I just made an account when I thought of this so I don’t know if I am asking in the right place or forum.
I was thinking if I wanted to get into jhu med would having gone to jhu for undergrad have any effect on my application to their med school? (horrible grammar I know). does that look good or does it not matter at all? and not just with jhu lots of schools like unc or uc or harvard would going their help with getting their post grad programs? I’ve always kind of wondered if it helps at all if you went to the undergrad school. Does that play any part in it or is it completely independent? Sorry I don’t really know how to word this question.
Only when there is a specific BA/MA or BA/MD program to which you are a direct admit when you apply as a freshman.
Med school admissions is almost entirely numbers based. Your GPA and MCAT score matter much, much, much more than the name of the college/university where you completed your undergrad degree.
For other types of graduate school, in many fields of study it is preferable to attend a different institution for your graduate degree than you did for your undergrad so that you can be exposed to faculty members who have different approaches to that field of study.
Generally speaking (not just Med school) it helps to have gone to the school undergraduate. This is because the school and recommends are known quantities to the admissions office. There’s also usually a bit of a sense of school pride where they feel people from their university are better prepared.
That said, it can also work against you. No school wants too many of their first year students from the same place so even if your stats are decent but not above their average then if there are more people than they want applying from the undergraduate college you could be at a disadvantage.
All-in-all I would never choose an undergraduate school just because you hope to go to a graduate program there later. Go to the best fit/value undergrad, do well and the graduate program will take care of itself later.
JHU has a top 5 or so med school and a top 30 or so undergraduate school. They are also separate institutions with different boards of directors. JHU med school takes very few students from JHU. UCLA undergraduate is significantly lower in score levels and such than JHU, so I would doubt they take many UCLA students.
“would having gone to jhu for undergrad have any effect on my application to their med school?”
Although numbers are important, getting into med school is so much more than just numbers. After numbers, your motivation for pursuing medicine and qualities like empathy, altruism, integrity, team player, communication skills, research interest, etc as evidenced by other parts of one’s application will become increasingly more important in deciding whether to offer an applicant an interview. And even with fantastic numbers, if you receive and then blow interview (eg you’re rude, arrogant, can’t hold a conversation, etc), you could kiss an acceptance at that school good bye. So although not of zero importance, med schools have a lot more to consider than the name of your UG school.
Anecdotally, I have heard, and seen, that in some cases attending a college decreases your chances of being admitted to their medical school.
The way I have heard it explained, unless you are the tippity top of the premed pool, you are going to be compared to all the premeds from your school, who, if they’ve gotten good grades and developed relationships, think that staying put is better than going to an unknown situation.
With a college at the level of JHU, I would be wary unless you can truly commit to the very highest grades and the very best ECs (including work and volunteering), that is, if JHU medical school is your goal.
Ehhhhh, not really. Post #7 is much better. Much like elite college admissions, good numbers don’t get you in, they only keep you from getting rejected before the rest of your app is evaluated.
It depends on the school. Seton Hall University here in NJ is going to be opening a medical school. If you attend SHU for undergrad and you want to go to their medical school, you’re automatically in.
The core reason why someone got admitted to SHU undergrad is because of their high school year’s performance, academic or otherwise. So what you’re saying is that SHU new med school’s admission committee will say, oh I see this applicant’s file indicates he/she is a SHU undergraduate. There is simply no need to further review application and bother to look at college record. We’ll just auto admit this applicant because his/her high school record was good enough for SHU undergrad admissions and that’s good enough for us. Sorry, that’s not the way it works even at new med schools. For the most part, med schools care very little about an applicant’s high school years with a few exceptions and care a very great deal about what an applicant does post high school…
There is literally no chance that is true about Seton Hall. The closest thing to what you said that could be true is that maybe they are going to be starting a combined BA/MD program with minimal requirements for transitioning from UG to med school. For example Brown’s PLME has no GPA or MCAT requirement so if you’re admitted to PLME as a high schooler (which is of course way more competitive than just regular Brown admission) as long as you graduate from Brown and take the right courses you’re going on to Brown’s medical school. If this is the case for SHU, the admission into their combined program will be far more competitive than their admission into the normal undergrad.