Pros and Cons of public/private school for Pre-med

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
21

As a D.O. She is still a doctor. Training at MD and DO schools is just about identical except that the OMM instruction is additionally done at DO schools.

But back to the OPs question. Private vs public doesn’t matter one bit. The medical schools are going to screen using your GPA, sGPA and MCAT score. If you make that screening cut, you might be invited to an interview.

My opinion, save as much money on undergrad school as possible, because medical school aid is loans, loans and more loans in most cases.

22

@norcalfre

Every state and indeed every medical school has its own rules for determining in-state resident status. But in general, a dependent student cannot establish in-state residency just by attending college in a certain state.

They need to establish an independent domicile–live & work in the state, get a driver’s license, register to vote, rent an apartment/house, pay for utilities in their own name, file and pay state taxes, fill and pay federal taxes as an independent listing that state as their legal residence. Most states require 12 consecutive months of living in the state as a non-student; some require longer.

If you D attends college in TX, she will still be considered a CA resident since she has not established an independent domicile in TX nor did she graduate from a TX high school.

TX Rules for determining residency–https://www.tmdsas.com/PLAN/medical/before-you-apply/residency.html

23
  1. A committee LOR is NOT required to apply to med school. It’s preferred by some med schools, but is not a requirement by any definition.

Students can apply with individual LORs instead of a committee letter. In fact, the majority of students apply without a committee LOR.

  1. The number of students getting a committee LOR even at large universities is small–typically fewer than 50 or 60 in any given year. It’s really not a problem to get a highly personalized committee LOR at large universities.
24

The distinction isn’t so much private v. public, as it is collaborative v. competitive.
You want to avoid a university known for having many premeds: first because it’ll make the application that much harder to stand out and second because it’ll guarantee a desperate competition for few seats.

Smaller colleges may offer more personalized advising and opportunities. This can be achieved through a smaller school environment or through an Honors College.

You also want to check out “weedout practives”: there’s natural attrition (kids who had a half-hearted wish to try out premed who figure out they don’t like chemistry, for instance) and straight weedout, which involves classes designed to have a certain percentage of the class have a certain grade, most of which will be below med-school worthy.
Most colleges at a certain level (Top 100 national universities and national LACs, top 10-20 regional universities) will provide what’s academically necessary for a premed to succeed. The difficulty will be in ranking in the top 10% of students in each and every premed pre-req taken and that’s a challenge regarldess of where you take the classes.

UC’s have extremely tough weeding combined with overwhelmed advisers who won’t even see premeds till their junior year. In addition, California is the most competitive state for med school in terms of number of “qualified” instate student/number of med school places ratio.
UCR may be a possibility through their early acceptance program.
BU has major grade deflation so I wouldn’t advise it for premeds; Baylor has tons of premeds so the competition is tough (and the Baylor med school is unrelated - in another town altogether).
Have you run the NPC? Will you need merit scholarships? Can your child apply as a “full pay” applicant?
Why Santa Clara (I don’t see other Catholic universities on your list)?

25

@MYOS1634

Why not Santa Clara? My doctor daughter graduated from SCU. Her intention at the time was not premed, but she did take the requisite courses there for Med school applications. It’s a Jesuit school and very ecumenical. We are not Catholic.

SCU is really a fine smaller university. They offer a variety of majors in case this student chances her mind about medicine. It’s a collegial place to attend college…but it’s expensive !

It does not seem that cost is a factor for this family. All the schools on this private school list have steep price tags.

26

Wondering if it’s on the list because it’s Catholic, because it’s a reputable private college, because it’s in CA (so, not too far for OP), or for other reasons.
Depending on the answer there may be other universities to look into, to complement the list.
(ie., Holy Cross or Saint Mary’s v. any midsize private, for instance).
In my opinion it’s probably one of the best choice from the list for a full pay student, but not if the student needs merit aid. CWRU and Northeastern would have a different atmosphere - both are more focused, either academically or professionally and do offer merit aid; these would round out my top 3 from the original list.

Caveat: if the university issues committee letters and a student doesn’t get one, then it DOES matter.

27

ONLY if the student goes straight from undergrad to med school. (Applies as rising senior or immediately after graduation.) Students who take gap years–for any reason–are not expected to have a committee letter.

While many schools claim to support alumni applying to medical school, in actual practice schools often make it difficult. Committees often place additional burdens on an alumnus who wants a committee letter–like making them return to campus to have an in-person interview on a weekday, or requiring them to go to the end of the line and only writing alumni letters after all current students have already received their committee letters.

28

“You want to avoid a university known for having many premeds: first because it’ll make the application that much harder to stand out and second because it’ll guarantee a desperate competition for few seats.”

This advice falls into the “take with a grain of salt” category in my opinion.

Colleges are known for having lots of premeds because of their success at having lots of their grads actually get into med school. That’s what drives their reputation- it’s not some abstract, unrelated data-point. Yes- you can be one of the three applicants your year to med school from a college not known for its success in getting kids into med school- and if your MCAT is right, your GPA and course selection is where it needs to be, and you’ve had exposure to either volunteering, working in a medical setting, some other first hand knowledge of health care- then yes- great strategy. But colleges with a strong track record of med school admissions come with some substantial advantages- they’ve got advisers who know the drill. They’ve got multiple sections of required courses so that the history major who wants to go to med school takes the CORRECT version of chem, not the wrong version. They’ve got established relationships with organizations close to campus to facilitate easy volunteer/shadowing/research/internship work.

I’ve known a couple of kids who have had to do a Post-Bacc (with borrowed funds, god knows how they will pay for med school) because the strategy of “find the college with the lowest average SAT scores so I will shine” meant that they graduated from college without what they needed.

YMMV.

29

In my opinion, the same student (stats, ECs) from any of those schools will have identical chances at med school. I don’t see any name helping/hurting via name recognition alone.

Besides cost, consider what Plan B is. The majority of students applying to med school do not make it in at this point in time, and that’s just of those applying. Many opt to drop out along the way due to finding something they like better, not getting the grades once the competition and depth of courses increases past high school, or discovering that they just don’t want to be a doctor.

What’s your daughter’s Plan B? And what’s the best school for her for that?

Pick a school she likes and pick a major she likes. Students do better in majors they enjoy vs any they think they “should” have.

From my 20+ years of experience in high school, the pre-med wannabes who were most likely to succeed went to schools where they were comfortably in the Top 25% of entering stats (GPA and SAT/ACT). The SAT might have been 1400 or it might have been 1200. In general, my theory is they do best when they have a similar to somewhat better foundation (math/verbal) than if they are coming out of the starting gate behind. All will have the same test to pass (MCAT) and similar material within Pre-Med courses, but mentally, if one is having to learn more to catch up when “everybody else already knows this stuff and I’m dumb” it sure doesn’t help.

Close to 40% of students who apply to US med schools do make it in each year, so don’t be discouraged from my post - just consider things with eyes wide open. The name of the school is one of the least important details. If she likes research, don’t dismiss it either. I doubt it ever hurts an applicant. It may or may not help. For my son, research was his Plan B and several at college tried to get him to pursue that route, but he’s now happily applying to residencies - has an interview today actually, so I’m monitoring his email acting as his secretary if more interview invites come in (and otherwise amusing myself on the computer).

Here’s the profile from his med school class. If you change the year in the url, you’ll see that it’s a template and they look for the same things over and over. Be someone who would fit in and stand out in their own way. My guy was the juggler. You’ll also note multiple school names on the lists, not just a few.

https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/MediaLibraries/URMCMedia/education/md/documents/2021-profile.pdf

Hmm, just noted they seemed to not put one out for 2023 or 2024 - but you can do up to 2022 by changing the url. I doubt what they look for has changed much and I doubt they’re the only med school looking for those things.

1 Like
30

Found 2023:

https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/MediaLibraries/URMCMedia/education/md/documents/2023-Class-Profile-8-20-19.pdf

Same template - different url. Google figured it out.

Best wishes to your daughter and anyone else who happens to be reading on a similar path.

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31

Hmm, scrolling through 2023’s myself, I found this interesting:

“All of you have volunteered in various outreach programs, alternative summer
breaks and health care brigades and other college or religious sponsored
organizations, to make an impact on health and wellness of communities.
If there is a hospital unit or service, someone in this room has volunteered
in it and more importantly, LOVED working within it.”

“All” is in bold letters. I’d put that as a high preference for at least this school. (My guy volunteered too, both domestically during his college days and abroad on breaks.)

32

One can possibly tell I have more time on the computer this morning than usual. Here’s what 2023 had to say about research for this med school:

“Equally impressive are the number of you with published peer-reviewed articles and meeting
abstracts. I personally resonate with the number of you that spoke of
research as a lesson in failure and humility; yet you found satisfaction and
growth despite that. You have published in a vast array of disciplines such
as mathematics, engineering, emergency medicine, vascular surgery,
pediatrics, neurology, burn care, plastics and oncology. This class has an
unnatural love of glial cells and gene sequencing. Your scientific inquiry
was a significant contributor to our desire to have you in this class. Your
admiration and awe of the scientist that trained you, is something that we
admire, as research is a key pillar in our institution’s mission.”

I wouldn’t dismiss having research if it appeals to your daughter. It might help at some places and is unlikely to hurt anywhere. If she doesn’t care for research, that’s a different story. When the time comes her med school applications can focus on schools that don’t care about it.

1 Like
33

@creekland Thanks for all this info. It always helps to learn from parents who have have kids in med school.

34

First batch of Kaiser class 2024.

https://medschool.kp.org/admissions/class-of-2024

50 students, 17 colleges with 1 student and 10 colleges > 1 for a total 33 students.
12 public U and 21 Private. almost half CA and rest OOS.

35

Typo. 15 Private (and not 21)

36

Mostly all highly ranked schools.

37

Doesn’t Kaiser offer free tuition? If so, it stands to reason they are accepting top students.

12 publics represented. Not everyone came from a tippy top private university.

38

Even publics are highly ranked or mostly the highest ranked publics.

It is free tuition (many got even more money to pay for full COA). Kaiser already has a very well known residency program.

I believe they said free tuition for first 4 batches.

39

Median MCAT of 515 is 91st percentile, according to https://aamc-orange.global.ssl.fastly.net/production/media/filer_public/d9/04/d904b7f4-c3d0-4469-aed1-e5afff500d05/mcat_total_and_section_score_percentile_ranks_2020_for_web.pdf .

26% non-traditional
36% socioeconomic disadvantage
30% LGBTQ

But also:

UC Riverside * 4
Arizona State
Colorado - Denver
Kentucky
San Diego State

40

I chalk up UC Riverside and San Diego State under instate preference and so primarly Kentucky and Colorado - Denver are the only outliers.

Free Tuition seems to come with a lot of built in prestige.