Questions For BigRedMed

california_love8
Sat, 05 Aug 2006 00:29:20 +0000

1: there are only 125 med schools in the us. All do a great job preparing their students for medical practice. None are crummy.

2: you do realize that you have to undergrad first, right? Undergrad school factors very little into med school admisions. You just need to do well in college with grades, the MCAT, on-campus involvement, research, and volunteering and then apply to schools where you will be competitive. There are no safeties (to use a CC term) in med school admisions. But there are reaches and matches. If you do well while an undergrad, and apply to schools that fit your stats, you will have a good chance to be accepted.

3: Don’t read too much in to those acceptance numbers. They don’t take into account things like state residency. Your Arizona example is a great choice b/c they only accept applications from AZ residents or people with significant AZ ties, which artificially limits the number of people who apply. State schools often give huge advantages to in state students, and everyone is aware of that fact so people are reluctant to apply to state schools of which they aren’t a resident. That fact alone raises the number of applicants to private medical schools. Other places like George Washington and Tufts get an abnormally high # of applications b/c of their locations and the fact that they often have rather low stats for their entering class (Tufts had an average entering GPA of 3.48 when I applied there 2 years ago) and remember what I said about applying to places where you’ll be competitive - people think they have a better shot of making it in there so they apply. Just b/c GW had only about 1% of it’s applicants actually earn and take a spot in their school doesn’t mean that they are a better school than say Iowa.

4: There are plenty of people who are not geniuses in medical school. In fact I’d say most are simply above average people who work hard.

5: Like with any USNWR rankings they need to be taken with a grain of salt and an understanding of how they arrive at those rankings. For Primary Care, there is a lot of emphasis on how many students the schools place into PC residency programs (Med, peds, OB/GYN, Family). The research rankings are dependent on how much money they earn in grants.
I’m of the opinion that the PC rankings are a rough approximation of how good the school is at producing quality doctors across the board, but it is by no means absolutely true, and certainly should not be taken as an absolute. The research rankings are much more helpful if you are actually thinking of doing research in the future.





In Response to:

I (yes I am UW husky also) didnt mean that they’re crummy faculty-wise, but I mean that they arent the best overall in prestige. And prestige I’ve heard is a HUGE factor when applying for rescidency. Also, if you dont go to Johns Hopkins for med, and go to a lowly school like arizona, then, from I’ve heard, you wont get into a naturally competitive rescidency such as Surgery, which I really really really want to do. (btw, are you sure that its not that hard, or are so many people turned off by the cutting-open of bodies that it weeds out many candidates) So I meant crummy in that sense. Correct me if I’m wrong on any of this, but explain why people I’ve heard from are wrong (since they are legit med students themselves)
So from you’re logic (I’m not being sarcastic even if it sounds like I am) are you saying it might be better for me to consider going to a state school like UC-Boulder than somewhere like stanford because its easier to get good grades than a ultra-competitive school like that? And if you have time can I see the article that proves your assertion that Arizona Med School only accepts people from Arizona? Cuz then it might also be wise for me to look at UA since that would offer a monumental advantage in applying to med school. But again I’m worried that because UA isn’t even top 50 in USNR that I wont be able to land a surgery rescidency, so what would u recommend? And btw, I’m not so sure about your assertion that state schools offer advantages to its UGs. A friend of my family’s son was on the deans list multiple times at UW, and did fine on the MCATs, and was in the end wait-listed and then accepted. This doesn’t inspire much confidence in how much credit state schools give to its residents.


And final Q:
Do u know anything about Umich and MichSU and how much state residence factors into getting into one of those schools since both are very good?