notre Dame and Michigan. There is a high difference between the actual academics of a school and its “perceived” academics. I am clearly drawing my conclusions based on just anecdotes though the number of data points I have is > 50, which is convincing enough for me.
For one, I have noticed that decent students at schools like Notre Dame and Georgetown (3.5-3.6) tend to do as well in standardized tests (MCAT, LSAT, GRE e.t.c) or even better than students from top students from Public Research Virginia, Michigan, Berkeley e.t.c (3.8-3.9). They also perform very well in graduate school relative to these students. I am still skeptical about claims of grade deflation at public schools.
I understand standardized test scores tend to measure aptitude while G.PA. is somewhat correlated to work ethic and knowledge of course material, but I sometimes wonder if the claims about one school having stronger academics than the other can be really made without actual experience of the curriculum.
As someone who has TA’ed and graded exams for undergraduate students at a top 3 university, I can confidently tell you that there are not major differences at say HYP vs. Georgetown for the sciences. However, there is a huge perception that this is the case, and this will affect your chances of getting into medical school. It is far far easier to get into Med School or any Graduate school for that matter if you are from HYP even though the education is the same. Also you get the opportunity to do research with top faculty at a top school. I will wager that it would be the case for a school like Michigan which is well respected at the top-level because of perceived high academics as a result of the strength of its faculty (especially having one of the best medical research facilities). Personally, I will recommend that if you are confident that you are a top student you should go to Michigan and join a lab in the medical school asap. You will have a shot at a very good medical school.
(4) Pick your major wisely: Consider not majoring in the Hard Sciences for Med school whatever undergrad you go to. I noticed that students who were in Chemistry & Physics had a tough time getting into med school. Due to the need for diversity of majors, a lot of medical schools like students who studied Psychology, Anthropology, Economics, Math e.t.c. and did Premed as well research. They do seem to bring a new perspective to medicine. Also it would help your G.P.A trust me.
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3.5-3.7: Top 30-35 medical school. Better chances if you are resident of a state with a good medical school
3.3-3.5: …or Med school ranked 30-50.
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Not sure where you’re getting the above from, but that is old thinking…
A 3.3-3.5 will likely mean no MD acceptances or maybe, if VERY lucky, an unranked med school …unless the applicant is hooked.
A 3.5 - 3.6 would be incredibly lucky to get into a top 30-35 MD med school…unless hooked.
depends what you mean by pre-med? At TCNJ there is a true 7 year premed program and is one of the best anywhere but difficult by all measures to get accepted into.
I think it depends on the OP’s objective. If the goal is medical school , any of the schools will be fine. If the goal is academic medicine and research (the MD/PhD track) Michigan offers more research opportunities than Georgetown or ND. Michigan also admits many of its own undergrads to medical school. Michigan has the enormous (former Pfizer research labs) NCRC complex, which cost Pfizer over $1 billion to build, the majority of which is dedicated to medical research in addition to all of the labs and research facilities already on campus.
Pre-med could be just about anything these days , and pre-med students sometimes change their mind and go into other fields. Michigan and ND have very strong alumni networks so that may also be a factor. Both ND and Michigan are strong in many areas, and the OP might make a shift from, say, the science to business. Unless the OP is 100% certain of their path that should also be a consideration. 18 year old students can change their mind frequently.
I agree with mom2collegekids. Sub 3.5 GPA these days means no medical school, unless the rest of the applicant’s profile is very strong (good MCAT, research/published work, internship at hospitals, ECs, URM etc…). That is why when a college or university claims an 80% or 90% placement rate into medical school, it means that virtually all medical school applicants from that institution have a cumulative GPA of 3.5 or higher.
^^^
Right.
And again, the devil is in the details. When we look at that chart that shows someone with a modest GPA and 3X MCAT getting in, we’re not seeing the backstory. Likely that is a non-trad with poor earlier grades or some very hooked applicant.
^ ^ TBH, I was talking based on the premed students I knew within my college and not referring to the general med school applicant.
Looking back I would agree my numbers are not entirely accurate neither do they paint a clear picture of things. The very few people I knew who got into med school with subpar 3.5 had high BCPM GPAs or went into 1-year Record Enhancement/SMP programs. 2 students also had interesting hooks. For instance one was very proficient in American Sign Language and worked with the hard-of-hearing /deaf students at Gallaudet, and wanted to primarily serve the deaf-community.
Anyways @ OP
I was reading a very good posts on CC by a student who seemed like a premed student at ND- she seemed to have a lot of local knowledge- quite informative. Also Notre Dame and Georgetown post students first destinations on their career websites, and you can get an idea of where students attend med school:
In terms of pre med, all of these colleges would do fine- michigan, nd, gtown, tcnj, and rutgers. Med school admissions are more formulaic/less touchy feely compared to undergrad admissions. Pretty much comes down to five factors- GPA, MCAT, good quality clinical experiences, research experience, and personal experiences that are unique conveyed through special extracurriculars, awards, personal statement, letters, etc.
Where you go I think mostly makes differences in terms of clinical/research/personal experiences.
In terms of clinical/research experiences, Michigan>>>> anyone. Michigan has a huge med campus and a huge research presence in medicine/health sciences. Nothing compared to Georgetown. Georgetown will do ok, but for research/clinicals even rutgers will provide better opportunities than georgetown.
GPA- it’s entirely up to you not where you go. Unless you go to few schools that have grade deflation (Hopkins, MIT, etc), differences between your schools are minimal. Pre med is tough anywhere and it’s up to you to get the top GPA/MCAT.
Larger schools offer more extracurriculars and don’t worry too much about pre med advising and number of advisors per student/committees. Once again it more up to you and larger schools have very active pre med clubs/organizations that work with admissions committees members and faculty members from med schools who’s more up to date than pre med advisors who are mostly non MDs anyways.
If I were you I would do Michigan>Rutgers/Georgetown>ND/TCNJ in terms of pre med just because ND is rural and they don’t have affiliated med school/hospital but I am sure you will do fine in any of these 5 options.
South Bend has a branch of the IU School of Medicine just south of the ND campus. There is some association between the two schools.
I’m sure Nd students can get experience there and any one of smaller community hospitals, but keep it mind that the main med campus is in Indianapolis. These regional campuses are smaller in terms of resources both clinically and researchwise. I m sure it’s great to be a med student at South bend, but may not have enough resources to involve undergrads like big teaching centers in Indianapolis, Ann Arbor, etc.
@hchun301 You have no idea what you are talking about, with all due respect.
I disagree. In fact, as a recent medical school graduate I would say hchun301 has given the most useful advice in this entire thread. The most important thing for a medical school applications is GPA and MCAT. It is going to be tough to maintain a high GPA at all of these schools and all will prepare well for the MCAT. As for other factors, you can volunteer anywhere, get clinical experience anywhere and get good LORs anywhere. It really doesn’t matter how large your class size is when it comes to getting good LORs. Why? Because regardless of whether there are 500 people in a class or 15 the bottom line is that you need to put in an effort to get to know a professor outside of the lecture times in order to get a GREAT letter of recommendation. And yes, this is easy to do at a school as large as Michigan (I did it and so do HUNDREDS of other medical school applicants every year). But if you still think having a small class size is that important in terms of getting good LORs then just request them from professors in upper level classes, which are going to be small even at a huge school like Michigan.
As far as pre-med advising I will say that I chuckled a little bit reading through this thread. In medical school, my peers and I often made fun of the quality of “pre-med advising” that was given at undergrads across the country. In general, these advisors have just as much knowledge as the posters in this thread when it comes to medical school admissions (i.e. they read something online, or know someone who applied to medical school). In other words, most have never went through the process themselves. Regardless of which school you attend, I would suggest using Student Doctor Network over a pre-med advisor. This is coming from a white male who was a traditional medical school applicant that graduated from a Top 25 medical school with an undergrad GPA that was destined for “no MD acceptances or maybe, if VERY lucky, an unranked med school” or “Osteopathic Medical School or Med school ranked 30-50”.
I would say the biggest difference (as far as medical school admissions) between the schools you selected is going to be research opportunities. Having a large academic hospital nearby is a huge plus as an undergrad. Sure, it is possible to do research at a school like Notre Dame that lacks this. But in general it is way easier to reap the benefits of a clinical research project than a basic science one. You can jump on a clinical research project for a couple of months and get multiple publications out of it (I did this with ease). I have never heard of such a thing happening in the world of bench research. Unless you are going to be a physician scientist, doing clinical research will also be more helpful for a future career as a physician. I honestly can’t think of a single hospital in South Bend, IN (although there has got to be one) and there is certainly not an academic hospital. This is where Georgetown and UM really have the upper hand, with UM being far superior to Georgetown in my biased opinion.
I am not saying you should attend Michigan. But if you are going to consider spending a considerable amount of money on Georgetown or Notre Dame I think Michigan is worth the money as well, in your case. Enough to justify not going to an in-state school? That is for you to decide, but seeing how you did not mention any such schools in your post that topic is rather tangential.