Yes. Volunteered at the local community hospital where my child was able to ask a physician and shadowed her. That led to another shadowing experience . Member of various high school health related clubs ( atleast 3 with atleast decent involvement) and also volunteered at one the local schools for the specially abled with very meaningful interactions. wouldn’t be looking into medicine as a career choice if it weren’t for the dedication and interest. Likes working with people
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Has thought about law too but not very inclined towards it ( likes to write and can have long discussions about the constitution and policies )
There are tons of healthcare jobs that do not involve being a physician.
Most of them require significantly fewer years of education and training. Most of them you and your child have probably never heard of or considered.
Here’s a resource I often recommend to young adults/teenagers to learn more abut other healthcare related careers:
Pre med is a constant grind. It wears one down mentally and sometime physically. (Did I mention the #2 cause of death among med students and medical residents is suicide? That 40+% of med students report suicidal ideation and major depressive symptoms? ) Becoming a physician requires a young person to sacrifice all of their 20s and most/all of their 30s before they are finally done training and can launch themselves into full adulthood. (Marriage, family, home ownership, etc) Many pre meds decide they don’t want to make that sacrifice.
Many high schoolers have idealistic visions of saving people’s lives, but the day-to-day of medicine really isn’t like that. A lot of it is routine and boring. And there are absolute tons of paperwork that must be filed.
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UAB does have some interesting summer programs for aspiring medical professionals. Not sure that others have similar.
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These look interesting and it seems some are open to students from all over. They don’t take a lot of students but are certainly worth looking into!
It looks like they try to accept students from underrepresented groups as well as those whose schools do not have many research opportunities.
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I know MUSC has one too.
It ‘might’ be away to experience other schools. I know there are some abroad programs too. One of our regular posters kid did some things overseas.
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That’s quite a lot
Clearly. We’ve talked about that.
I have a family member who is currently in medical school. There are students from schools such as Duke and Hopkins, and there are plenty of students from schools such as Kentucky and Rutgers.
The same holds true for medical research. My daughter had a summer position at a well known children’s research hospital. Her cohort came from all over.
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In terms of being prepared for med school?
About the same.
Med school is very fast paced. (The drinking from a fire hose metaphor applies.)
Even a full semester of an upper level specialized biology class like neuropharmacology or immunology is covered in 2-3 lectures in med school. (One week, sometime less.)
Any advantage a student may have had by taking those specialized UL electives quickly disappears.
At our state public med school, Ds had classmates from undergrads ranging from Stanford, Tufts, MIT, Duke to New Mexico State and UAlaska-Anchorage.
Everyone managed to graduate and graduate on time. And those who finished at the top and bottom of class? Absolutely no correlation to what undergrad they attended.
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That’s really good to know. Thank you
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You can look at the residents of most academic hospitals - and easily see the undergrad schools. They all post that info. It’s typically, at a school like Vandy, what was described above in the note previous.
There is nothing wrong with choosing a school such as Vanderbilt etc if it is affordable without hardship (retirement etc), if you are fully aware of the costs of medical school (or other professional school), and if your child loves the school. These are outstanding schools that have a lot to offer (no school is perfect).
However……if you think these schools will somehow provide a more direct, “easier” path to medical school….that likely wont happen. Your child still has to get high grades/scores (lots of smart kids will be at UGA), volunteer, work with underserved populations, display maturity and excellent communication skills, have a true understanding of what the career is about, develop relationships etc.
My eye doctor was an engineering major at a public flagship and went to Columbia for medical school. Last summer he had a student shadowing him who was premed at Stony Brook. There is a medical school and teaching hospital there, but he wanted additional hours and experiences.
My kid’s school also has a medical school and teaching hospital on campus, and when I looked they allow 8 days of shadowing in a few different departments. While that is great, she also wanted to shadow in different locations, populations etc so she did that during breaks.
There are a lot of moving parts here - my advice is to attend an affordable school where he will be happy.
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Great post.
For the OP, your student may want to schedule a call with the pre-health advisors at each school they are considering. This will allow them to ask questions about the available resources and support they can expect at that school. My premed D did that when making her college decision and it helped.
The schools you’ve listed are all known for “premed” so the differentiation may be one of accessibility and a gut feel of where your student feels most connected. Any of these schools can prepare one for med school. So the question is where is your student most comfortable.
As others have mentioned, I’d also consider the financial implications of paying for undergrad plus med school.
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I would like to paint a different picture than most of the replies here.
First, the majority of med school, especially elite med school matriculations are from selective prestige schools. 31% of med school matriculations are from most selective private schools. Check following link:
Secondly, WedgeDawg score gave additional points to graduate of elite schools. The points are significant in the formula. Check the link - WedgeDawg's Applicant Rating System (Updated Jan 2017) | Student Doctor Network
"
Level 3: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT
Level 2: All other “prestigious” or highly selective schools including other Ivies, WashU, Duke, Hopkins, UChicago etc
Level 1: All other schools"
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It takes high grades and high MCAT scores to get into Med school (along with the other stuff). So it is not a surprise that colleges which only or mainly admit kids with sky high grades and standardized test scores are going to see lots of their students end up in med school.
Selection effect vs. Treatment effect.
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Then why add additional points in WARS formula for selective prestige schools? It is only for school name without any additional consideration.
Looking at which undergrad colleges has the highest rate of med school matriculation in isolation tells you essentially nothing about influence of undergrad college on admission.
For example, if Harvard undergrads have more med school alumni than students attending a non-selective directional state; is that because med schools prefer Harvard grads? Or is that because the average Harvard student is both more likely to apply to med school and more likely to be well qualified than the average student at non-selective directional state?
A better question is how admissions rates compare among students who are are comparably qualified that attended different undergrad colleges? Comparable qualification includes similar MCAT/GPA stats, similar demographic (including URM), similar ECs (research/clinical experience), etc.
I don’t know who WedgeDawg is. He seems to be a poster a different forum. His formula is ranking based on Japanese tiers (S tier is higher than A/B/C tier), so perhaps he is big on anime or video games. I wouldn’t take his 10-year old post as gospel. Have any med school admissions stated that they use a similar type of formula?
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If you had kids in pre-med process, you would have known 2 rating systems for med school chances, LizzM and WARS (WedgeDawg Applicant Rating System). WARS is generally considered more accurate. Student Doctor Network is the main hub for pre-med and med school students.
You don’t need to be an expert on WARS. Google is your friend in the case. Just spend a little extra time to search.