<p>Does it affect the residency that you get? Does it affect your career? If you think about it what school did your boss go to? Does the rank affect any of that?</p>
<p>Also does it affect that indirectly? for example would a top med school might help you get a better school on your USMLE than another Med school?</p>
<p>Career, not really. Residency, perhaps a bit especially regionally. My boss went to university of colorado med and he’s the boss of a number of johns hopkins, columbia, and harvard med grads (not that this means anything).</p>
<p>The American allopathic medical school you attend generally does not affect your residency chances or your career very much. Boss? What Boss?<br>
If however you want to match in a very competitive residency or specialty it can matter.</p>
<p>I don’t think it even really helps with matching into competitive specialties in general. It might help with matching into a competitive specialty AT a prestigious medical school. It may also help to match at a specific program where previous grads from X school have also matched, as the program director sees a proven track record of success from X school. But I think the real advantage of higher ranked schools is for those interested in academic medicine.</p>
<p>I am actually not that sure that going to a top medical school helps one going into academic medicine. It is your residency and fellowship which probably matter most in helping you along the academic track. I do think that more graduates of the upper tier medical schools tend to go into academic medicine and they are helped by the ability to get into the top academic residencies by the virtue of their medical school background.
I can only tell you in my limited experience that which medical school attended is an important factor in the decision making process of residency selection. An additional consideration is that it helps if you have worked in a good + department in you intended specialty, and get strong LOR’s from people we know. The best medical schools tend to have strong clinical departments. I can tell you that when you have 400+ applicants for 4 residency spots and you are only interviewing 50 to 60, everything counts on your application. One program director I know told me last year that it is so difficult to decide on the last 20 or so students to interview that they picked a few because of their undergraduate school.
You will also find if you apply to the most competitive residencies that many of your fellow applicants all seem to come from the “usual suspect” medical schools.</p>
<p>I don’t have a “boss.”</p>
<p>Well since everyone is mentioning it, what exactly is academic medicine? Does this just mean being a teacher at a med school?</p>
<p>my son, who will graduate in May form a very mediocre medical school in Texas, has just completed his residency interviews(Duke, Harvard, Mayo, UNC, Vanderbilt, Washington in St. Loius, University of Washington, UAB, UTSW etc…), the only program that he applied to that turned him down for an interview was Johns Hopkins. As a coincidence, the valedictorian of his undergraduate college, who attends a very prestigious medical school(top ten, IVY), is going into the same specialty track(internal medicine enroute to a subspecialty) and they ran into each other a few times on the interview circuit and shared a hotel room on one occasion(at UVA). My son’s interviewer at Duke said “I cannot guarantee you a spot, of course, but I will say that if we are not taking guys like you, who are we taking?”. Even though my son’s medical school is mediocre (my term, but I am in the business ), he was not a mediocre medical student(4.0 GPA, AOA, step scores of 257 and 272, class rank of 1/225). So, it is the individual more than the school in the long term. Even though I had wished for my son to have worked a bit harder in college(he was a low average GPA(3.3)/high MCAT, social chairman of his fraternity and a ‘hail fellow well met’ type of student), it turns out he made up for it in medical school and is competing on equal footing with his valedictorian friend. Just make the most of any opportunity that comes your way would be my advice.</p>
<p>Whether your medical school is American (including Canadian–go figure) or foreign matters a lot. There are administrative hassles for foreign medical graduates. </p>
<p>If you want to be a professor and researcher, I agree that it’s where you do your residency (and any fellowships) that matters much more than where you go to medical school. And top graduates of their own state medical schools are going to be competitive applicants at good residencies. They may not always match at THE top program of their choice (Mass General or Hopkins or whatever), but they will be able to match at major university medical centers.</p>
<p>I’m not a doctor, but my wife is. Her advice to most people who ask is that medical school is trade school, designed to cram a huge volume of technical knowledge into students’ heads in only four years. Medical school isn’t about original thought, or writing a ground-breaking dissertation that you can turn into a prize-winning book. The liver works the same, and babies are born the same way, whether you study at Harvard Medical School or the University of New Mexico. Most people shouldn’t pay more for medical school than they have to.</p>
<p>Last observation: at my house, we are kind of doctor-snobs. But we don’t care where a doctor went to medical school. We want to know where a doctor did his or her residency.</p>
<p>hubbell’sdad. Come one now. Give the poor little fella and his med school a break. lol. Top 50-ish is not really my definition of mediocre and his UG school grades like a ticked off Marquis de Sade. ;)</p>
<p>Now, to the response I really came here to make.</p>
<p>WOO-HOOOOOO!! Big congrats to that ne-er-do-well boy!! Jeebus. Kicking butt and taking names. Big, big congrats. He has always been generous, kind, and helpful to me and my kid (as have you) . A genuine internet friend and I am so pleased for him. Truly fantastic. What an effort. I’d be talking to one of those pilots that tow the banners about now if it was my kid. Remember, from Uncle Curmie’s Rules of Parenting- * If it ain’t vicarious, it ain’t really living.* ;)</p>
<p>*Top 50-ish is not really my definition of mediocre *</p>
<p>Yikes!!! I also wouldn’t call a top 50ish med school “mediocre”. I’m not sure I would call any accredited medical school in the US “mediocre”…that suggests a rather inadequate/incomplete education. </p>
<p>Anyways…super congrats to your son for his successes and best wishes for his future. </p>
<p><a href=“he%20was%20a%20low%20average%20GPA(3.3)/high%20MCAT,%20social%20chairman%20of%20his%20fraternity%20and%20a%20’hail%20fellow%20well%20met’%20type%20of%20student”>I</a>, *</p>
<p>Sounds like a very well-rounded young man with social skills (which we KNOW many doctors clearly lack)…he’ll be loved by his patients.</p>
<p>Something I’ve been thinking about while thinking of a list of places to apply for, is going somewhere that is thought of as “less competitive” may allow one to stand out more than going to one of the big names and you save a ton of money, have a stab at scholarships. Just thinking that going to WUSM for instance which has the most selective stats of any medschool, would mean you’d be with a bunch of kids who are prob going to do great on their step1’s, in their classes, all strive for honors, basically a bunch of gunners. Hard to look any diff from the pack in that group.</p>
<p>But I hear that students from big name schools may get interviews just because of their school name? </p>
<p>Btw, AOA how is that decided? When do you know if you are AOA or not?</p>
<p>^That’s what I was thinking about too ChemFreak. The reason I was thinking about this is that one of the BS-MD programs I’m applying to has an average entering med school GPA of 3.66 and MCAT of ~30. I was thinking that maybe I could stand out a bit more among these students, but I also read before the BDM said that there is no advantage in going to a less known/lower ranking medical school.</p>
<p>So, I’m in the sort of mind frame that you are in. Just a little confused.</p>
<p>*But I hear that students from big name schools may get interviews just because of their school name?
*</p>
<p>I don’t know how true that is. There are people who’ve posted on this forum who’ve gone to mid-tiers and have snagged some very impressive interviews. I know that pre-meds from my son’s mid-tier have also been interviewed and accepted by top med schools - including ivies. </p>
<p>I’m more of a fan of the idea of going where you’re rather certain you can (with hard work) maintain a top GPA. BTW, even at mid-tiers, you’re still going to have to study for A’s. The son of a friend of mine is pre-med at a top elite college. His GPA has suffered to the point that he’s concerned that he won’t get into med school (very harsh grading curve). He and his prestige-impressed parents are now realizing that if he had gone to a lower ranked school, he’d likely have a perfect/near perfect GPA. </p>
<p>I have a nephew (who will also be pre-med) who will be touring my son’s mid-tier college this next week because he was offered a full tuition merit scholarship for his stats. His first choice is UCLA, however, now that I’m learning that the curve is harsh there as well, I will definitely be sharing that info with him. He’s a smart kid, but he doesn’t have the stats that some of those pre-med super stats kids have at UCLA. </p>
<p>I think it would be incredibly frustrating to have the dream of becoming a doctor, and then sabotaging oneself by going to a school that is so cut-throat/competitive that the resulting GPA becomes a road-block.</p>
<p>Yes but I was wondering how that played out in the med school to residency level. We all know that medschools are going to cut no slack for going to top 20 undergrad, but I am wondering if people get residency interviews just because they are from a top 20 medschool.</p>
<p>^Yeah, I’m wondering the same thing. Also, if going to a lower ranking med school and standing out is a better thing than going to a better one and being one of the many.</p>
<p>EDIT: The undergraduate school for this BS-MD program is very subpar. It’s probably a tier 2 or maybe even tier 3 according to USNews. I’m just looking at the med school aspect (avg. 3.66 GPA, 30 MCAT, really good clinical experience @ DMC though).</p>
<p>hubbellsdad, Congratulation to your son’s great achievement! AOA, rank 1, and the astonishing USMLE STEP scores. Wow!</p>
<p>
mom2collegekids, I would probably modify your statement a little bit like this:</p>
<p>…going where you’re rather certain you can (with hard work) maintain a top GPA while still being able to allocate plenty of time for your EC activities.</p>
<p>Remember that the academic strength is only a part of the equation. (e.g., 50 percent of the criteria?) If you are too stressed by your schoolwork to do something interesting outside of the academic, you will likely be labeled as a science nerd who may be better fit for the PhD/graduate school track, a gunner, no demonstrated social skill on the application, and all of the negative attributes for medical school admission.</p>
<p>An example that I learned from LA Times many years ago: A kid from a not so competitive high school got into MIT. She chose a very competitive major, Chemical Engineering. Because she came from a disadvantaged background (her parents are new Mexican immigrants), she really has a very hard time keeping up in such a rigorous environment in which so many other peers not only are as talented as her, but also had had much more opportunities to hone their academic skills before college. She was really struggling to make her grades (barely acceptable for the medical school, even with the boost due to her background and ethnic group.) Of course, she essentially could devote very little time to her ECs. After she had graduated and had a brief work experience with a drug company, she went to a local third-tier public college for an MS – at that time, she had a plenty of time to do her ECs properly because 1) MS program is much easier 2) the competitors there are much weaker. 3) Her background (from MIT) stands out and some mentor in the medical field was willing to her under her wing, gave her opportunity, and wrote her goof LORs. The same person probably got very poor LORs from those high power MIT professors as she really could not stand out among those MIT kids.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’m not sure that’s terribly important for the step from medical school to residency. I think being AOA matters a whole bunch more than whether you organized a coat drive or sang in an a capella group during the basic-science years. Or by EC activities, do you mean things like volunteering with Health Care for the Homeless, or something similar?</p>
<p>We are talking past each other. Some are talking UG > Med. Some are talking Med > Residency. It gets confuddled. ;)</p>