<p>which undergrad will make it easier/give me a better chance for a top 10 medical school?</p>
<p>the way i figure, the XX% med school acceptance rate from the undergrad college does nothing for me, because I'm not exactly shooting for JUST a med school, im shooting for top 10, and the stat doesn't tell me the % of premed students get accepted to top med schools. so can someone help?</p>
<p>Both are excellent…the rest is up to YOU. YOU have to make sure that you have a stellar MCAT, GPA, and research/ECs/volunteering/etc.</p>
<p>Word of warning…my nephew is pre-med at Vandy, and he has been lucky to pick great profs, but his roomie got a few bad ones. This can happen at any school, so just use rate my prof to find out which profs aren’t nuts. LOL</p>
<p>…so pretty much, in terms of “which is better” its based off of which one feels right for me?</p>
<p>is it going to be easier to get research opportunities somewhere? better places to set me up? etc? or they pretty much both work?</p>
<p>and …ratemyprof? haha ill defff check that out. thanks</p>
<p>Why a top-ten?</p>
<p>cause my goal isnt just to get into a med school, but get into a top 10 med school</p>
<p>… #5 isn’t an answer. The question was Why?</p>
<p>because i want the absolute best education i can get for myself? because i dont want to settle for a lesser education that i know im better than? because im actually going to try in college, unlike high school, and im going to want results for my work.</p>
<p>like idg what the question is?..why WOULDN’T i want to go to a top 10 school? haha. That had nothing to do with my question btw, sooo thanks?</p>
<p>The “best” education exists in med schools below the top ten as well. Again, it’s not the best education that matters. It’s how YOU are. It’s all about YOU.</p>
<p>The entry level science/math courses are notoriously difficult, and in general, Vanderbilt is tough school to get a solid A in any class.</p>
<p>I know Davidson is also a hard school, but my guess is that a small liberal arts school, it’s much easier to develop relationships with professors and get mentoring than it may be at Vandy.</p>
<p>education isnt the same at a lower tier med school than it is at a harvard med. And frankly, its been my dream since like 5th grade to get into a top medical school. I figure getting into a topish university helps, but i want to get to a top 10 med school from this. I dont understand why you guys are, instead of answering the question like mom2collegekids did, your questioning my motives. Im pretty sure my motives are irrelevant to the question</p>
<p>thanks mino. yeah thats kinda what i need to understand. Ive heard its extremely hard/near impossible to maintain a high GPA at either school, but i feel like maybe davidson is going to give me more opportunities to connect with my professors/research</p>
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<p>Prestige only matters if you want to go into academic medicine. </p>
<p>If you want to be a practicing doctor, it doesn’t matter where you went. INSURANCE COMPANIES AREN’T GOING TO PAY A HARVARD EDUCATED DOCTOR MORE THAN A DOCTOR WHO WENT TO HILLBILLY R’ US MEDICAL SCHOOL></p>
<p>im not talking about how much im going to get paid.</p>
<p>im absolutely fascinated by medicine, and i know that im going to learn more and have better basics at harvard med than “hillbilly r us” med. if thats what you mean by “academic medicine” then yeah, thats pretty much my exact reason for going. id rather have a more quality education.</p>
<p>OP, If the quality of your ECs (not your stats – the stats is definitely not a deciding factor because still too many applicants have it) is among the best from either of the schools you mentioned, I think you would stand a good chance.</p>
<p>If you have some other “hook” (like unusual growing up experiences), you only need to compete against those who are from a similar background. The same stats does not mean the same thing for applicants from a very different background. I think this may be especially true for applying to top medical schools.</p>
<p>BTW, I am not sure whether this is true: It appears to me that most “slaves” in the medical school research labs are postdocs (a quite high percentage of them were from other countries, not the best of the best students in this country), not medical school students. Likely a half of PIs are MDs (this title could help them secure the grant), but they lead the group, write proposals, and attend meetings, and may not do medicine research themselves anymore. I also heard that the interests of those in the medical school doing academic medicine is different from that of the group/association of practicing medical doctors. The former would like to have a good supply of (cheap) researchers (like most private business would like to have in the past several decades), while the latter is more motivated i n producing as few doctors as possible in this country.</p>
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<p>I think your motives are important because it doesn’t seem like you understand much about medical school, which is why I asked. Flip through this board and you’ll notice that this question–“Should I go to X or Y to get into a top-20???” is asked all the time. What high school students fail to realize is that you can become a great doctor regardless of what medical school you attend, and that med school admissions are a completely different game than undergrad admissions.</p>
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<p>This is pretty troubling, that you seem to truly believe that only the top ten schools in the nation are good enough for you. An elitist attitude like that is not going to get you very far in your experience as an undergraduate and probably won’t fare well for you in medical school admissions. To say, as a high school student, that only Harvard, Penn, Johns Hopkins, Washington University, Duke, Stanford, UCSF, Yale, University of Washington, and Columbia are worthy of you is pretentious and obnoxious at best.</p>
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<p>For a variety of reasons: that you don’t want to focus on research, that you want to live in a particular area of the country, that you don’t like the structure of the curriculum there, or that you fit better with a different school’s student body/demographics/etc. There’s so much more to med school than a name. I bet you’ll figure that out when you start to research more. Flip through a recent MSAR–I bet you’ll notice that the schools are so much more similar to each other than they are different. It should reassure you that as long as you do your best and distinguish yourself as an undergrad, any acceptance to medical school is impressive and worthwhile. Good luck!</p>
<p>During the interview season this year, I noticed that the top medical schools interview applicants from ivies, top liberal arts colleges, or those with a strong medical school attached to their university. While Davidson is a top liberal arts school (which I didn’t realize until I googled it just now), Vanderbilt has a top medical school attached. The academics or brand name will probably not make a significant difference, because your GPA and MCAT will depend on you, not on your school. However, Vandy, as it is attached to a medical powerhouse, will likely have better research and clinical opportunities that will make you more desirable to a top 10. </p>
<p>I see no problem with shooting for the stars, and in this case, a top 10 medical school. This was my goal too, and one that I accomplished: however, the education will not be significantly different between schools, as each US medical school must pass the same stringent accreditation system. There will be different opportunities and emphasis at each school, and there will be location and fit to consider as well (i.e. you will want to consider schools in the top 20 as well :P). I think the concern people have here, is a top-ten or bust attitude: would you give up medicine and a life dream just because you couldn’t go to harvard/JHU? I hope not! :)</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>A wonderful resource for you would be hubbellgardner, a Davidson grad who rarely posts here anymore. Sometimes his dad (hubbell’sdad) shows up. Try sending some p.m.'s and see if you can make contact. They are wonderful fellows. </p>
<p>I think I know what you’ll hear but it would be more meaningful coming from them. ;)</p>
<p>I am not sure how one can shoot high, low or somewhere in a middle. Keep in mind that every single pre-med is shooting for the very best in every class, taking MCAT and all other experiences. Resources are everywhere for Research, volunteering, getting job…whatever and everybody is utilizing them. School will not make much difference IMO based on D’s experiences thru this cycle.</p>
<p>thanks for all of your help everyone. </p>
<p>yeah: most likely im going to head on over to nashville. I feel like Vanderbilt will give me more opportunities for research, and if I visit and enjoy the campus I feel like its the best move for me.</p>
<p>Don’t assume that Vandy will be a walk in the park. One of my D’s best friends (in fact her current roommate) is a Vandy grad, daughter of two Physicians and a great student. Her med school dreams were squashed by the Chem track at Vandy and she is now a consultant in a medically related field. Vandy has a somewhat well deserved reputation as a rich kids’ party school and it can sometimes be easy to get caught up in the party scene that surrounds you.</p>
<p>Regardless of where you go you’re going to have to work hard and do all the other right things to make yourself a competitive applicant.</p>