Premed questions? Ask here.

jwj
Fri, 13 Apr 2007 13:45:24 +0000

1) Entrance “rates”, per se, aren’t published beyond the list Cel has put up. But clearly, we’ve sent 94 people to top places around the nation, and that’s nearly half the matriculating med school population from Stanford.
2) I also considered the choice between Brown PLME and Stanford…and my parents were all for the idea of already being accepted to med school for a while. In all honesty, the notion of “knowing” that one wants to be a doctor at the end of high school is kinda ridiculous. College is for exploring, and I’ve been far happier here at Stanford knowing that I have such a broad range of possibilities. Even nearly started a pharmaceutical company thanks to the potential of being in Silicon Valley. Still planning to be a doctor, yes, but now have a much broader know-how of applications of technology to real-world problems, and it’s only going to strengthen my application (one of my advisors used to sit on the board of admissions for Harvard med school, she’s been quite educational on what they look for)
3) Enjoying undergrad career–Stanford wins in every possible way. Better weather, nicer classmates, better extracurriculars, and just more exciting people overall
4) in the top med schools, because they’re private, affirmative action generally doesn’t apply. Med schools still do a good job of selecting a diverse class of the best people

Final argument: if a school has to GUARANTEE acceptance to its med school just to try and attract people, then their program clearly isn’t very attractive otherwise, and isn’t really worth it.