@Creekland thanks for the info, the Rochester info is excellent. I copy and pasted your url into my Notes and changed the date but it keeps bringing up 22. Did you do it another way?
@gallentjill Did you choose a med school?
I was just speaking with a doc yesterday who said that at this point all the US med schools are good, so he would recommend going to any that one gets into.
My D is a high school senior. She was accepted into the Union/LIM BSMD program and that is where she will be attending. So, if all goes well, she’ll be at Albany Med school in 4 years.
If she hadn’t gotten into any of the BSMD programs, she would have chosen one of the schools which offered lots of merit money.
@RW1 I just joined this forum yesterday, what does D20 mean? I’m guessing daughter? My daughter just finished D1 volleyball at a top academic school; it’s a huge commitment. Strong law schools are impressed by that level of successful play and she has good options now.
They play because they love it and the team is their family. It’s a big decision to give that up.
@WayOutWestMom what does EC mean? Thanks
@researchingmom19, extracurricular activity.
@researchingmom19 -D20 means daughter, class of 2020.
Daughter 20 yrs old
As @MaineLonghorn stated-- EC = extracurricular activities
There are a set of expected pre-med ECs–
-
physician shadowing in variety of specialties, but especially in primary care fields.
—To get a feel for what the day-to-day life a physician is like. Primary care because most physicians work in primary care fields. -
clinical volunteering or employment in direct patient contact positions. Students need to be “close enough to smell the patient.”
—Because working with the elderly, sick, disabled, injured, dying, demented and mentally ill everyday isn’t something everyone can do. Students need to be aware of the issues & frustrations that arise when working with populations in need of medical care. While is there is no minimum requirement for hours, successful applicants typically have anywhere from the low hundreds to several thousand hours. -
community service, especially with disadvantaged populations. Preferably off campus and outside one’s comfort zone.
—Medicine is a service profession. Adcomms expects to see evidence of the student’s altruism and compassion. Also many of your young doctor’s future patients will be coming from these disadvantaged populations. Patients aren’t all middle class, clean, and well educated. -
leadership roles in their activities. (Something beside on-campus clubs is preferable.)
—Because physicians are the de facto leaders of the healthcare team. -
research, either clinical or lab bench.
—Because physicians need to understand how research works, what its shortcomings are and what potentials it holds.
and
- some schools like to see teaching, tutoring or coaching experience.
—Because doctors are educators for their patients. The word “doctor” derives from the Latin word “docere” meaning to teach or instruct.
Maybe playing a college sport is a great thing for law schools…but this forum is asking about medical schools. There are many other things listed by @WayOutWestMom which should be done for medical school applicants.
Have to disagree; law schools generally care almost exclusively about LSAT and GPA.
But if your daughter can keep her grades up, college athletics must count for something in medical school applications. At the last two white coat ceremonies I have attended, special mention(in addition to the other amazing things the new students had done) was made of playing sports at the varsity level in college-in fact, several sports were mentioned.
Have to disagree somewhat–
some adcomm members like college athletics because it shows dedication, self-discipline, teamwork and. time management skills. But as as an extra, in addition to the expected ECs. Athletics by itself isn’t particularly valuable for med school admissions.
P.S. You know the students write their own intros, don’t you? Either that or they’re copied off their application.
@researchingmom19 I click on the link and pull up the current profile, then with that url - up in the top of that page - I put the cursor at the end of the year, back up erasing the last 2, substitute 1 or 0, and get that class profile. I don’t change the current link, but change it after I click on it.
Here’s 2021:
https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/MediaLibraries/URMCMedia/education/md/documents/2021-profile.pdf
And 2020:
https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/MediaLibraries/URMCMedia/education/md/documents/2020-profile.pdf
WOW-of course everyone writes their own intros, just like they write their own obits, and it was not suggested that athletics was overwhelmingly positive for all students to all schools for admission. I would note, however, that not all of the new students were recognized individually at these white coat ceremonies, and it appeared that a disproportionate number who participated in college sports(and pro, they had one ex-NFL player in one of the classes) were recognized. So based on that very small sample, it appears that the dean announcing the class summary(not everyone was recognized) emphasized collegiate athletic accomplishment. Can’t say where this fits in the total sum of things-obviously academics would take priority in admissions- but it was clearly important to that dean of admissions who served as the mc of the white coat ceremony. And as the poster noted that his potential applicant was doing quite well at college level sports, so if the applicant can keep up her/his grades, get a good MCAT, etc etc participating in varsity sports in college is viewed as a plus at some schools.
@MYOS1634 my comment isn’t really meant to be taken literally but I’d say probably closer to top 150 universities and top 50 LACs.
Regional universities are probably just that: regional. I’ve heard of Providence college (obviously) and being from NY I’ve heard of SUNY Geneseo but if you leave the northeast it’s probably an eyebrow raiser in a way that Stony Brook or Binghamton are not.
Also “serious disadvantage” probably makes it sound more drastic than what it is. What I mean is that if your school is in the top 200, it’s basically an afterthought. If you’re outside that, it’s noticed.
Ok.
I understand it’s " roughly speaking" .
When you’ve not heard of the college do you check it out against rankings?
(Like, St Olaf and Lawrence have excellent placement that I know of, Earlham has a good reputation, Concordia Moorhead and Gustavus are decent …but I assume they’re not that well known outside the Midwest. Would a reviewer check them out if s/he hasn’t heard of them or just assume they’re not good?)
I don’t want to start an argument about schools and ranking and @iwannabe_Brown has far more experience then I do, but I feel that top 50 may be too restrictive for LACs. There are some, like Muhlenberg, which has a very good reputation for getting students into Med school. Personally, I wouldn’t get too rigid about the ranking. Do the leg work. Get their track record. If lots of kids succeed, its probably fine. Speak to some kids in the pre-med programs and find out how good the advising is and where their upper class friends were accepted. There is no substitute for doing your own research. Limiting yourself to a rigid number like 100 or 50 may cut out some excellent prospects and less expensive tuition.
@WayOutWestMom thanks for taking the time and writing such a detailed answer! My friend told me about this site and I’m on Day 3, so I’m looking for various points of view as well as looking to be helpful.
Happy first day of spring.