Does Undergrad School Matter?

Hi all: I’ve been lurking here for awhile while researching merit funding for my D21. First off, thanks so much to all the long-time posters like @thumper1 , @mom2collegekids, @ucbalumnus, and @blossom, from whom I’ve learned so much.

However, I’m also a physician on the admissions commitee for my highly-ranked state medical school, so I finally had to join CC and weigh in after reading all the misconceptions that many folks have about “getting in”.

So while I can’t speak for private schools, I can tell you that undergrad school is NOWHERE on the very long list of criteria by which we judge our applicants. It’s true that the core science courses and degree can’t be from a CC, but otherwise, the prestige or rank of the undergrad school truly DOESN’T MATTER. The MCAT score is the great equalizer that tells us everything we know about an applicant’s fitness for the rigors or medicine. And since the primary mission of each every state medical school is to produce future doctors who are likely to remain in the state to care for their respective citizens, we care much more about state residency than where someone did their undergrad. (Since this is obviously not the case for private medical schools, they likely have different admissions criteria).

I believe that graduating from a highly selective undergrad actually places candidates at a disadvantage because so many of them are weeded out long before they reach the application stage. I was one of only two Ivy grads in my entire medical school class at the same state medical school where I now interview. The vast majority of my classmates came from our state flagship or lower ranked schools. Now I’m seeing the same general distribution of undergrad ‘prestige’ again a generation later in the interview process.

OTOH, the vast majority of my Ivy undergrad classmates who started out as pre-meds washed out after that first ‘C’ in bio, chem, or physics since the competition was so cut-throat there. Which is my, for my own kids, we’re chasing merit at T20-50 schools rather than aiming for the tippy tops. The crushing debt of physicians is real. But that’s a topic for another thread :).