<p>I know that I can get into some good universities and even some good medical universities. But how important is pre med. I dont want to get into a bunch of debt by going to an expensive school.</p>
<p>Secondly, will going to a pretty good school limit my chances of going to medical school.
I was thinking about going to Miami University-Oxford because it is good, instate and cheaper. But I am worried that if I go there then I wont get into a good medical school because Miami isnt a medical school</p>
<p>You can’t possibly know this already. At a minimum you’re 4 years away from applying.You have no idea if you will have the GPA and MCAT required to be considered.</p>
<p>Also, all US medical schools are “good”. There is not a significant difference in quality among medical schools. They all teach the same basic curriculum and all US medical students take the same standardized licensing exams.</p>
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<p>I have no idea what you mean by this. </p>
<p>Undergrad is undergrad; med school is a post-graduate professional program. They are not the same thing. Whether or not your undegrad is associated with med school, has zero influence on whether you will be accepted into a medical school.</p>
<p>*Secondly, will going to a pretty good school limit my chances of going to medical school.
I was thinking about going to Miami University-Oxford because it is good, instate and cheaper. </p>
<p>*</p>
<p>Miami Ohio is a very good school. Many of its grads (including a poster’s D) go onto excellent med schools. </p>
<p>*</p>
<p>But I am worried that if I go there then I wont get into a good medical school because Miami isnt a medical school*</p>
<p>??? what do you mean by that? Undergrad isn’t med school at any US univ. If your conern is that the university doesn’t also have a med school on campus, that’s irrelevant. Most univs don’t have med schools on campus…it doesn’t matter. </p>
<p>And, secondly, ALL US MD schools are very good. There is no such thing as a “not good” US MD med school.</p>
<p>For the purposes of med school admissions, the perceived quality of your undergrad has minimal impact on where you can get in. Obviously, going to a higher ranked college will open more doors for you because they offer more in terms of opportunities (research, funding, ECs, etc), but not because of the name. You can go to an Ivy and pull a 3.5 and the graduate from podunk state with a 3.9 and 35 MCAT will get an interview over you.</p>
<p>Now, if you can get into a good school that provides better opportunities AND get a stellar GPA on top of a good MCAT score, then go for it. However, its more beneficial for you to worry about HOW you will get the good grades and MCAT score, rather than where (ie which school) you will be getting them.</p>
<p>In case you are wondering, I am a premed student going into senior year, so it’s not like I don’t experience with med school admissions. I go to a fairly competitive LAC known for grade deflation. While personally I am not struggling, many of my peers have GPAs of 3.4-3.5 (For your reference, you need a 3.65 to be competitive and at least a 3.8 if you want to get into a top research med school). My school says that med schools know about my college’s grade deflation, but its complete bull. Med schools will not give you a break just because you go to a tougher/better school.</p>
<p>tl;dr Go to where you will excel and be happy. Don’t be hung up on rankings unless you are specifically pursuing a career in academic medicine.</p>
<p>Obviously, going to a higher ranked college will open more doors for you because they offer more in terms of opportunities (research, funding, ECs, etc)</p>
<p>Many mid-tiers (such as Miami-Oh) offer many research and other EC opportunities, so that shouldn’t be a concern. I don’t want the student thinking that the opps are limited at schools that aren’t “top ranked.”</p>
<p>OP,
"I was thinking about going to Miami University-Oxford " - my D. graduated from Miami where she was on full tuition Merit award. She had no problem getting accepted to several Med. Schools and neither of her pre-med friends had this problem. In fact some of them, including my D. had a hard time deciding…</p>
<p>Huge resources are devoted specifically for UG. D. had to do ALL of her ECs there during school year because absolutely nothing was available in our home town in a summer. Honors provided priority schedule, additional merit $$ and small classes. All lectures (no exceptions) are taught by profs, not TAs. All pre-meds around my D. graduated with combo of major(s)/minor(s)…and pretty campus was one of the major reasons to choose Miami (at least for my kid).</p>
<p>“Obviously, going to a higher ranked college will open more doors for you because they offer more in terms of opportunities (research, funding, ECs, etc)”
-I strongly disagree. Cannot possibly be more than D. had. Her pre-med committee were amazed about the level of her engagement, she would not have time for anything more. But she wanted to have summers free, for fun, for friends and she did.</p>
<p>The OP may be referring to the fact that some med schools have higher acceptance rates for applicants from their undergrad counterparts. It is no secret that my university’s med school accepts us undergrads at double the rate as applicants from other universities. They tell us that from day 1, and I go to a university with a top 10 med school.</p>
<p>Also, while I agree it is not a big deal if you go to an undergrad without a med school, it is incredibly nice and convenient if you do. In fact, I chose my school over Miami for this reason because I wanted to be able to interact with actual med students. We even have classes taught by medical school faculty, and great ones at that. Don’t let this be your deciding factor, but it is something to consider.</p>
<p>I wanted to be able to interact with actual med students. We even have classes taught by medical school faculty, and great ones at that. Don’t let this be your deciding factor, but it is something to consider.</p>
<p>Maybe others can chime in here, but I don’t think this is too common. Sometimes the med school isn’t even on the same street…but a few blocks/miles away.</p>
<p>Both kiddos took upper level elective courses taught by med school faculty. (Each at very different schools.) The common denominator–the med school campus was adjacent (literally right across the street) to the main campus.</p>
<p>I strongly suspect that unless the proffie can walk across the street to teach undergrads–you’re just not going to see it happen.</p>
<p>As for interacting with med students–didn’t happen for either kid. And both spent considerable amounts of time working & volunteering in the teaching hospital.</p>
<p>can you point me to any statistics that show the actual acceptance rate is higher for kids from a med school’s UG? I know the # of students is often higher but that could easily be accounted for by the # of applicants.</p>
<p>I cannot speak for other schools but I admit this probably isn’t the norm. Definitely do research of the accessibility of the med school (again, there are plenty of great premeds schools without them). However, our med school is not within walking distance (although it is accessible via train in less than 10 minutes) and as a freshman I had a course taught by a member of the med school faculty, and I have a friend (rising sophomore) taking an upper level bio course taught by another med school faculty member. I have also done research and interacted with a good number of the med students (they even led a CPR class I took to get certified).</p>
<p>Much less relevant but since any student (including graduate and medical students) can participate in IM sports, the med school students consistently field teams in a variety of sports on our undergrad campus (where the games/matches are held). My team had the great (dis)pleasure of facing them more than once. I am convinced that going to our medical school requires you to be an Ultimate Frisbee god/goddess, they are amazing.</p>
<p>"can you point me to any statistics that show the actual acceptance rate is higher for kids from a med school’s UG? "
-At many Med. Schools, their own UGs are at the top in numbers. The only school that beat this number in D’s Med. School class is Berkeley. But CA in her class in general is definitely overrepresented as it would be the case in many Midwest Med. Schools. Asian are way way overrepresented (many from CA actually) However, it all means absolutely nothing in regard to choosing UG.
It is not a good idea at all choose your UG based on the fact if University has Med. School or not. And in case of Miami, specifically, it is a huge mistake. Not sure if many are aware, but Miami is ranked #2-3 nationally for Undergraduate teaching. Priamry focus there are undergrads, they are priority. One reason why profs are not focused so much on theri own research, but much more on their students. D. had much more opportunities there that she / us unticipated, it just started piling on her and she even had to turn some things down. Great place for the very top kids and she was sooo surrounded by valedictorians in her Honors college, that she decided to look at the opportunities to meet a greater variety of people. Her minor and sorority provided her with great social opportunities outside of valedictorian / pre-med crowd.</p>
<p>I don’t know what to do with WashU’s numbers.</p>
<p>If 200 WashU undergrads apply to WashU SOM, and 20% get accepted, the fact that the school only accepts 3% “at large” of other applicants doesn’t really tell me about the acceptance rate from any particular school. If WashU SOM got 100 apps from UMich undergrads, or 50 apps from UCLA undergrads (all similarly qualified), then I doubt their acceptance rate would be 3%. Their acceptance rate may also be in the 20% range…unless WashU fears that too many of these students will choose their cheaper instate alternatives.</p>
<p>^exactly, this is my point. Without a breakdown of schools and the # of apps received you can never really prove the bias. Do I think there’s a bias? Yes. But I think it’s pretty overstated by most people and it’s more of an implicit bias in the sense that the med school doesn’t care that you’re from their UG but that the administrator reading your app knows the people writing your LORs and trusts them. Hell, the article even says this, “We usually know them, and we know their reputation.” But that happens with all sorts of people. I’ve heard my MSTP adcom discuss a LOR with respect to the letter writer (e.g. he never uses strong superlatives so we shouldn’t hold it against this kid that he didn’t say she was outstanding) for people who have absolutely zero affiliation with our school but who have written previous letters for students and post docs/residents/fellows and professor hirings before. </p>
<p>And the article does a pretty shoddy (or more likely intentionally poor) comparison. <3% of non WUSM ENROLLED. That is not the acceptance rate. As mom2ck points out, you don’t know that the X kids from yale (or insert every other school here) every year don’t come from only X applications every year and no one outside of the admissions committee ever will.</p>
<p>I think the bias goes more in the direction of students applying rather than SOM accepting…a very large number of students from a particular undergrad will apply to their own school’s SOM…usually at a much greater rate than any other school (perhaps UCs might be an exception?)</p>
<p>If 200 WashU undergrads apply to WashU SOM, and 20% get accepted</p>
<p>And, why weren’t those 80% accepted? Likely they had qualifying stats…at least most of them. However, we all know that WashU is a MCAT-you-know-what, so it’s likely that those other non-URM’s with MCATs in the 32-35 range were rejected for stats.</p>