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I was invoking the California explanation as a potential reason for lower than expected success rates (if this is true) for Stanford students. The argument was that the Stanford students may overly concentrate their applications to a small number of schools, in order to take advantage of instate tuition.
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<p>Yeah, and that's exactly my point. I don't particularly see why Stanford students would choose to overly concentrate their med-school applications in one particular part of the country, except possibly at the local schools (UCSF, UCDavis, and Stanford itself). And even Davis isn't really "that" local to Stanford. After all, it takes about the same time to travel from Stanford to UCDavis as it does to travel from Harvard/MIT to Yale, or from Yale to New York City. </p>
<p>All of the rest of the UC medical schools are located in Southern California which is so far away that it might as well be in another state. Northern California shares almost nothing in common culturally with Southern California. Put it another way, even the 2 Ivies that are farthest away from each other (Dartmouth and UPenn) are not as far apart as Stanford is to UCSD. </p>
<p>So the point is, I don't see how/why Stanford students would be overly concentrating their applications. There are only 2 med-schools in the Bay Area (UCSF and Stanford) and, if you really want to push it, Davis is somewhat local. But that's it. There's only 3. And of those 3, only 2 are public. </p>
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Your points about gaining in state status while in school would incent OUT of state students to apply, making admission to the california state med schools even more competitive.
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<p>But like I said, that gaining of the instate status will probably happen WHILE you're in med school, because it's actually quite hard to gain instate student while you're just an undergrad. Hence, I don't see why Stanford students would be any more incented to apply to UC's, other than the fact that many (but not the majority of) Stanford students were California residents to begin with. </p>
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and one for the rest, the second group would be at so severe a disadvantage that it might be a waste of time and money to apply.
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<p>I doubt this is true. See below. </p>
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"no-name low-tier " medical schools do not exist in this country. Medical education is so highly controlled and regulated that there is very little difference in the content of the education from one school to the next, and even less difference that matters.
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<p>No-name low-tier med-schools not in terms of quality but in terms of where Hopkins premeds are likely to apply. Let's face it. There are over 120 med schools in the country. Some of them are schools of which Hopkins premeds almost never apply to. </p>
<p>Let's take an example. Take the Ponce School of Medicine in Puerto Rico. That's a fully accredited private medical school. But honestly, how many Hopkins premed are applying to that school every year? Or take some of these osteopathic schools. Sure, these aren't 'medical schools' per se, but they still grant you a degree that allows you to practice medicine. I highly doubt that lots of Hopkins premeds are applying to the Des Moines University Osteopathic Medical Center or the Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine in droves. </p>
<p>So the point is, if Hopkins were to just give mediocre premeds who are applying to these (relatively) lower-end schools a different letter, honestly, do you think these schools would even notice? Like I said, these schools don't get many Hopkins applicants, and the ones they do get tend to be of rather mediocre quality anyway. So it's not like these schools would never really have much of an opportunity to compare letters and ask why one applicant got the 'good' letter and the other got the 'bad' letter. All they would usually see is just one kind of letter every year. Perhaps they might see different letters in different years (as in certain years, maybe some good Hopkins premeds might apply), but the chances of seeing 2 different letters from 2 applicants in the same year seems slight to me.</p>
<p>But come on, afam, you gotta be imaginative here. I think we both know that med-school admissions officers at these (relatively) low-end med schools are pressed for time and simply don't have the the wherewithal to thoroughly check every single piece of the application that is submitted. So if they were to get a form letter from a Hopkins applicant, honestly, do you think that all of them would really notice? </p>
<p>But anyway, this also leads to another idea of mine. I can see why somebody like Fishbein or another premed officer might not want to sign a committee endorsement for a mediocre premed to apply to Harvard Medical School. But like I said, there are over 120 accredited med schools/osteopathic schools out there. So Fishbein might say that he won't endorse an application to Harvard but will endorse an application to Ponce.<br>
In that way, premeds are steered to the schools that are most likely to admit them. You said it yourself - the quality of the actual medical education varies little from school to school, such that even the lowest-ranked med-school is still going to give you a decent education. So what's so wrong about Hopkins then trying to steer premeds to the schools that are appropriate for them? I think that's another way to square the circle. </p>
<p>Of course this is contingent upon not having to submit a general committee letter in stage 1 of the app process. So perhaps Hopkins shouldn't provide these letters in stage 1. Only provide them in stage 2, when students have been invited to submit the secondary apps to specific schools. At that time, Fishbein and co. can happily endorse a particular student for a particular school. It can even be in the form of a 'dynamic' letter - just a letter with the template of 'Insert school name here', and you replace that phrase with Harvard or Ponce or whatever school that Fishbein and co. have agreed to endorse for a particular student. </p>
<p>But what you don't ever do is issue a blanket bad rec. If you can't say anything good about a candidate, just don't say anything at all.</p>