Berkeley's placement into top medical schools

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
1

<p>After seeing this link, <a href="http://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/top20.stm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/top20.stm&lt;/a>, I am worried that I have no chance of going to Harvard, Stanford, or a similarly ranked Medical school after going to Berkeley. Any aspiring doctors have any advice?</p>

<p>On a slightly unrelated note, if I plan on getting an undergraduate business degree from Haas or an EECS degree and working in the Silicon Valley for a few years, is it possible for me to go on to Stanford or Harvard Business school? The reason I ask is that engineering GPAs are notoriously low, and I wonder whether a 3.5 GPA (which is considered good in a major like EECS) will have a realistic shot (with great work experience of course) of getting into a great business school.</p>

<p>Thanks.</p>

2

<p>
[quote]

After seeing this link, <a href="http://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/top20.stm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/top20.stm&lt;/a>, I am worried that I have no chance of going to Harvard, Stanford, or a similarly ranked Medical school after going to Berkeley. Any aspiring doctors have any advice?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Uh, why do you really necessarily need to go to one of the top medical schools? If you really want to be a doctor, you should be happy with getting into ANY of the med-schools in the country. After all, plenty of premeds, both at Berkeley and elsewhere, don't get into ANY US medical school. For example, roughly 35-45% of Berkeley premeds who apply to med school get rejected from EVERY med-school they apply to. And that's of course just talking about those who apply; plenty of premeds don't even bother to apply because their grades and MCAT scores are so low that they know they won't get in anywhere.</p>

<p><a href="http://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/national.stm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/national.stm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>
[quote]
On a slightly unrelated note, if I plan on getting an undergraduate business degree from Haas or an EECS degree and working in the Silicon Valley for a few years, is it possible for me to go on to Stanford or Harvard Business school? The reason I ask is that engineering GPAs are notoriously low, and I wonder whether a 3.5 GPA (which is considered good in a major like EECS) will have a realistic shot (with great work experience of course) of getting into a great business school.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>GPA is less important when you're talking about MBA admissions. As you have deduced, the most important trait is your work experience. Of course, having better grades gives you a better shot at getting a better job in the first place.</p>

3

<p>A 35-45% rejection rate at Berkeley for med-schools is not very good; for example, Northwestern has 80% acceptances to med-school. If med-school is what you're looking for you should look elsewhere.</p>

<p>In fact, why go to Berkeley at all if so few students can even crack a 3.0 GPA? What jobs are you going to get with that? What grad school will you end up in, if anywhere?</p>

4

<p>Berkeley's acceptance rate to med school's has been about in the 60's. Considering the national average, 49%, this is actually pretty good. The reason why schools like Northwestern and other privates have higher acceptance rates is because there are less applicants from those schools, while public schools like Berkeley have tons of applicants, including much more "less qualified" applicants than privates. So really it comes down to whether or not you're willing to study like hell because if you are motivated and focused, you'll get into med school. I know a tons of students here at Berkeley who are getting above 3.5 GPAs in premed majors. So please don't let statistics mislead you.</p>

5

<p>Also, keep in mind that it doesn't really matter what rank a med school is; this isn't like law school. It would be extremely hard to get into a top ranked med school, even from schools like Harvard and Stanford.</p>

6

<p>^^^this is absolutely correct
90% of the kids at berkeley who have a 3.6+ and a 30+ mcat (which is average for med school matriculants) get into a medical school 1st try.
if you really want to be a doctor, then man up because regardless of where you go, it's going to be a long, difficult ride. Yeah, you will have to sacrifice and honestly it really comes down to whether you decide the path is right for you. Most people who want to become doctors out of high school do not succeed, regardless of the school they attend.</p>

7

<p>one last thought:
the curves in EECS are actually better than those in several premed classes (such as bio 1a, chem 3a-3b, etc.; look it up if you dont believe me). So an eecs degree really wont forgive a low gpa as far as med school is concerned.</p>

8

<p>I thought EECS was intended for engineers, why would one go to a med school after EECS?</p>

9

<p>Keep in mind that this is stated at the bottom of the page:</p>

<p>"UC Berkeley data includes only those applicants who released their AMCAS information to UCB."</p>

<p>Also keep in mind that at other schools there are committees which review medical school applications from undergraduate students. Sometimes the committee will decide to write less than impressive letters of recommendations to keep the students with low stats from applying to medical schools. This is done to ensure a high acceptance rate into medical schools from those particular schools. Such committee does not exist at UC Berkeley.</p>

10

<p>
[quote]
Keep in mind that this is stated at the bottom of the page:</p>

<p>"UC Berkeley data includes only those applicants who released their AMCAS information to UCB."

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Yeah, and that's true of the data of any other school. </p>

<p>Besides, if the data is biased because of self-reporting, you have to consider where the bias lies. I doubt that there are a disproportionate number of Berkeley premeds who are getting into med schools, but just choosing not to release their data. If anything, I would argue that the exact opposite is more likely - that there might be a disproportionate number of Berkeley premeds who * aren't * getting into med school and are not releasing their data.</p>

11

<p>
[quote]
I thought EECS was intended for engineers, why would one go to a med school after EECS?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>The same reason why people from plenty of other majors go to med school. One might argue that a history degree is intended for historians, so why would a guy like that go to med school? Yet I know a guy who graduated with a degree in history and went to med school. Similarly, plenty of people from other humanities and social sciences go on to med school. </p>

<p>Engineering students are also not restricted to just be engineers. For example, it's become something of a running joke at MIT that many of the best engineering students there will never work a day in their lives as actual engineers, but will instead take jobs in management consulting or investment banking. </p>

<p>The takehome message is that just because you major in a particular subject doesn't mean that you have to pursue that subject for your career. You are free to do other things.</p>

12

<p>"Yeah, and that's true of the data of any other school. "</p>

<p>Doesn't seem like it for UCLA and UCSD. It looks as if they have the data of all applicants.
<a href="http://career.ucsd.edu/sa/PMedHis.shtml%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://career.ucsd.edu/sa/PMedHis.shtml&lt;/a>
<a href="http://career.ucla.edu/GraduateSchool&PreProfessionalServices/UCLAFourYrMedSchoolAdmissionsHistory.asp%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://career.ucla.edu/GraduateSchool&PreProfessionalServices/UCLAFourYrMedSchoolAdmissionsHistory.asp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>"If anything, I would argue that the exact opposite is more likely - that there might be a disproportionate number of Berkeley premeds who aren't getting into med school and are not releasing their data."</p>

<p>Right, so the data presented on Berkeley's page may not be accurate.</p>

13

<p>
[quote]
Doesn't seem like it for UCLA and UCSD. It looks as if they have the data of all applicants.
<a href="http://career.ucsd.edu/sa/PMedHis.shtml%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://career.ucsd.edu/sa/PMedHis.shtml&lt;/a>
<a href="http://career.ucla.edu/GraduateSchoo...onsHistory.asp%5B/url%5D%5B/quote%5D"&gt;http://career.ucla.edu/GraduateSchoo...onsHistory.asp

[/quote]
</a></p>

<p>I don't think so.</p>

<p>"Data was provided to UCSD's Career Services Center by the Association of American Medical Schools (AAMC). "</p>

<p><a href="http://career.ucsd.edu/sa/PMedHis.shtml%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://career.ucsd.edu/sa/PMedHis.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>"The source of this data is the Association of American Medical Schools (AAMC). "</p>

<p><a href="http://www.aamc.org/data/start.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.aamc.org/data/start.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>When you submit your information to AMCAS (and hence the AAMC), you are asked whether you wish your inforamtion released back to your undergraduate school. If you say 'no', I highly highly doubt that the AAMC is going to release your data anyway. If nothing else, that would seem to be a lawsuit in the making - i.e. when you specifically state that you don't want data released to certain parties and it gets released anyway. </p>

<p>
[quote]
"If anything, I would argue that the exact opposite is more likely - that there might be a disproportionate number of Berkeley premeds who aren't getting into med school and are not releasing their data."</p>

<p>Right, so the data presented on Berkeley's page may not be accurate.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Yeah, that's the whole point - that the "real" data may exhibit an even lower placement rate than what has been presented here. Like I said, it seems to me that that's the way that the bias would go - that those Berkeley premeds who aren't that good are the ones who are disproportionately likely to both not report their data AND to not get into med- school.</p>

14

<p>...................</p>

15

<p>Berkeley's med school admit rate was around 70% last time I checked. That's pretty good considering Berkeley does not have a pre-med committee and considering Berkeley is composed of 90% California residents. Being a California resident pre-med is a disadvantage because California's public medical schools (UCSF, UCLA, UCSD, UCD, UCI) are all ultra-competitive. So while most of the pre-meds at say, Northwestern, have the advantage of applying to private med schools as well as to less selective home state med schools as backup, most Berkeley pre-meds don't have this luxury as their state med schools are HARDER to get into than the vast majority of private med schools!</p>

<p>Stanford University is composed of 50% California residents. Perhaps this explains why Stanford's 75% pre-med acceptance rate is lower than you'd expect from a school of Stanford's reputation.</p>

16

<p>Yes, Berkeley has a lower acceptance rate than Northwestern and other top privates. However, these statistics are misleading in that it convinces people that is it easier to get into med school if they go to a specific school over one in similar caliber. The main point here is that, the deciding factor in medical school admission is the effort you are willing to put into the MCATs and premed courses. So if you do have the motivation and are willing to commit, you will get into med school.</p>

17

<p>Also, the reason why Berkeley has a lower acceptance rate is because they have more "less qualified" students applying with hundreds of other highly qualified students compared to top privates. It is up to you whether or not you want to be highly qualified or "less qualified" by the amount of effort you put into your classes and the MCATs; the school you come from is not the deciding factor.</p>

18

<p>"I don't think so.</p>

<p>"Data was provided to UCSD's Career Services Center by the Association of American Medical Schools (AAMC). "</p>

<p><a href="http://career.ucsd.edu/sa/PMedHis.shtml%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://career.ucsd.edu/sa/PMedHis.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>"The source of this data is the Association of American Medical Schools (AAMC). "</p>

<p><a href="http://www.aamc.org/data/start.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.aamc.org/data/start.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>When you submit your information to AMCAS (and hence the AAMC), you are asked whether you wish your inforamtion released back to your undergraduate school. If you say 'no', I highly highly doubt that the AAMC is going to release your data anyway. If nothing else, that would seem to be a lawsuit in the making - i.e. when you specifically state that you don't want data released to certain parties and it gets released anyway."</p>

<p>Look at the numbers reported on Berkeley's page. For 2005, the data is 84/136. For 2006, the data released on AAMC shows that the total number of applicants from Berkeley is 574. Although there is a one year difference in data, I highly doubt that the number jumped up that much in one year. So, the number of applicants from Berkeley in 2005 is probably around 550 as well. Hence, the data on Berkeley's career center page is missing a sizable portion (~75%) of the applicant's data.</p>

<p>This is somewhat different than the data from UCLA and UCSD since the pages show the total number of applicants. From this and the absence of a caveat like the one shown on Berkeley's page, I'm assuming that they are using the acceptance rate based on the entire applicant pool from their schools. Then again, as you said, it's highly unlikely AAMC will release applicants' data when it has been explicitly stated that they are not to be released.</p>

19

<p>
[quote]
Look at the numbers reported on Berkeley's page. For 2005, the data is 84/136.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Uh, no, you are not looking at ALL of the data. Look again.</p>

<p><a href="http://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/2005seniors.stm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/2005seniors.stm&lt;/a>
<a href="http://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/national.stm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/national.stm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>The data on Berkeley's page of which you speak is a reference to * only graduating seniors *. Not all applicants are graduating seniors - in fact, a sizable chunk from any school tends to be former alumni who have either gone to the workforce or gone to graduate school (but in another area) and then later decided to apply to medical school. The AAMC data is regarding * all * of the premeds of a particular school, whether they are graduating seniors or alumni. </p>

<p>Here is the data for Berkeley's "one-year-out" applicants, meaning those premeds who had already graduated the previous year. Notice that in 2005 there were actually more of these applicants than there were graduating senior applicants.</p>

<p><a href="http://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/2005seniors.stm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/2005seniors.stm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>And that doesn't even capture the full extent of the phenomenom - there are '2-year outs', '3-year outs', etc. etc. </p>

<p>Now, in the sense that those particular applicants are not included in the data, I agree with you that the Berkeley data is 'incomplete'. In fact, I have never disputed this. But I am saying that, if anything, the "real" data would almost certainly display a * lower * rate of admission than what the Berkeley data is showing. Why? Because, let's face it, the more years out we're talking about, the lower the placement rate tends to be. A lot of 1-year-outs were former graduating seniors who had applied to med-school and didn't get in anywhere, so they decided to apply again the following year. Many of these applicants will get rejected everywhere again, and then apply again as a 2-year-out applicant, whereupon many will get rejected again, etc. Hence, if Berkeley were to include these applicants in its data, the overall placement rate would probably be lower than what they are reporting.</p>

20

<p>
[quote]
Berkeley's med school admit rate was around 70% last time I checked.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Uh, you may want to check again. It's more like in the 60's * for graduating seniors *. But as explained above, the figures for those applicants who are not graduating seniors (hence, who are alumni) tends to be lower. </p>

<p><a href="http://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/national.stm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://career.berkeley.edu/MedStats/national.stm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>
[quote]
That's pretty good considering Berkeley does not have a pre-med committee and considering Berkeley is composed of 90% California residents. Being a California resident pre-med is a disadvantage because California's public medical schools (UCSF, UCLA, UCSD, UCD, UCI) are all ultra-competitive. So while most of the pre-meds at say, Northwestern, have the advantage of applying to private med schools as well as to less selective home state med schools as backup, most Berkeley pre-meds don't have this luxury as their state med schools are HARDER to get into than the vast majority of private med schools!

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I agree with that analysis, but to follow that logic to its conclusion, that's actually a reason not to go to Berkeley, but rather to instead choose an out-of-state school. If, for no other reason, you would at least be able to establish state residency in a less competitive state. In other words, you have actually given prospective students a reason to prefer Northwestern over Berkeley. </p>

<p>Look, it's not fair that California doesn't have any 'less competitive' med schools to take in all of the state residents who aren't good enough to get into the UC med schools and that residents of other states have an advantage in this regard. But if you're a premed, you have to do what is necessary to get yourself into med school, and if that means going to a school that allows you to establish residency in a less competitive state in order to take advantage of that 'unfairness', then so be it. </p>

<p>
[quote]
Perhaps this explains why Stanford's 75% pre-med acceptance rate is lower than you'd expect from a school of Stanford's reputation.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>This is a rumor that I have heard before, but I have never seen any hard data to back it up. Do you have a link that shows that Stanford's placement rate really is 75%?</p>