<p>I want to go into medicine so I need to have a great undergraduate record.</p>
<p>If medical schools want to see a great GPA, research, and a good MCAT score, can’t one do better at a public school like UCONN? You might get a better education at Yale and therefore a better MCAT score but the average between UCONN and Yale is 31:33. It is also much harder to get a good GPA at Yale than at UCONN because of the harder classes. There also tend to be more research opportunities at public universities. </p>
<p>If someone had the same stats from Yale or UCONN, would the medical school care more for the Ivy kid?</p>
<p>Are slightly lower stats from an Ivy better than higher stats from a public school?</p>
<p>This kind of thread never dies year after year. Right?!</p>
<p>Never intend to answer this “million dollars” question that is in the mind of so many CC’ers. (Because I can’t answer it.)</p>
<p>But, if you or your parents can afford it, do you agree that those residential colleges at Yale as the living environment are so appealing? It is like living in paradise for 4 years! (But don’t forget to do the work so you are not overwhelmed the day before the final though.)</p>
<p>If what you said about the MCAT ratio 31:33 is true, it means that the innate ability of taking the standardized test is quite evenly distributed among schools. But I bet the higher percentage of students at Yale take this test as Yale is likely one of “premed factories” which produce more medical-school-students-to-be.</p>
<p>If you plan on going to grad school, then no, it really does not help you much to go to an ivy for undergrad, especially for majors that are not liberal arts (in most cases).</p>
<p>T23: your thread started at the Yale forum. You’re severely misinformed about the # of research opps at Yale as opposed to UConn. You should go check your assumptions. Shoot, if even if you were a UConn student, it’d probably be worth the 70 minute drive to New Haven to do research there – there’s always a shortage of good research assistants and I’m sure the savvy Yale faculty would take you on if you showed you had the chops.</p>
<p>T26E4 is right. My previous post was just from the GPA standpoint. However, ivies offer many unique opportunities for pre med students that other universities do not have.</p>
<p>Access to undergraduate research is one of the benefits of ivy level colleges. They are very generous with undergraduate research grants as well. At some larger institutions research opportunities are mostly going to grad students and only limited undergrads. But not everywhere, check out each institution.</p>
<p>Yeah, I was hesitant on writing things like that but for getting a job in research I already have 5 at UCONN and 2 at Yale lined up. But say I got into both. Would going to one help me get into med school over the other?</p>
<p>HYP give the big bucks for need aid to 150k to 180k of parents adjusted income. 2 of the three are know for grade deflation, one for grade inflation. Yale’s endowment is so big they spoil you with Broadway tickets , unlimited activiities, and those residential colleges are amazing. They bought that pharmaceutical campus that doubles their land mass, and they all the equipment was included so they have more research area.</p>
<p>Again with federal unsub’d loans going at 7% accruing interest I would go where I had the most money left for medical school.</p>
<p>^ agree with the above post about the great need-based FA for HYPS. For 3 of the HYPS, for both UG and professional schools.</p>
<p>Just received a letter from “BOLD” (if you happen to know what it is :)), in which it is said that among the students who receive any FA, the average tuitions they paid this year is $16000 per year. You be the judge yourself about whether it is worth attending one of these schools if you get in, considering all factors that are important to you (e.g., your own academic readiness or your family’s financial status. If you have not got in yet, this question is irrelevant.)</p>
<p>does not address the issue of choosing the path to the medical school. But if you look closely, a few points there could apply here as well: Neither those who choose the state school path nor those who choose the ivy school path would think in their whole life that they did not make the right choice. There is no chance that one side will agree with the other side. Otherwise, they can not live peacefully with the decision they have made, no matter what path they have taken.</p>
While I do not dispute with you on this, this reminds me of a story that BDM told:</p>
<p>One student at Duke and another student at one of the state school in California got the same (lower 30?) MCAT score. While the former student thinks bad of himself, secretly prepares pfor a re-test, and many of his friends at Duke feel sorry for him, the latter student thinks “the mission has been accomplished” and go out with his friends to celebrate it.</p>
<p>Which environment is “better”? It is hard to say for sure because it is very dependent on the goal of each individual. For some student, going to a school like Duke may be like perpetually putting himself in a stressful condition. But for others, they may prefer to have a pacer while they are running toward their goal. (And what goal foes he set to? – some may think being less than a neurosurgeon at JHU med is a failure to his/her expectation.)</p>
<p>DS is now at a med school. He once said he would study more at school than during the break while not being surrounded by those academic intense students (one fellow student studies like 13 hours everyday! His/her existence may make you feel like you are a slacker or even a loser.) This is more so at med school than at college but DS met some students like these as an UG as well. Good or bad learning environment or as a journey in your career path? I do not know from the perspective of a parent.</p>
<p>THe most important thing for med school admission is GPA and MCAT and what undergrad research you have done. The undergrad college itself is actually less important. You will likely have a better chance for admission to the med school of the undergrad college that you go to. In years past, georgetown for example offered early acceptance to their undergrads to the georgetown med school if x, y, z. There are many kids from ivys who get into med school but end up going to med schools that aren’t so good. why? because of lower GPAs in that ivy environment.</p>
<p>MCAT scores reflect how you prepare, irrespective of the undergrad you go to.</p>
<p>Get involved in research in the med school while you are an undergrad and publish a paper as first author and that will carry you a LONG WAY no matter what school you go to (if your GPA and MCATs are good). So start the research as a freshman! </p>
<p>oh, and better to end med school with fewer loans----interns make 35k, residents make between 35k and 55k. so won’t expect to pay off loans until your mid 30s and they accrue interest all along. so save money on tuition. will make a big difference.</p>
<p>Personally, I think that the better/best MCAT scores are earned by the students who not only know the material but have the critical thinking/logic skills as well. I think some of that is innate.</p>
<p>The MCAT is in some sense it’s own knowledge/skill set and therefore no university class teaches you for the MCAT.</p>
<p>I agree. How would you further describe that? </p>
<p>I see young kids asking, “which school will better prepare me for the MCAT,” as if University of X’s bio, chem, physics, math classes have some kind of MCAT prep aspect to them, and they don’t. the profs don’t include a unit titled: MCAT Material and How it’s Done. ;)</p>
<p>It’s been a few years since I was on the kaplan payroll and thought about the MCAT but I’ll do my best.</p>
<p>Obviously the MCAT does require a base set of factual knowledge - but this level of knowledge is barely above the high school level and as such, any college/university in the top 200 or 300 schools will provide it.</p>
<p>The MCAT though is largely a skills test, not a knowledge test - but the skills being tested aren’t really the skills that top unis are teaching better than lower unis. I would argue that what is being taught better at an ivy (or equivalent) is research and writing skills - neither of which are tested on the MCAT (MCAT writing is literally it’s own style and you will never use it again).</p>
<p>What the MCAT is testing is the ability to selectively apply material from a random, out of context passage to a series of questions or to apply material you’re expected to know to the information in the random out of context passages. The keys to success are understanding how to read the passage as efficiently as possible and how to recognize the question type and predict the answer so that one spends as little time as possible on the question/so that you’re least likely to be swayed by a distractor.</p>
<p>"Access to undergraduate research is one of the benefits of ivy level colleges. "
-is a huge benefit of the state public schools, especially those that focus on UG students (vs Grad. Schools). D. had no rpblem obtaining long term position at her college (along with her pre-med friends) that came with the benefits of great LORs in a future, nomination to PhiBetta Kapa (not only for her) and other benefits of closer relationship between person in chanrge of the lab (and later on Dean). it took one email and very breif interview tht focused priamrily on D’s Music Minor. The opprotunity was great, in D’s area of interest, used her previous experiences in Med. Research Lab and gave her chance to apply to couple grants (received based on her own written proposal), poster presentation, lasted for 3 years - during school year. D. could not obtain any Research position outside of her college, she had applied.</p>
<p>"The MCAT though is largely a skills test, not a knowledge test - but the skills being tested aren’t really the skills that top unis are teaching better than lower unis. I would argue that what is being taught better at an ivy (or equivalent) is research and writing skills "
-I do not know, D. thought that it was a knowledge test, except for Verbal, of course. That one she could not improve anyway, she did not spend too much time trying, it would have been a waste. She said that it was knowledge specifically because she used background from her classes. However, there is no way one can do well if they do not study specifically for MCAT, using MCAT study material.<br>
I ma glad to hear that Ivy is improving writing skills, since this one was not needed to be improved in D’s case. While reading has never been her strong skill, she has alwasy tested very high in writing and continue to impress everybody with her writing ability. One semester of Honors English in UG was a waste of time for her, although very time consuming because of all that reading of novels (she had zero interest in this activity, not her entertainment at all)</p>
<p>MCAT2 that 16k tuition you mentioned is for a parental AGI of 160k plus 12 R & B so 28K is not a bad deal. At the lower ivies the big need aid falls off at 60k so with the same 160k AGI you pay a total of 40K.</p>