What’s a good pre-med school?

DadTwoGirls
Sat, 21 Jul 2018 03:59:39 +0000

There have been discussions of this on CC, which have shown that there is a difference of opinion.

The top ranked universities such as Harvard do have a higher rate at which their students are accepted into medical school compared to “very good” universities such as your in-state flagship (assume for this discussion that you are from a state with an average in-state flagship). However, some (including me) believe that this is largely because of the students that go to Harvard. For example, consider a student who goes to Harvard for premed and doesn’t get accepted to any medical school (there are many of these). To get into Harvard this student was probably very close to #1 in their high school class with a very high SAT or ACT score. If this student had gone to their in-state flagship instead, and if they had worked very hard and dedicated themselves to their studies, would they have been in the top 10% of the students at their state flagship? In this case, would they have gotten into medical school? My personal guess is probably yes, they probably would have gotten accepted somewhere.

There are many universities that have very good premed programs. My personal opinion is that you would be best off attending a university for undergrad where you are comfortable and happy and inclined to work hard, that you can afford with as little debt as possible (preferably none), and that has a good premed program (such as one of the best 100 or 200 premed programs in the US).

I have asked a very small number of doctors (and one veterinarian) where their fellow students had done their undergrad. Their response was “all over the place” or “many different schools”.

If you post your home state and budget this might help some of us make more specific suggestions.