USC or UCLA for Pre-Med?

drax12
Wed, 26 Dec 2012 20:14:02 +0000

goldenboy:

You know there are plenty of statistics out there that show how poorly Berkeley and UCLA do vis-a-vis the other Ivies, Stanford, Hopkins, MIT, Duke, and Northwestern in terms of med school representation right?

RML:

Goldenboy, please produce data that are far more relevant that your selective (and biased) data. I’d like you to show me the numbers of the top of the top medical schools in the country, or schools that have pulling power to draw students across the nation – from East to West, NE to South. Maybe you can present to us the numbers from Harvard Med School, Johns Hopkins and Yale.



I just think that goldenboy worded things oddly, because of his more generalized, ‘…how poorly Berkeley and UCLA do … in terms of med school representation.’

It has to be apparent that both UCLA and Cal produce a good deal more MD’s than any of the u’s he stated, and both would undoubtedly produce more MD’s than each of the the schools he listed produce applicants. Obviously this is because both UCLA and Cal have significantly larger amt. of undergraduates.

The question becomes: where do Cal and UCLA make up the difference and which m-schools take the larger portions of both schools (vis-a-vis, Ivies, and others mentioned)?


CA Med schools
Probably less prestigious oos med schools. (Again, undoubtedly both schools’ undergrads will have to attend oos m-schools in greater proportions than in-state.)
There will be some semi to fully prestigious m-schools that have more Cal and UCLA undergrads (besides CA’s). Perhaps, those based in the west like UW-Seattle med school.


The Ivies and the other schools he listed tend to have more nationally based student bodies, so I don’t find it unusual that they tend to populate m-schools at Vandy and WUSTL in greater nos. (WUSTL is apparently the toughest m-school wrt admissions in the country.) I wouldn’t find it unusual that there are more Ivy students at a lot of the more prestigious m-schools in the nation because of things like snob-appeal and their (m-schools’) private status, whereas maybe UCLA and Cal students would just be happy attending somewhere/anywhere in their quests to become MD’s, with some cost in mind … and all the better if they can gain entry to one of CA’s m’s. The MD’s I’ve spoken to tend to discount the brandname of m-school, but rather say that how one does in m and obtaining a top-tier residency is what is key.

I agree, though, listing two med schools is not proof of UCLA and Cal’s poor representation, when we know the opposite is true. And between the two, Cal’s students have to travel a bit more because of UCB’s lack of m-school.