<p>I don't think either have pre-med programs.</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins has a phenomenal premed population. 92% med school acceptance rate, great access to their elite medical school, and world renown Johns Hopkins Hospital in downtown Baltimore.</p>
<p>Not to mention Johns Hopkins Pre Professions Committee drafts a highly regarded and comprehensive letter of recommendation with university stamp of approval for you to send as apart of your medical school application.</p>
<p>Hopkin's Committee Recommendation is essentially a yes or no on whether you get into a medical school or not since medical school admissions circle give heavy weight on this 10-12 page paper detailing every single activity, involvement, summarizing all faculty and professor recommendation, reports, and summarizing why you are eligible or qualified to become a med student.</p>
<p>I'm not sure if I am qualified to say but this is one of the hallmarks that makes Hopkins special with respect to other institutions. Other schools simply doesn't have a dedicated board of 25 professionals from multiple divisions within Hopkins doing this.</p>
<p>Thats one of the great reasons to attend. Hopkins has some of the greatest premed professionals from the faculty at the medical school on the premed board and have really good advisors. Dr. Verrier, Director of Premed Advising is one of them.</p>
<p>"Hopkin's Committee Recommendation is essentially a yes or no on whether you get into a medical school or not since medical school admissions circle give heavy weight on this 10-12 page paper detailing every single activity, involvement, summarizing all faculty and professor recommendation, reports, and summarizing why you are eligible or qualified to become a med student."</p>
<p>This is precisely the reason why I have often spoken negatively about the Hopkins premed program - the use of a de facto application screen. Your undergrad institution should not have the right to make a decision about whether you are admitted to medical school, and the Hopkins committee's willingness to write negative letters or, more usually, threaten to write them, effectively prevents applicants from applying and inflates their rate of acceptance. Yes, this strategy is only used for marginal applicants, but the decision as to whether a student applies should be that of the student, and whether they are admitted should be the decision of the medical school; the undergrad institution has a clear conflict of interest when it comes to deciding who gets to apply to med school.</p>
<p>In response to what was mentioned earlier regarding Harvard:</p>
<p>They have a rep of being a good premed school because they are the most pre-professional of the 'big three' ivy schools. Harvard is actually much more similar as an institution to places like Stanford/Duke/Penn than it is to Yale or Princeton, which tend to be more academia-oriented. Regarding to the rate, I trust BDMs assesment, as 97% is simply way too high and Harvard doesn't screen its applicants.</p>
<p>As far as Harvard goes, I just picked up the new admissions stats from our Office of Career Services and for the Class of 2007 the admissions rate was 93%. </p>
<p>Perhaps more telling is that the average GPA of the accepted Harvard Senior was a 3.53 (3.52 BCPM) as compared to a national average of 3.65 (3.59 BCPM). Accepted alumni applicants have an even lower average GPA.</p>
<p>again, though, those GPA numbers are hardly out of line with those of other big-time premed schools. I believe BDM would say that Duke's average admit numbers are actually noticeably lower than that, and their even a bit higher then Penn's if my memory serves.</p>
<p>I think they follow the conventional wisdom that the actual name of your school is worth 0.1-0.2 on the GPA (at most).</p>
<p>I think they're about the same as Duke's (maybe even a little lower, since we've got a new advising team in place) and substantially (0.15?) higher than Penn's, which are by far the lowest I've ever seen.</p>
<p>phillySASer08</p>
<p>So your saying having the advantage of a faculty member of Johns Hopkins medical school or a former admissions member of JHU medical school telling you to go post bacc, beef up your extracurriculars, boost your MCATs, improve your GPA, literally saving you thousands of dollars applying to medical schools and many hours of time and stress is not worth it?</p>
<p>It is a god blessing to have such advise. Most people would pay thousands for private premed tutors and counselors to read over their application and tell them what to improve on to get into medical school.</p>
<p>It looks bad upon the university to give approval to someone who they know for a fact cannot make it or survive medical school.</p>
<p>JHU would rather see someone succeed by giving them the truthful honest advise and would rather see someone succeed than waste thousands applying and facing unnecessarary stress and pressure of applying to schools they know you won't get into.</p>
<p>Its a valueable tool worth having. The practice sounds tough. Many people themselves realize it themselves and such advise can prove invalueable especially in such a competitive atmosphere, any help is just amazing.</p>
<p>phillySASer08,
Why do you think Yale or Princeton tend to be more academia-oriented? Could you elaborate it?</p>
<p>Not many graduates from these two schools apply to non-professional graduate schools (like 8-9 percent only, if I remember it correctly.) If you say that University of Chicago, Swarthmore, or Cal Tech, maybe physical science majors from Princeton, tend to be more academic, I can relate. But it seems to me Yale is pretty pre-professional as well -- there are no lack of GPA-centric pre-med's (like 80 percents in the bio department?); also many are eager to head to the I-Banking/business right after they graduate.</p>
<p>(You do remember that a "crazy" Yalie faked many of his achievements on his resume in order to get into this field last year, don't you? ;-))</p>
<p>There's a difference between advice and coercion.</p>
<p>You do know MIT grades on a 5.0 scale don't you...</p>
<p>Bluedevilmike, So what evidences do you have that allows you to justify such an outrageous accusation?</p>
<p>Oh, I just found where the 97% stat comes from for Harvard. The overall acceptance rate is 93% since Harvard doesn't screen applicants. The acceptance rate for those with a 3.0 or higher, however, is 97%. We don't have that many applicants so the few students with lower than a B average bring down the acceptance rate.</p>
<p>1.) My post does not make an "outrageous accusation," it points out very clearly that your suggestion is not responsive to the previous discussion. If there are any "outrageous accusations" being made, they were made several posts before yours. I was merely pointing out that you were establishing a straw man ("Hopkins advises people too negatively") and not addressing the actual argument ("Hopkins openly threatens to actively sabotage its own premeds").</p>
<p>Phead128 you must be new here. BDM is a god among us mere premeds.</p>
<p>
[quote]
So your saying having the advantage of a faculty member of Johns Hopkins medical school or a former admissions member of JHU medical school telling you to go post bacc, beef up your extracurriculars, boost your MCATs, improve your GPA, literally saving you thousands of dollars applying to medical schools and many hours of time and stress is not worth it?</p>
<p>It is a god blessing to have such advise. Most people would pay thousands for private premed tutors and counselors to read over their application and tell them what to improve on to get into medical school.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The issue is not about the advice. I think we can all agree that the advice is a valuable thing.</p>
<p>The problem is what happens if you don't want to follow the advice. JHU's policy is that they will then actually actively hurt your application by giving you a poor recommendation.<br>
That's the problem.</p>
<p>Consider this quote: </p>
<p>*...Yet not all students are able to put a positive spin on their experience like Palaganas. Recent premed graduate Brett Gutterman felt that Fishbein and Savage discourage students who may actually have a chance of being admitted to medical school.</p>
<p>"I feel that they try to demean people who's grades are marginal in order to convince them not to go to medical school," he said. The result is, said Gutterman, that people who could get in marginally with a 3.2 do not even apply. "They think people won't get in, but I personally know people who've gotten in with a sub-3 GPA and sub-30 MCATs." </p>
<p>...A student with a much lower GPA can still insist on having their application sent to the committee, yet Fishbein stressed this will most likely reflect badly in their recommendation..." *</p>
<p>Premed</a> office guides students through application process - Features</p>
<p>Right there, that last sentence is where the problem is. Why should it reflect badly on your recommendation? If somebody wants to apply to med school, even if he has subpar grades, that's his choice. If the JHU committee is right, and the person really is not a good candidate, then the JHU committee should trust that the adcoms will realize this and will then reject him. The JHU committee does not need to give him a bad recommendation. </p>
<p>
[quote]
It looks bad upon the university to give approval to someone who they know for a fact cannot make it or survive medical school.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Fair enough. If you don't want to give approval to somebody, then just don't say anything at all. Just give the student a form letter that makes no judgment, positive or negative, about the student whatsoever. Let the adcom decide whether to accept or reject that student.</p>
<p>Surely we've all heard the phrase: 'If you can't say something good about somebody, don't say anything at all'. If JHU doesn't want to support certain students, then that begs the question of why did JHU even admit those students in the first place? But given that you did admit those students, then I think you should fully support them, or at least not actively try to hurt them, which is precisely what JHU is doing.</p>
<p>Yes, I've seen this article and I recognize from before.</p>
<p>Its interesting you left out this quite important part of the article right before your quote.</p>
<p>
[quote]
*First of all, Fishbein stressed, "we don't tell anybody "you can't go [to medical school]'." The advisors are there, however, to make sure that students present the best application possible to their professional school of choice. And as the former Dean of Admissions at the Hopkins Medical School, Fishbein brought to his post a keen knowledge of just what the top medical schools are looking for. </p>
<p>*"If you put it in perspective--that they're trying to help you," Palaganas said, "[the advising system] will work better for you." **
[/quote]
</p>
<p>We can all agree that Hopkins Premed committee can be a tremendous tool to have. Right?</p>
<p>
[quote]
A student with a much lower GPA can still insist on having their application sent to the committee, yet Fishbein stressed this will most likely reflect badly in their recommendation, and **there really isn't any harm in waiting to apply*, beefing up outside credentials and allowing senior-year grades to push up the student's GPA. *
[/quote]
</p>
<p>And finally, to address the core of the question.</p>
<p>What we all pull from this is that the JHU PreMed Committee LOR is very honest, which is why admissions counselors in the medical world put heavy weight on them since they are very honest.
**
Sometimes, Honesty can work against some people.** If Hopkins wants to keeps its integrity and have its recommendation letter hold weight, it has to speak the truth.</p>
<p>What differentiates a committee letter that only speaks the positives versus another that speaks only the truth, As an admissions counselor, which recommendation letter would you hold greater weight to?</p>
<p>The only that speaks of the positives and negatives. Thats why medical schools look forward to reading the Hopkins committee letter. </p>
<p>Because its Honest. </p>
<p>
[quote]
"Medical schools place a lot of credence in Hopkins letters," said Ronald H. Fishbein, Assistant Dean in the Office of Pre-professional Advising. "We [at Hopkins] have one of the top two or three programs in the country, and medical schools know how our process works, so they look forward to getting our recommendation."*
*
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Like I said, Honesty not is for everyone.... Some people may just want to apply regardless and may prefer an admissions letter that speaks only of the good and positives.</p>
<p>Medical school admissions gets billions of these LOR of positives only...That you have to realize. Hopkins differentiates itself because of that.</p>
<p>not to beat a dead horse anymore than is necessary, I would also ask that people consider this:</p>
<p>A hopkins education in raw terms costs about 200k over fours years including all expenses and ignoring financial aid. Now, as with any academic endeavor, paying those funds does not guarantee that you will be able to pursue your dream profession, merely that the school should provide you with the opportunity to do so assuming you head up your end by doing the work and achieving appropriate grades. However, it is up to the med school adcoms to determine whether you have met those requirements. For the hopkins committee to willfully write letters that undermine students' chances is deeply troubling as it sets up the institution the student is paying to attend as another obstacle to achieving their goal, which one could conceivably argue constitutes a breach of contract and is at the very least unethical. Hopkins is harming its students in order to bolster its reputation by a negligible margin, which is usury by and definition.</p>
<p>Now, I have heard the utilitarian argument that Hopkins is benefiting most of its students over the long run by presenting a stronger applicant pool to the adcoms, and so increasing the respect they have for the hopkins program. However, such an argument makes little sense considering that the students at hopkins are every bit as capable as those from the other big-time premed 'factory' schools (by which I mean Harvard, Duke, Penn, Stanford, and WashU), and none of these schools implements a screen.</p>
<p>additionally, it is worth noting that hopkins does not do markedly better in the admissions game than the schools I had previously mentioned, and the caliber of the student bodies at all of the aforementioned places is roughly equal. This evidence directly undercuts the value schools place on the 'special' hopkins letter, or implies that if they do highly value the letter, than something else about the average hopkins student's application must be sorely lacking to even things out.</p>