Can you get into med school from a community college?

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
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exactly, so i don't understand why there's a generalized opinion to go to a "lesser" school b/c it's easier to get a higher GPA?

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<p>Well, I don't know exactly whose opinion lies within that 'generalized opinion' you cite, but I for one do not believe that a 'lesser' school necessarily offers an easier GPA. In fact, sometimes a higher-ranked school can provide you with an easier GPA. Certain Ivy League schools (i.e. a certain one in Massachusetts) immediately come to mind. </p>

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wouldn't the more cunning prospective premeds know about this and go to the lesser schools, resulting in sometimes worse competition than in better schools?

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<p>Yeah, the cunning ones will. But you can perhaps extract from my discussion with student14x, most premeds are not very cunning. In fact, that's why a guy like Dr. Michael McCullough felt the need to write the document that I linked to above. Most premeds seem to believe that med school adcoms will properly compensate them for taking difficult coursework. Unfortunately, they will probably not. </p>

<p>Again, to emphasize, surely the best option is to take difficult coursework and get good grades. Those premeds who can do that are clearly in the best position. But most people can't do that. Most people cannot get good grades in difficult coursework. {In fact, that follows simply by definition: if everybody really could get a good grade, then, by definition, it wouldn't be difficult coursework.) What I and guys like McCullough have been stating is that, for the purposes of med school admission, it is better not to take a difficult class at all than to take it and get a bad grade. Sad but true. </p>

<p>Unfortunately most premeds seem not to realize this. Or, if they do, they believe they will be among that group of students who really will get a top grade in difficult coursework.</p>

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<p>"It'll be fierce competition everywhere you go"</p>

<p>No, its a comparative analysis. Sure pre-med is competitive anywhere. But what matters is that some schools are just more competitive than others.</p>

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<p>Well, Sakky, you make a good point. A higher GPA is always better than a lower one. But I found a flaw in your reasoning. The students that have it easy will probably score low on the MCAT. The MCAT is strictly a thinking test built on years of premed work and quite frankly a life time of reading. Is it not plausible to assume that the more difficult pre-med courses offered at top schools will better prepare students to tackle this beast? After all, by having the professors grade more harshly, the student will have more incentive to study, and consequently develop greater analysis skills. Sure, we can assume that students can just take the easy courses at the easy schools and then do extra studying to match the levels of the top schools. But most people don't think like this. If you have an A, then why study more?
So what could end up happening is that these "cunning" pre-meds get their asses handed to them when they realize that they can't hack the MCAT. Hence, they are no better off going to the easy institution than the hard one.</p>

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<p>so basically the majority of prospective premeds think quite highly of themselves, and so they go to the more difficult schools and take harder courses</p>

<p>how much would u guys say the difference b/t level of courses (material-wise, prep for the MCAT) of a higher college (ivies) and middle of the road publics? what about LACs?</p>

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The students that have it easy will probably score low on the MCAT. The MCAT is strictly a thinking test built on years of premed work and quite frankly a life time of reading.

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<p>There's no reason to think this. Doing well in class is one thing. Doing well on the MCAT is another. I flubbed Physics II and Honors Orgo II in college - I don't think I learned a darn thing in either class - but I scored much higher on the MCAT than my grades would've predicted. College "pre-med" classes do NOT teach to the MCAT.</p>

<p>I also doubt that years of pre-med coursework are needed for MCAT success. I suspect that if you took 10 talented, mature high schoolers and coached them using a Kaplan course, you could get most of them to score about a 30 on the MCAT. Test-taking skills play a large role in how well you score. For example, plenty of people can cough up the facts - calcitonin does this, a purine base has x number of rings in its structure - but they just can't get through the sections fast enough to score well.</p>

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Is it not plausible to assume that the more difficult pre-med courses offered at top schools will better prepare students to tackle this beast? After all, by having the professors grade more harshly, the student will have more incentive to study, and consequently develop greater analysis skills.

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<p>Courses don't prepare people for the MCAT by dint of being difficult. I daresay that quantum mechanics is much harder than general chemistry, but it has nothing to do with the MCAT. Again, grades in pre-med courses do not translate into MCAT success because you aren't being tested on the same things. Good grades often translate into a good knowledge base, but they don't guarentee that you know how to read MCAT passages and answer the questions. To do that requires practicing for the MCAT, not more studying for Orgo class.</p>

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Sure, we can assume that students can just take the easy courses at the easy schools and then do extra studying to match the levels of the top schools. But most people don't think like this. If you have an A, then why study more?

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<p>Again, hopefully you continue to study and practice because you realize that whatever let you succeed in Bio I is different than what will let you succeed in the Biological Sciences section.</p>

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So what could end up happening is that these "cunning" pre-meds get their asses handed to them when they realize that they can't hack the MCAT. Hence, they are no better off going to the easy institution than the hard one.

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<p>They're better off going to the easy institution if they get great grades and study well for the MCAT. Great GPA + great MCAT > okay GPA + great MCAT.</p>

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how much would u guys say the difference b/t level of courses (material-wise, prep for the MCAT) of a higher college (ivies) and middle of the road publics? what about LACs?

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<p>I seriously doubt that going to State U makes much of a difference as compared to going to Harvard with regards to coursework. See above.</p>

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<p>Again -- medical schools certainly do some school-to-school adjustment. It's just not a difficulty or a prestige adjustment. Some very hard schools get PENALIZED, not just not helped; some of these are pretty prestigious, as well.</p>

<p>My guess is that it's a "based on what we've seen in the past" adjustment.</p>

47

<p>thanks for the insight</p>

<p>so basically the premed courses teach the same things up to the same depth, no matter which school
and it's always good to study more for class, but just know that it's not for the MCAT b/c studying for the 2 is different</p>

<p>why is it that the better schools tend to prep their students better for the MCAT?
and is the MCAT all reading passages (except the essay), even in the 2 science sections?</p>

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why is it that the better schools tend to prep their students better for the MCAT?

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<p>Where's the evidence that they do?</p>

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and is the MCAT all reading passages (except the essay), even in the 2 science sections?

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<p>You can get through some passages without ever reading. Passages are interspersed with groups of questions not associated with readings.</p>

<p>You can learn about the MCAT here: AAMC:</a> MCAT: Preparing for the MCAT Exam .</p>

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<p>well, i guess better schools would b/c the top med schools tend to have majority from the higher ranked undergrads
so that's why i thought they did, maybe w/ better prep programs, since the courses obviously don't</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Well, Sakky, you make a good point. A higher GPA is always better than a lower one. But I found a flaw in your reasoning. The students that have it easy will probably score low on the MCAT. The MCAT is strictly a thinking test built on years of premed work and quite frankly a life time of reading. Is it not plausible to assume that the more difficult pre-med courses offered at top schools will better prepare students to tackle this beast? After all, by having the professors grade more harshly, the student will have more incentive to study, and consequently develop greater analysis skills. Sure, we can assume that students can just take the easy courses at the easy schools and then do extra studying to match the levels of the top schools. But most people don't think like this. If you have an A, then why study more?
So what could end up happening is that these "cunning" pre-meds get their asses handed to them when they realize that they can't hack the MCAT. Hence, they are no better off going to the easy institution than the hard one.

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<p>I think shades_children gave a pretty darn good answer.</p>

<p>In essence, a cunning premed student will know that he may need to put in extra study time to compensate for his easy classes. (Otherwise, by definition, he's not very cunning.) But, by the very nature of his easy classes, he will have the extra time available because those classes will take up very little effort. </p>

<p>In fact, you could make an argument that easy classes actually translates into a higher MCAT score for a cunning student, because such a student can optimally devote his study time to learning topics that will actually appear on the MCAT, as opposed to other students taking difficult courses and who are hence being forced to spend time learning topics that will not appear on the MCAT. </p>

<p>The bottom line is this. When it comes to the grades necessary to get into med school, it is clearly true that you need to get good grades. But that's trivial palaver. A more meaningful statement would be the converse: * the real goal is to avoid BAD grades*. Like I've always said, for the purposes of med school admissions, it is better to not take a difficult class at all than to take it and get a bad grade. In other words, if you take a difficult course like quantum mechanics - a class that most premeds won't take - and do poorly in it, med school adcoms will punish you for it. It's clearly not fair because I would say that most premeds would have also done poorly in quantum mechanics if they took the class, and hence the fair thing to do would be to not count the grade at all. But, sadly, that's not how it works. </p>

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so basically the majority of prospective premeds think quite highly of themselves, and so they go to the more difficult schools and take harder courses

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<p>Exactly. Furthermore, sadly, many of them will vitiate their chances by doing poorly in that difficult coursework, as echoed by the McCullough document I referenced above.</p>

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<p>
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so basically the premed courses teach the same things up to the same depth, no matter which school

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<p>Nah, I don't think that is what shades_children is saying, and that's not really the point anyway.</p>

<p>The real point is that premed courses in practically any university will teach you enough for the MCAT, and that's the real goal. Certainly certain courses at the more difficult universities probably will teach you the material at a far greater depth. For example, there is no doubt that the Chemistry 261x sequence at Berkeley will teach you organic chemistry to a level of depth that will make you arguably a world expert in OChem, for after all, that course sequence is the one undertaken by Berkeley's organic chemistry PhD students <a href="and%20Berkeley%20has%20the%20#1%20ranked%20graduate%20Chemistry%20program%20in%20the%20world">/i</a>. *But you don't need to know that stuff for the MCAT. </p>

<p>Personally, what I think should happen is that schools should develop classes that are tailor-made to train you for the MCAT. Why not? After all, I would venture to say that most undergrads who take OChem are doing so not because they actually truly care about OChem, but are just in the class because it is required for med schools and because the MCAT will test them on OChem. Such a class class would teach them exactly what they need to know for the MCAT, and nothing else. After all, most students attend college in order to achieve their career goals, and I would think that a school ought to be trying to help its students achieve those goals. After all, what are these students really paying for, if not that? {And for that minority of students who actually do care about OChem because perhaps they want to get a PhD in it, you can have another course sequence for them that will teach them all of the extra theoretical material.} </p>

<p>But I'm not going to hold my breath. I think most schools are perfectly content with insisting on teaching courses that do not fit the needs of most of the students, and they don't want to change. In other words, I think schools know full well that most OChem undergrads will never really need to know many of the topics taught in the class and will never use it in their lives, and yet the schools don't care.</p>

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<p>You have to be careful about a schedule which isn't obviously fluffy, though. Majoring in a joke class, taking the bare minimum premed requirements, very low credit courseloads, or opting out and taking a large proportion of classes at a community college -- these are not good things.</p>

<p>Nobody's saying you should go out and take quantum. But you should have a normal courseload, a semester or two above-normal, and a few courses with big numbers. Do they actually have to be hard? No, not necessarily. But if they look obviously easy, you're in trouble.</p>

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<p>
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well, i guess better schools would b/c the top med schools tend to have majority from the higher ranked undergrads
so that's why i thought they did, maybe w/ better prep programs, since the courses obviously don't

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<p>Maybe students from lesser ranked schools avoid applying to top schools. Why? I don't know. But that's one reason I can think of off the top of my head that would explain the discrepancy. You can probably think of others.</p>

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<p>If you didn't want to pay tuition for Harvard undergrad, you're less likely to want to pay tuition for Harvard Med. And if you could for undergrad, maybe you'll want to for medical school. Etc.</p>

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<p>The MCAT is about analytical skills, not topics. Sure you don't need the in-depth knowledge that the Berkeley Ochem provides. But just the fact that Berkeley's Ochem tests harder and makes the test taker utilize more analytical thinking skills than a lesser school will give the Cal student an edge over another student on the MCAT. </p>

<p>Look at it this way, A student that aced Calculus and Physics will probably do better on the SAT math than a student that only aced algebra. Why? The test only require basic hs math. Its because the student that took the harder math courses have been trained more in quantitative analytical skills than the student that did not. The same can be said of a math graduates' score on the gre quantitative vs a english major. You can also look at the correlation between SAT scores of top private high schools vs. average schools and the correlation of GRE and MCAT scores between top and lower colleges. The fact is that more difficult curriculums instill a high level of analytical thinking which results in higher scores on standardized tests.</p>

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But just the fact that Berkeley's Ochem tests harder and makes the test taker utilize more analytical thinking skills than a lesser school will give the Cal student an edge over another student on the MCAT.

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<p>Not true. I wouldn't have needed to spend so much time convincing bio majors to leave what they knew at the door in order to maximize their MCAT scores while I taught for Kaplan if advanced understanding of the topics mattered.</p>

<p>The Berkeley student will score better simply because the characteristics that got them into UCB in the first place correlate to success on the MCAT (ie Intelligence and good test taking skills) and success in med school admissions.</p>

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<p>Thats assuming that standardized tests are based solely on IQ. But that doesn't explain why most students from high ranked public high schools tend to score higher than others. I don't recall public highschools requiring standardized tests for matriculation. They just enter if they lived in the district. Could it be that all the students born in a highly ranked district are just smarter? Hmmm, sounds illogical. How being born in a certain location create a high IQ? The only conclusion is that the high standards with a good education creates better thinkers. </p>

<p>Well, I'll admit that location matters in the sense that it can either be conducive to education or not. If a student is surrounded by people that highly value education, then said student will most likely value education. But this a cultural factor. It has nothing to do with IQ.</p>

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Not true. I wouldn't have needed to spend so much time convincing bio majors to leave what they knew at the door in order to maximize their MCAT scores while I taught for Kaplan if advanced understanding of the topics mattered.

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<p>Quoted for TRUTH. The Physics II and Orgo II topics that I had to learn (or relearn, I'm not sure which was the case) for the MCAT were a lot easier for me than some of my other Kaplan classmates. I credit this to my ignorance. I didn't learn more than I had to - I had no memory of weird mechanisms or advanced electrical concepts that could trip me up - and I didn't waste time lamenting, "Oh, I learned so much as a pre-med, but none of it's being tested on the MCAT!" </p>

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Thats assuming that standardized tests are based solely on IQ.

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<p>You're thinking too narrowly. BRM's not saying that only IQ matters. He's saying that ALL the factors - IQ, values, past academic success, interests, goals - that got people into UCB or other highly selective colleges will help those same people succeed, both in college and in medical school admissions.</p>

<p>This is also why the MCAT is the great equalizer for medical school admissions. Students from any school, be it highly-ranked or lower-ranked, have a level field (more or less) to compete on.</p>

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<p>
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don't recall public highschools requiring standardized tests for matriculation. They just enter if they lived in the district. Could it be that all the students born in a highly ranked district are just smarter? Hmmm, sounds illogical. How being born in a certain location create a high IQ? The only conclusion is that the high standards with a good education creates better thinkers.

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<p>Uh, actually, your logic is flawed. Public schools don't take students who were born in a particular district. They take the students who, as you said, actually live in the district. And THAT is a choice variable. Parents who care about their childrens' education and who have the money can and will move to better school districts. In fact, the quality of the local public schools is one of the first things that realtors will try to sell to aspiring homebuyers who have children. In contrast, parents who don't think education is very important and/or who don't have money will not tend to move to better districts.</p>

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Look at it this way, A student that aced Calculus and Physics will probably do better on the SAT math than a student that only aced algebra. Why? The test only require basic hs math.

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<p>But that's not the comparison that we're talking about. I have always agreed that if you can take extremely difficult courses and ace them, you should go ahead and do it. </p>

<p>But the fact remains that most people can't do that. Most people who take extremely difficult courses will not ace them. In fact, many of them will do very poorly. In fact, that's precisely what makes those courses difficult. If everybody aced them, then they wouldn't be difficult. </p>

<p>Hence, a fair comparison of yours would be to take the guy who took Calculus and Physics and didn't do well in them. How is that guy going to do on his SAT math? </p>

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The fact is that more difficult curriculums instill a high level of analytical thinking which results in higher scores on standardized tests.

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<p>Again, I would say that if that's true, then that happens * only if you do well within that difficult curriculum.* But what if you don't do well? Has that curriculum then really instilled a higher level of analytical thinking into you? I think that's questionable. </p>

<p>Consider this example. Ever try to read a book that was just too difficult for you? I have. I once tried to read some original Latin works using my very basic Latin knowledge. I couldn't do it and I learned nothing from the experience. It was just too difficult. My Latin wasn't good enough. I simply wasted my time. Certainly, my level of analytical Latin knowledge did not improve from the experience. Not one bit. Instead, I should have been reading more Latin textbooks and tutorial works that were more to my knowledge level so that I could actually learn what was going on. </p>

<p>You have to match the education to the students. The truth of the matter is, a lot of college courses that premeds take are just too hard for many of them and obviously these are the ones who tend to do poorly and who learn little from the experience. Now, that level of difficulty would be justifiable if those courses in fact were teaching you what you actually needed to know for the MCAT. But they usually don't. They are instead forcing you to learn things that are not only difficult, but also have nothing to do with the MCAT. </p>

<p>Again, if you happen to be one of those people who can do well in those hard topics, then more power to you. But my question is - what if you don't happen to be one of them?</p>