Reminder that CC is not a debate society and this is not the parent cafe.
While it is true that students who attend these colleges are generally more skilled at preparing for exams (that is how they got the grade to be accepted to their college in the first place), there are other factors as well.
These colleges generally have much better advising for students who want to go on to medical school, students from these colleges have an easier time finding internships and other opportunities to get the right experience. The advisors are also likely cull students who are not ready, and may also encourage high performing students who are unsure. Finally, these colleges may also be doing a better job at helping their student put together a good application.
Of course, we must always consider family income. Studies have also demonstrated that MCAT scores are correlated to family income, so colleges with a wealthier student body will have higher acceptance rates of its students. In general, students at the private colleges on these lists are wealthier than the students at the large public universities on this list.
It is interesting to note that U Mich has almost the same percent of high income students as the private universities on the list, while Berkeley, MSU, OSU, UCSD, and UCLA do not. The acceptance rate for U Mich graduates are also in the same range as graduates of the private colleges, while those of graduates of the other universities are far lower.
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The AAMC does a regular survey asking medical school admission officers of the relative importance of different admission factors. The 2024 survey is pictured below. Med school admission officers ranked selectivity of undergraduate college among the least influential academic factors, like undergraduate major selection.
Several medical schools do post lists of most represented undergrad colleges, but Iâd encourage you not to read much in to such lists. This might be comparable to finding that U Michigan admits are tremendously more likely to be Asian than the general population, so concluding that U Michigan prefers admitting Asian students. There are other correlated factors, such as different rate of applying and different rates as being well qualified applicants (in the highest importance rating categories listed below).
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The data and studies I have seen in the past have been consistent with law schools doing a lot more to factor undergrad admissions selectivity into GPA/rank considerations than medical schools. The standard explanation is the core premed requirements de facto serve a normalizing function already, whereas law schools have no equivalent.
This data also isnât inconsistent with that basic model.
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Their chances are better - because they go to top schools. And the top schools want them because they are full pay. This isnât news. Itâs why schools market to certain zip codes.
Kids that get into top schools are naturally going to do better in life.
But the kid with the high MCAT/LSAT has the same opportunitiy - hence the E New Mexico kid I posted above, etc.
Thereâs a reason over 160 colleges are represented in Harvard Lawâs first year class of 570+. Or Penn has over 200 in the law school.
Yes, kids from top colleges are more likely to have a better chance - because they were top kids to begin with.
So thereâs not much really with that study. Thatâs sort of known and obvious - other than they are confirming that the high end schools go after the wealthy, but that was also well known.
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Top schools offer very generous financial aid. A couple essentially donât charge any tuition.
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Some of the med schools, yes. And even some undergrad, yes.
But getting into JHU or NYU, thatâs going to be limited and some, like the new Kaiser Permanente Tyson school, are for a certain amount of years (I think they were 5 classes total).
One thing that stood out to me when Vandy used to publish who applied where and the outcomes, there are so many unknown to me schools - like Eastern Virginia Medical School or Central Michigan Medical School - kids, even from top universities, are just looking to get into a schoolâŠ..whatever that school is.
So sure, some will go free but not the masses.
btw - Harvard Medical 1st year class is 165, representing 62 colleges. Unfortunately, unlike law, they donât name them. Penn notes a bigger class, 75 schools.
U Central Michigan is interesting. They show top represented undergraduate colleges as such:
Institutions with the highest number of students
University of Michigan: 25
Michigan State University: 11
Central Michigan University: 8
Wayne State University: 7
Grand Valley State University: 6
Their 104 kids come from 47 schools, 18 of which are Michigan schools (all those above are). But they are 82 Michigan, 20 OOS, and 2 Canadian.
That makes you wonder - are these schools also preferencing residents - and I know the answer from reading @WayOutWestMom
I guess youâd say - but these folks wonât be top specialists, etc.
Iâm guessing that theyâre in medical school - whether they went to Harvard or Northern Michigan, that theyâre pleased to have a home!!
What we need to see is the range and median MCAT score by undergrad institution to see if there is an institutional boost, especially at the low end of admitted studentsâ MCATs. Grade inflation and grading disparity makes GPA comparison less meaningful.
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More accurately, if you want to see whether attending a specific colleges enhances your admission chances, you need a comparison of acceptance rates of applicants by MCAT score and undergraduate institution. However, that would not fully answer the question, because students who have better guidance will likely have better applications, so graduates of colleges with better guidance may have more âattractiveâ applications for any give MCAT score.
If you just want to see whether graduates of certain colleges get higher MCAT scores, you should control for family income.
Itâs also important to see whether any boost in either admissions rates or MCAT scores is meaningful. An incremental increase in admission rates (like an average of 46% being accepted to at least one school versus the general average of 45%), or a similar incremental increase in MCAT scores (say an average of 503, instead of 500) are interesting, but do not really mean anything, even if these differences are highly significant.
This is especially true because private colleges with low acceptance rates, which are supposedly the most challenging, are often the ones with the worst grade inflation.
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Then why, on numerous occasions, you responded to chance-me posters with âfor medical school, your undergraduate institution does not matter one bitâ?
This seems like a rare, candid moment from you.
Saying, also on numerous occasions, that N colleges are represented in top medical school Xâs first-year class so there is no need to attend a top one, is akin to â let me use a football analogy â telling 5-star high school football players that since each NFL roster contains a handful of players from obscure FCS schools, there is no need to play for Alabama or Ohio State. They couldâve made it to the NFL and gotten drafted in the same round playing for FCS North Dakota State. Because âyou are you,â as if the school facilities and coaches like Nick Saban have nothing to do with developing them.
In pre-med terms, the âfacilities and coachingâ differences could be a pre-med student having abundant, year-round clinical opportunities of all kinds right next to campus and having personalized support from a pre-health advising office that sends kids to med school like itâs automatic, versus one who has to go around begging for clinical opportunities and who has a pre-health advising office that âexists in name onlyâ forcing them to fend for themselves every step of the way leading to mistakes after mistakes in their med school apps.
Yes, the organic chemistry class might have been the same. The MCAT is the same. But there are important differences, beyond prestige and ranking, that probably shouldnât be downplayed.
And what if the pre-med student gets a bunch of Bâs and Câs in their first couple of years causing their medical dream to fade? At a top school, they likely could pivot to something good-to-great even with a not-very-marketable-degree thanks to the brand. At an âaverage or below-averageâ school, their options are way more limited.
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Your school doesnât.
Iâm talking about causation. Those who get into the higher end schools are more capable on average at the beginning. Those who live in wealthy areas are often targeted marketing wise so more apply. Money buys in society.
That kid from E New Mexico at Vandy or Duke - wherever I said or SE Louisiana or Hopkins - they delivered - gpa, MCAT, other -like the other guys.
Many go to less expensive schools for that reason - theyâre les expensive.
Harvard is loaded with brilliance. U Kansas has Harvard level kids but maybe not 98% of them.
So more Harvard kids will aspire to med school and get in. Not because they went to Harvard. But because they could get into Harvard.
Who gets into the higher level schools - theyâre wealthy and to a lesser extent - those considered economically disadvantaged.
The story hasnât changed. As I said in what you quoted, they have a better chance because they are better to begin with in âmostâ cases.
I recall seeing here some tables and such before which suggested to me that there may be some edge cases where assuming the same MCAT, say, it looked like you could have roughly equivalent chances with a bit lower GPA from a much more selective college. But the effect appeared small enough to me that it didnât seem possible to rule out that was mostly a matter of other correlated things involved in med school admissions.
I thought I posted this b4 but I guess I forgot. Itâs from Vandy - and it gives a lot of data on who applies where and the results.
They used to provide individual applications and decisions so this isnât that but start at page 5. Hereâs an elite undergrad and showing how their applicants do - with stats.
Not sure if they are a committee school or not. I couldnât find it so I imagine theyâre not but canât be sure. Itâs amazing the # of schools and applicants - pre meds must apply to many medical schools.
I think that this is related to my comment about about how conditional probability relates to all of this. For example:
a. What is the chance of a random premed student, considering all premed students who are incoming freshmen at any university in the USA, ever getting accepted to medical school?
b. What is the chance of a random premed student, considering only those premed students who had high school stats (GPA and test scores) the same as average or better for incoming Harvard freshmen, but who actually attended any university at all for undergrad, ever getting accepted to medical school?
c. What is the chance of a random premed student, considering only those premed students who were actually accepted to Harvard for undergrad, but who then attended some other university for undergrad, ever getting accepted to medical school?
d. What is the chance of a random premed student, considering only those premed students who actually went to Harvard, ever getting accepted to medical school?
I think that we all agree that d will be greater than a. The question is whether b and c are close to d, or to a. If b and c are very close to d, then it would seem that the academic strength of the student is important, but the school that they actually attend for a bachelorâs is not.
My daughter had a couple of friends in university who were in category b. They had the stats for Harvard. They did not apply and did not go there. Where they went was more affordable. They are MDs now. This is a very, very small sample size.
My understanding is that @tsbna44 is saying that d is greater than a, but not necessarily greater than b and c. That is compatible with my experience.
To me there seems to be at least two ways that family income would come into all of this. One is that there might be a positive correlation between the parentâs test scores and GPA and the family income, and also might be a positive correlation between the parentâs test scores and GPA and the kidâs test scores and GPA. Also, if you are going to attend medical school, you need to be able to somehow pay for it. If the family is wealthy, then they are more likely to be able to afford to pay for medical school. I have heard of students applying to 20 or 30 medical schools. You might need to have some family money just to be able to afford to send in that many applications.
Even if the stats were all available, it might not be easy to dig through all of this.
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Each year the AAMC asks admission officers at ~120 medical schools to rate the importance of different selection criteria at different points in the admission criteria on a scale of 1 to 5. 1 = not important, 5 = extremely important. My earlier post showed a graphic summarizing the 2024 survey, but it didnât list precise numerical values. In 2024, admission officers ranked selectivity of undergraduate institution as the 2nd least influential of the 18 surveyed academic criteria, with the only less influential criteria being the applicant having a non-science undergraduate major. And admission officers ranked attending an under resourced university as the fifth least influential of the 20 analyzed demographic criteria.
However, I did find specific numerical ratings in an old survey, which is summarized below. In both the older and newer survey medical school admission officers ranked the selectivity of undergraduate institution as among the least influential factors in both admission decisions and decision of who to interview. Itâs wasnât zero influence at every surveyed medical school, but it was among the least influential factors.
Mean Importance Ranking: 5 = Extremely Important, 1 = Not Important
- Interview Recommendation â 4.5
- Letters of Evaluation/Recommendation â 3.7
- Undergrad GPA â 3.6
- Science GPA â 3.6
- Medical Community Service/Volunteer â 3.5
- MCAT Score â 3.4
- Personal Statement â 3.3
- Medical/Clinical Work Experience â 3.3
- MCAT Bio Score â 3.3
- Non-medical Community Service/Volunteer â 3.2
âŠ- Rural Background â 2.1
- Completing Challenging Non-science Courses â 2.0
- Selectivity of Undergrad Institution â 1.9 (1.7 for who to interview)
- Gender â 1.3
In the second post, i put in the second half of the slide from post one. It showed how they (U Michigan) choose. School name / heft is not a part of the criteria.
How could it be considered ? There are brilliant kids everywhere. Kids, not undergrad institutions, go to grad school.
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