Saying no to Stanford?

Era991
Sat, 27 Apr 2019 19:15:14 +0000

@fearthetree321 I know this is pretty close to decision deadline, but I think there are a few other considerations your daughter needs to think about before deciding. I’ll opt not to say which choice is better, and as she will see below, there are VERY strong factors arguing for both choices so it’s not a simple answer.

Please feel free to send me a PM if she has specific questions. I’ll do my best to respond in time before May 1, but things are pretty busy in the hospital so no promises. Sorry since answers would prob be terse

tl;dr: Undergrad reputation matters a lot, perhaps far more than it should, for determining how successful a candidate will be these days in the med school application process. Graduating debt free from undergrad is also huge, and the ways to try to alleviate undergrad debt during med school are far from guarantees.

Things to consider:

Stanford is not competitive. I made friends in essentially every major, and not one ran into this. Not even us pre-meds, which is usually the most competitive/sabotage-ey group at other institutions.

Stanford overall is not academically that challenging, and is actually surprisingly more manageable than most people expect, EXCEPT for some majors. Unfortunately chemistry is one of the harder majors, as are many engineering and CS. That said, I'm not sure if chemistry as a major would be easy anywhere haha.

As pointed out above and something I want to emphasize, most people who think they may be pre-med end up never becoming a med student. At Stanford this attrition rate was around 50%. Of the Stanford students during my time, usually this is because they found something they liked more, or realized they didn't like medicine that much, and so discover a new first choice career. A much lower percentage either believe they wouldn't get in even if they applied, or applied and didn't get in, so ended up going with a second choice. So choosing an undergrad based on just the possibility of going to med school would be making a big decision based on an imperfect assumption. That said, everything below matters if she is willing to bet that she will continue down this path.

Posters before mention undergrad degree does not matter for MDs. This is true. However, this is leaving out a VERY big consideration: Getting into a US MD school is exceptionally difficult, much more so than some of the older practicing docs may remember if they aren't involved in admissions these days. The % acceptance rates makes Stanford undergrad's--which on these fora is so often touted as being so low that you may as well not apply--look like the norm (it essentially is). The obvious factors play into likelihood of acceptance: MCAT, GPA, research, extracurriculars, LoRs, essay. But "pedigree" of undergrad matters a very, very surprising amount. I remember the first year I got involved in admissions at a "top 10" US MD school (by any metric, including the relatively useless USNWR rankings), it was actually stunning to see the preference given to students coming from Stanford, Ivies, Duke, and Vandy. Without revealing any specifics, for interview invites especially early ones, as well as early acceptances, merit scholarships it was actually astounding how hard it would be at some points during the year to even find an accepted candidate who did not come from a name brand school. Early invites and early acceptances matter a lot for reasons which are too numerous to type out here. Even at the end of the admissions cycle, the preference was palpable, even though not so much as in the autumn when the first acceptances went out. Medical training is, beginning from undergrad, a set of stepping stones, with the current one only mattering for getting the next one but not all that much for any after that. I.e., undergrad reputation matters for med school apps, med school reputation matters for residency matching, residency reputation matters for fellowship/job placement.

Graduating with less debt is huge. There's no way around it. You can calculate it out the number of extra years worked based on average compensation of her likely specialties, but at the end of the day, even one extra year of work can be taxing for an old, jaded MD, and the psychological pressure to pinch pennies throughout undergrad/med school/residency/early attending life cannot be quantified. --- Now, there is always the consideration that, just as Stanford undergrads tend to get accepted into more med schools, they also tend to get offered more merit scholarships (including several full-tuition or full-ride ones available at several top med schools), which could alleviate or cancel out her delta undergrad debt. But of course this is a huge gamble, and not one that she can count on paying off. --- There is also the relatively minor consideration that going to Stanford --> better chance of getting into highly-regarded med school that has a history of being able to place students into competitive residencies in specialties that compensate more --> better chance of matching into a well-paying specialty --> able to pay off debt faster. But there are so many "if's" in this line of thought that she shouldn't bet on this either, especially as around 2/3rd of med students change their minds on specialty decisions, regardless of how "sure" they were when they matriculated.

Medicine is a rough field. Regardless of where she goes, she’ll need to do some soul-searching to decide if she thinks it’s really right for her. Now that her apps are done, high school senior spring/summer is a good time to use her free time to shadow some MDs. While most preceptors tend to have their students come in late, leave early, and spare them from seeing the “difficult” patients, she’ll want to ask to not be treated with the kid gloves. Otherwise she may not have grasp of what her profession is really like until she’s in too deep.