The reason I ask this is because I found out that the majority of students in the “competitive” medical summer programs are from “good” schools. With the number of applicants to anything related to medicine surging and the admission rates dropping to something similar to top 20 college applications, would you tend to pull those files from “good” schools first if they have no glaring flaws?
@nrtlax33 the post you linked is from 2011 but I believe BDM originally wrote that in 2004. Med school admissions is a lot more competitive these days. “No glaring flaws” isn’t sufficient for anyone these days. Admissions to med schools surpassed top 20 UG in competitiveness a long time ago. The average acceptance rate for med schools is on par with top 5, top med schools have rates <5%.
@iwannabe_Brown : Actually Brown regular decision acceptance rate was 5.5 percent this year. With huge number of applications on the table, do you think adcoms tend to pull out those from “good” schools first if they have the same GPA/MCAT profile, research activities, shadowing, etc. as those from “other” schools? Of course, state med schools meed to fill their class with in-state students so state flagships are considered “good” schools automatically. Other than state flagships, I have doubts those who come from “other” schools would get their fair chances. Once we get into picking 1 out of more than 6 territory, it becomes hard to distinguish candidates.
Well, first off, you don’t have to take students who went to the in state flagship to satisfy the resident seat requirement. The kids from texas who leave the state for UG count just as much as the kids at UT. If we’re including state flagships beyond just the Berkeley, Michigan, UVA category in our definition of good though (which would roughly mean any school inside the USNWR top 200), then I guess yes, I agree that “good schools” have an advantage over “other schools.” Typically the inside vs. outside the top 200 is not what kids who come on here and ask about school prestige are talking about though.
This question of prestige is a constant concern here and on other forums. As a parent looking for an undergraduate school that will provide excellent merit aid, I have felt this issue keenly. My daughter wants medical school very badly, and I don’t want to do anything that will hurt her chances. On the other hand, certain realities need to be taken into account.
I have spoken directly with one dean of admissions at one US medical school. Her answer was that they really don’t care about the prestige of the undergrad institution. The MCAT score validates the GPA. I don’t know if this is universally true, and I don’t know if she was even being completely honest with me. But we can never know for certain and we just have to make the best choices we can with the knowledge we have.
The number one factor is GPA. If GPA is too low, not HYP can save you. Next one is MCAT. Only after achieving satisfactory GPA & MCAT, then ECs/URM and “possible” name of the college come into play.
@iwannabe_Brown thanks for all the information and sharing your unique inside experience. Would you expand on your comments about inside and outside USNWR as well “good schools” and at what altitude of top schools does it play a factor in med school admissions? Thanks
@researchingmom19 I’m not 100% sure what you are asking for. I would say if you go to a school outside the USNWR top 200 you are putting yourself at a serious disadvantage.
Others here are more knowledgeable then I am, but when we were looking for pre-med schools with generous merit scholarships, we were necessarily looking at schools that were not top ranked. Not less than 200, but definitely less than 100. One was ranked as a regional and I’m not even sure how to count that.
We spoke with the pre-med office at each school we considered. If they had a decent pre-med adviser and evidence of placing significant numbers of students into medical school, we assumed they were good enough. My feeling was that if they could get other students into med school year after year, then my daughter would also have a good shot. When you talk to the offices at each school, make sure that they are not combining stats for MD and DO schools. There is nothing wrong with DO, but if they combine the numbers, it will be misleading.
@iwannabe_Brown I’ve read/heard various opinions about where to go to undergrad to set yourself up to get into med school. To clarify, you’d recommend not considering undergrad schools outside of the USNWR top 200? Thanks
@gallentjill appreciate your insights. Would you clarify a couple things?
Others here are more knowledgeable then I am, but when we were looking for pre-med schools with generous merit scholarships, we were necessarily looking at schools that were not top ranked.
-Did you mean to say “we were necessarily looking at schools that were not top ranked”?
Not less than 200, but definitely less than 100
-Did you limit your undergrad search to schools in the top 100?
Change the year in the url and you can go back several years. It’s a template. They list many of the schools they pull from giving readers examples of schools they like. I suspect many med schools are similar - someone had listed U Michigan once and their list was similar - not all the same schools, of course - but similar in caliber.
The profile also shows what they look for in extras if one considers what they write about is what they like seeing.
Personally, I’ve seen kids get into med school (US, MD) from all sorts of schools, but the lower one gets in ranking the fewer there are. That could probably correlate into scoring on the MCAT more than school name. Someone who gets a 23 on the ACT isn’t super likely to bring that up to a stellar MCAT score even with a few years of college. The higher ranked schools rarely accept someone with a 23. The lower ranked schools do.
No. We looked at schools above 200, but at least one was below 100. We also looked at some LACs which were ranked below 50 and a couple of regionals. I don’t know how to compare the regionals to the other schools in terms of ranking. We looked at some higher ranked schools as well, but only schools which offered merit aid so that eliminated most of the tippy top schools.
We made sure that any school in contention had a good record of sending students to US MD programs. However, we were not overly concerned about the ranking of the MD programs. So, for example, Quinnipiac is a regional with a very good record of sending kids to US allopathic schools, however, I don’t know how many of those kids went to top 20 med schools.
@iwannabe_Brown :
Do you mean top 200 national universities or top 200 national universities AND LACs? (100+100? 200+200?) How do you view LACs such as, say, Goucher, Earlham, Susquehanna…?
What about ‘regional’ universities - Providence, SUNY Geneseo, Drake, Berry… What about colleges ranked in the 20-30s on the ‘Regional’ list?
Wow. Things have certainly changed since my MD. At that time, playing football in college helped my ap, I have D20 in undergrad (top ten program) at top 10 program with high GPA no mcat yet with research and leadership playing varsity soccer ( 2 yrs) intermittently starting lots of play time. Starting to be pulled in multiple directions and is considering leaving soccer. Wondering does sport bump warrant the time?