@bernie12 Perception seems to mean a whole lot to students. It can really affect how well they do even at the high school level. I combat that all the time with students who were slower to develop math skills thinking they must be “dumb” and not even trying. I see it as an end result with adults who go back for a degree later in life terrified of math, take Alg, and wonder “why couldn’t I get that in high school?”
For med school only GPA matters (not rigor) for academics, so if a student thinks they can do well, they usually do.
There is a difference that my lad has seen once in med school. His undergrad classes (U Roc) seem to have prepared him very well for the coursework. He tells us many of his peers in med school are envious asking him how he already knows X. “I learned it in undergrad.” Whether that came from his college, major, or specific classes/profs that differed is impossible to tell, esp with anecdotal data. In any case, in med school they teach you everything you need to know, so if one doesn’t have a head start, they just have to put a little more time into learning it then. That’s similar to some folks getting material in undergrad in a 201 or 301 course instead of 101. (I’ve seen this happen via tests - what’s covered in a higher level research school’s 101 course for “everyone” can be in a later course for majors at a different school.)
When kids from my school are hoping to go to med school and ask for my advice it’s simple. Look for an affordable school you like where you’re in the Top 25% of entering stats, read U Roc’s School of Medicine Class Profile for a few years (changing the URL to get more years), then work to become a student they like on your application. This makes the assumption that U Roc’s SOM is similar to others in what they look for in applicants, but I highly suspect they are.
https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/MediaLibraries/URMCMedia/education/md/documents/2022-profile.pdf