What are good universities(>70% acceptance rate of premeds into at least one medical school) that do not have toxic premed bodies that try to one up one another out of necessity? In order words, which top universities for premeds foster an academic culture of collaboration and cooperativity. By that same token, which top universities for premeds are notorious for excessive competition?
Have you researched any of your instate schools?
It depends on you, not the college. You should try to find a college that you like and affordable in which you are the top 10% of the entering freshman class for premed.
Students don’t compete against one another at any school. However, some student bodies because of the personality types may be more collaborative. In terms of medium to large universities Notre Dame would stand out and would rank among the top Dr. producers in the country. In terms of smaller schools, I think any NESCAC school would stand out because of the proportionately high number of athletes at these schools. Athletes have a team mentality so that might be a keyword for you. Notre Dame of course profiles high school varsity athletes in admissions even of course if they don’t compete at ND.
Seconding NESCACs.
The rate of med school acceptance isn’t what defines a collaborative environment. Those admits can be a small fraction of the original premeds. Any college can make the early science courses weeders. Then the number who apply are a much smaller, culled group.
It’s not about athletes. Or student personalities.
NESCACs can be just as tough to make it through a premed track.
It might even be easier to id the places that are more likely to be competitive- most of the LACs I know well enough to be able to speak to are very proud of how supportive the students are of each other.
But @HootieA’s point is important: the culture of a school and the self selection of students who go there does appeal to different personalities. As an example, JHU has something of a reputation for being fiercely competitive, and there are urban legends about pre-med students even sabotaging each others work. But I know pre-med students in each of the last 4 graduating classes (all now in MD or PhD programs) who are adamant that they never saw any such behavior, and that any ‘competitiveness’ is collegial - everybody striving to do their best, but supportive of each other. What is clear is that they are super-hard workers: even in HS they were the ones who did everything and more to make sure that their work wasn’t just done, but done exceptionally well.
Suggest shortlisting by all of the other elements of the school (including what it would be like if there was a change away from pre-med). Then use campus visits to get the feel of the overall student body & the interaction within the pre-med cohort.
@lookingforward Look at the original question. Kids that have played sports are of course competitive but are naturally inclined to work together. They also tend to be very social.
The issue is the classes, not how you get along with other kids. A school that actively weeds can make it brutal to do well in those classes. It starts with the intro math and science, doesn’t matter how many are athletes.
OP may have worded this about fellow students. But it’s the courses that can do you in. This is not a matter of doing well in high school math and science. Weeding is intentional, at many colleges. All the team attutude won’t spare you that.
Weeding is a reality. You’d need to have heard how tough it can be, eyes wide open.
Agree with many above responses, but this really makes a point that the OP needs to hear:
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The rate of med school acceptance isn't what defines a collaborative environment. Those admits can be a small fraction of the original premeds. Any college can make the early science courses weeders. Then the number who apply are a much smaller, culled group.
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Exactly.
The OP is a high school senior, who will find him/herself in bio and chem classes with her fellow gazillion premeds on the first day of school. Of that original number, a good number will change career goals after the first exam. Another group will change paths after the semester ends. Another group will change paths after the year ends. The same pattern follows for sophomore year when dealing with Ochem and Physics. Then, after MCAT exams, another group will change career paths.
So…if 1000 freshman premeds matriculate, then when it comes time to actually submit the AMCAS app for med schools, probably only about 250 end up applying.
Using the OP’s req’t, if >70% of those 250 end up with one MD med school acceptance, how does that tell her ANYTHING about her own chances when she’ll be one of a 1000 on Day One?
Either way, the acceptance rate of any school tells a high school senior nothing about his/her own chances. Students are not identical in application strength. Some applicants will have a horrible resume, some will have an outstanding resume…and all will be from the same school being taught by the same profs and being advised by the same premed advisors.
It doesn’t matter where you go to undergrad as long as it’s a good school and you perform. You have to put in the work, get the grades, build your resume, get the best MCAT you can, apply early, and have a smart app list.
And a number will change because, for all the effort in the world, study groups, nice classmates, office hours, they busted themselves just to get a D. Or a C.
Rice, Vandy and other schools that have high ratings in ‘Happy Students’.
Just want to make a general comment that people be careful with medical school acceptance rates quoted by admissions. It may sound obvious, but it is very important to understand exactly what goes into the numerator and denominator of the ratio as not all schools calculate med school acceptance rate in the same manner. For example:
–Some schools have more “weed out” classes than others reducing the number of students who continue on the pre-med path for four years (lowering the denominator).
–Certain colleges have committees which pre-screen and recommend med school applicants. These committees generally only recommend students who have the stats, experiences etc. to make them very strong candidates for med schools. Students who are not recommended are left out of the equation. In contrast, other colleges support all of the students who want to apply to med school. So while the schools with the pre-screening will have a higher acceptance rate (because of the lower denominator), a schools that support all students may be preferable.
–It is important to know what constitutes a med school acceptance for the med school acceptance rate. Some colleges just count US allopathic med school acceptances and other schools include acceptances to DO, overseas, podiatry etc. programs in the numerator leading to a higher med school acceptance rate.
So to the OP…be sure you know exactly how that 70% med school acceptance rate you are looking for is calculated.
Which is more preferable can depend on student preferences.
A student who is willing to take the risk of applying to medical schools (which is a considerable amount of work and expense) even with a relatively low chance of success may prefer a college which supports all pre-meds who apply, or one where pre-med committees are not present and applying to medical schools is a free-for-all. On the other hand, a student who wants to know early whether it is likely to be worthwhile for him/her to apply to medical schools before actually applying may prefer the selective pre-med committee, since being weeded out before applying (and therefore being able to consider alternative paths earlier) is better than going through the work and expense of applying to medical schools and being shut out.
As to supporting all premeds, or free-for-all or selective premed committee
I don’t think most hs students think that deeply about what’s that far ahead on the premed timeline. In the minds of most hs students going premed, they’ll all be MDs someday. High school students just see 70, 80% acceptance rate and take it as gospel truth.
@Jugulator20 That is exactly why I mentioned it. I think the OP should not take the 70% med school acceptance rate at any school as a sign that he/she will have a 70% chance to get into med school if he/she attends that school. Just trying to give the OP some food for thought.
@ucbalumnus I do think that even without the pre-screening potential med school applicants get a strong sense of what chancres they have of admission to med school by assessing their GPA/MCAT/experience. And most colleges have pre-health advisors regardless of if the school pre-screens or not.
You definitely need to view the med school accept % with skepticism. Sure some schools weed out a lot. But even if they don’t, lots of kids self-select and drop out for all kinds of reasons. I think the more telling number is how many kids does a school place into med school year in year out.
ND, as an example, claims a very high 80+% admit rate. But who knows how the denominator is calculated.
But IIRC ND has over 200 kids a year enroll in med school. With each enrolled class being about 2,000 kids total, ND clearly has its pre-med act together. Smart kids + good advising = lots of med school enrollments.
I think that the obvious question is which schools are heavy with the weed out classes and which are not. It sounds like that is where the real funnel is. All of us with a potential premed want to know where our student is most likely to have success. I know fit comes into play, but is a student more likely to have success getting into med school if they go to Alabama instead of Amherst? Williams instead of JHU? What are some schools that are particularly good/bad for a premed?
That’s really the question everyone is trying to find the answer to. I know grading is much harder at Princeton, so does that mean it’s much harder to get to med school coming out of Princeton compared to Brown or Harvard?
There’s no way to answer that because success, as being defined as a med school acceptance, is very dependent on the student starting in college…
Adding that in last reported cycle 60% of those that actually applied failed to start ANYWHERE. I suspect many had competitive applications but they had no success in gaining admission because there are simply not enough seats available. Sadly med school adcoms have to make some very tough decisions resulting in qualified applicants being shut out.