<p>A friend of mine is set on being a doctor and she is torn between the two. She is concerned with which school offers better opportunities to get high grades, research opportunities, professor interaction, etc.</p>
<p>Her goal is to attend either Harvard or Stanford Medical, so that is ideally where she is heading. In terms of those schools as well as medical programs in general, which is the better choice?</p>
<p>If you have links, stats, etc. that would be great too. Thanks!</p>
<p>Your friend seems very ambitious...</p>
<p>I would normally not double post, but given that you have, I might as well:</p>
<p>I don't mean to be redundant, but:</p>
<p>1.) As I have decided to start reminding all these premeds, it does not matter what medical school you go to UNLESS you are interested in academic medicine - for private practice, it simply doesn't matter. There is no point in going to Harvard or Stanford if you are simply intending to enter private practice.</p>
<p>Now, if she's interested in academic medicine (i.e. being a professor at a medical school someday), that's something else entirely.</p>
<p>2.) It is not a good idea to hope for a specific medical school admission at this stage, simply because the admissions odds are too low - i.e. even very well-qualified applicants cannot anticipate that their qualifications will get them into Harvard or Stanford, simply because the odds are not good.</p>
<p>Granted, I am not personally interested in the med field at all. But for the sake of my friend, let me rephrase my question for you. Do you know if UCLA or Cal would be a better choice for those hoping to be accepted into ANY medical school?</p>
<p>UCLA has a med school and that may help you , but I would figure UCB has a better reputation.</p>
<p>ucla doesn't accept its own undergrads for some reason. Cal is harder to get a higher GPA. Personally, I would go to UCLA because GPA outweighs undergraduate institution in admissions terms.</p>
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ucla doesn't accept its own undergrads
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<p>Unless you mean that UCLA has a 100% rejection policy for its own undergrads, then this is actually very common.</p>
<p>Most medical schools receive many more applications from their own undergrads; therefore, unless they want a grossly disproportionate medical school class, they are forced to place their own students at a slight disadvantage.</p>
<p>Very common. Exceptions include Emory and Northwestern.</p>
<p>True Bluedevilmike....</p>
<p>Obviously I didn't mean 100%, I meant they don't accept as many of their own undergrads. Yes this is common, but some medical schools actually do accept more of their undergrads....UCSD for example.</p>
<p>Add UCSD to the list of exceptions...</p>
<p>Of course, UCSF doesn't admit ANY of their own undergrads... :p</p>
<p>arahopee you are wrong, the plurality of ucla med. school admits are ucla undergrads</p>
<p>any data? I am curious. I have heard from a lot of people that UCLA does not accept its own undergrads.</p>
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any data? I am curious. I have heard from a lot of people that UCLA does not accept its own undergrads.
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<p>That is a complete myth. UCLA undergraduates make up the highest percentage of medical students at Geffen.</p>
<p>EDIT: The data given at one of the workshops by the career center 2 years ago was that 33 of the students Geffen was from UCLA, which is A LOT for a school (25% of the open spots, w/ about 130 spots total).</p>
<p>That does not completely settle the question, although you (yancy, confused) will probably turn out to be right.</p>
<p>None of us are interested in the matriculation number per se; students are well-known to apply to their own medical school in higher proportions and matriculate in higher proportions. What we are looking for is the admissions percentage.</p>
<p>Duke, for example, has 13% of its incoming class from Duke University - also a plurality - but does not have a policy one way or the other. UCLA is much bigger than Duke undergrad, and UCLA Med is only slightly bigger than Duke Med.</p>
<p>Still, 25% is a pretty overwhelming ratio.</p>
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<p>I maintain, however, that if UCLA has a policy of discriminating against its own undergrads, that would put it among the majority of schools. It would not be strange in that regard.</p>
<p>I think it is safe to assume that for the most part, most medical schools receive the most applicants from their undergraduate college. It therefore makes sense that those medical schools MUST accept a lower percentage of students from their college when they only have 100 or so spots that they are allotted to fill, and if they accept applications from throughout the nation (which most if not all the top medical schools do). </p>
<p>It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to conclude that just because a medical school by virtue of the locked number of open spots cannot accept the majority of the applicants from the same pool, that one can label it as discriminatory against its own undergraduate institution when considering its applicants. Most top medical schools are at the top because of the wide ranging experiences of the students they accept, and one way of obtaining those types of students is by accepting students from a variety of backgrounds/universities. They won't accept the majority of applicants from any other universities that apply in bulk either.</p>
<p>The rest of the data given at the workshop was that of the about 7000 total applications received at Geffen, 7.5% were from UCLA, and again, the matriculation is 25% from UCLA. </p>
<p>If you still believe in the "my own school hates me" myth, you need a serious wake up call about the medical acceptance process: Most students whose original mindset was on medical school don't make it into a medical school.</p>
<p>Yancy,</p>
<p>I think you and I are using different forms of the word discriminate. I simply mean - value-neutrally - that many applicants will have lower odds at their own medical school than they would at other, comparable medical school. (It would appear that this is not the case for UCLA undergrads.)</p>
<p>I believe that this is a good phenomenon. I call it "discrimination" because it is - it is making a decision partly based on the undergraduate school from where a student is applying. It is neither prejudice nor unjustified discrimination, and if I never meant to imply that I disagreed with the policy.</p>
<p>your friend should know that as of 2007 theses are the best medical schools in the country-maybe the list can help her make up her mind?
<p>actually, i take that back…it all depends on what field of medicine they would like to go into</p>
<p>check out this website:
[Best</a> Medical Schools - Graduate Schools - Education - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-medical-schools]Best”>http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-medical-schools)</p>
<p>I’m working on Pre- Med as my career goal, because I would like to make a difference in this world by making people fill better. I would love to help people in this world with anything or cause, that is why im going to be studing Pre-Med.</p>
<p>kls812: Why are you replying to a three year old question? I’m pretty sure this person is no longer contemplating whether to attend Berekely or UCLA…</p>
<p>IsmailArchible: Do you have a question or are you just randomly posting nonsense? By the way, you can help people and make a difference in many fields. Wanting to help people alone is not a good reason to enter into medicine.</p>