Imo, Duke, Tufts, Holy Cross, Hopkins, and Brown.
Fair enough. I’m wrong to say Amherst doesn’t have a pre-med program. I will continue not to use the term “pre-med program” though as I think it carries a connotation that is not only inappropriate, but potentially detrimental to high school seniors who often think they will come onto a campus to find a structured system laid out for them by the school that, if followed, leads to medical school in the way that an engineering program leads to an engineering degree.
I actually don’t use the term either. However, I occasionally post a list that uses the it, so I defended the use of the term as reasonable – or at least not unreasonable. The list I post (post #2 on this thread) has some quality schools on it from which an OP may find a few colleges that are good fits in general. I don’t try to make it seem as if its more than it is – basically it’s just one more place to get ideas for schools to research further.
Med school admissions are totally unlike law school admissions. For law school, the name of your undergrad matters. All kinds of factors are used, which don’t align with the way med school choose their own students. @ThankYourForHelp, attending UChicago or any “top 25” doesn’t really help for med school the way it does for law school. It may give a nudge but not really, whereas it does matter (as in, “criterion” vs. “maybe nudge”) for law school.
When choosing a college for premed, the question shouldn’t be “are the classes good” or “how good is the biology dept”. Any college ranked up to 125 or so will have good classes in all the basics required by med schools. What matters is whether the classes are designed to be weed out or not;if enough students go to med school every year that the faculty have up to date guidance and med school contacts; if the environment is collaborative or competitive (collaborative is better); if there’s readily avalaible support if the student struggles in adjusting to college as a freshman, a situation which can cripple otherwise excellent students’ chances; if there are opportunities to volunteer in clinics and hospitals; if there is strong, specific advising; if there are opportunities for scientific research (of the “meaningful” kind); if the college has stipends for unpaid internships, meaning that lower-income/midle-income students can afford to take them on even if they need to earn money, and not be forced to work at Walmart over the summer when their wealthier counterpart can spend 10 weeks as an unpaid intern in a clinic/hospital; if there are opportunities to learn and practice a language spoken by immigrants (for example, if there’s a French department, do they offer a class in Haitian Creole? Does the Spanish dept offer a class in Spanish for Health Professions? Can you take Arabic classes for your language requirement? Is there a nearby community center that offers classes in Wolof or Ukrainian or Hmong?..) Those questions matter, probably roughly in that order.
…if the college is regularly hosting admissions folk from med schools who are presenting and also offering one on one advising? (just saw some of these on calendar at D’s undergrad)
^ yup, that too, probably at the level of “acquiring proficiency in a language used by immigrants”.
@ThankYouforHelp, how do you suggest this works? You say that doing premed at a higher ranked school is better, that more people get into med school from higher ranked schools than from state schools?
But you also say that undergrad loans should be kept low. But those higher ranked schools only give need based aid, not merit aid, state schools do give merit aid. So do you mean that only poor students should go to the higher ranked schools for premed?
I don’t understand your reasoning.
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I will continue not to use the term “pre-med program” though as I think it carries a connotation that is not only inappropriate, but potentially detrimental to high school seniors who often think they will come onto a campus to find a structured system laid out for them by the school that, if followed, leads to medical school in the way that an engineering program leads to an engineering degree.
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@iwannabe_Brown is right.
Using the term “premed program” confuses people. We see people who actually think there are “medical things” being taught in the premed prereqs…and that those classes are set up to prepare for the MCAT.
And…it’s why you see students and parents focusing on things like 80% acceptance rates…as if their incoming freshman has an 80% chance of getting into med school.
D’s school also arranges MCAT study groups 
^^^
Yes, schools do this…often thru their AED society or premed advising. (Alpha Epsilon Delta honor society for premeds)
Some schools even offer 1 credit classes for juniors to write their personal statements and do other related stuff.
OP’s can be disabused of inaccurate preconceptions as they reveal them. There’s no reason to assume that every poster who asks about good schools for pre-med is totally ignorant.
I feel like this thread is developing into a nice list of things to look for in a college where you think you would like to follow a pre-med not-program.
Re #46: Multiple contingencies can come into play. I see no inherent contradictions in the points ThankYouforHelp has made.
@OHMomof2: that’s very nice. Can you name the college?
I agree, this thread may become a great reference, and with its explicit title it will likely be read thousands times.
Should “checking for presence of AED” another thing to look at?
Sure, anyone can look through my old posts and see that, I think. D is at Amherst. (Which doesn’t have a chapter of AED - only two schools in Mass do - WPI and BU).
The MCAT study groups are organized through the pre-med advising team/group, same one that is bringing various med school ad reps to the school for one on one advising and presentations, that organizes various clubs, etc. It appears to be very active.
@mommdc: "how do you suggest this works? You say that doing premed at a higher ranked school is better, that more people get into med school from higher ranked schools than from state schools?
But you also say that undergrad loans should be kept low. But those higher ranked schools only give need based aid, not merit aid, state schools do give merit aid. So do you mean that only poor students should go to the higher ranked schools for premed?
I don’t understand your reasoning."
My reasoning is that it is different for everyone. If you are wealthy enough to pay for elite colleges, or are moderate to low income so that you get a ton of financial aid, then I think it is better to choose the elite college because I think the teaching, resources, support and research opportunities for undergraduates are all likely to be much better. Statistically, the outcomes for getting into med school are better. The infamous weeding out (if it happens at all) is much less rigid. That’s what you are getting with those schools.
Even for middle class students with family incomes up to $100K, the elite colleges are often cheaper than their state flagship. You have to run the net price calculator to be sure.
However, if you are in that window where the cost of the elite college is much more than the cost of your state school, then go to the state school and don’t look back. They are also excellent colleges and saving your money for medical school (or any grad school) is extremely wise. Keeping your debt down even if you are not going to grad school is wise. No question about it.
Plus - and this is a BIG deal - what if you ultimately decide not to go into medicine at all? Or God forbid, you have some trouble in college for a bit, and end up not quite academically strong enough to get accepted into med school? This often happens even to good students, those who are sure when they enter college that they are going to excel above everyone else. What then? The elite college will provide a lot more opportunities to you to do something else. Fair or not, a person who graduates middle of their class at State U. will have less options than the person who graduate middle of their class at Princeton, and that will hold true for the rest of their lives, at least to some degree. And by definition, most people graduate somewhere in the middle of the class.
So that’s my reasoning. I’m not saying that I am absolutely sure I am right, and anyone else is wrong. I don’t know that. I’m saying that I’m not seeing how any of us can be sure, not me, not you, and not mom2collegekids. The process is too opaque, there are too many complicating factors, and we all seem to be relying too much on our own common sense (and on anecdotes that we pass around among ourselves as though they were scientific truth).
Does that seem reasonable?
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The MCAT study groups are organized through the pre-med advising team/group, same one that is bringing various med school ad reps to the school for one on one advising and presentations, that organizes various clubs, etc. It appears to be very active.
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I agree that looking for an active premed advising dept/team is important. I know that my son benefited from his premed advising group when they arranged for actual med school interviewers to come to the school to conduct practice interviews and give constructive criticisms. Last week, UChi sent med school interviewers.
@merc81 because lurkers often read threads, when a thread’s topic has a wide interest (and premed threads tend to be such), responses can include some general info as well as OP-specific info.