Does the UG school matter for the admission by a med school?

It may be seen to be too earlier, but this question is vital to us. My S now has two offers from two universities for his UG: Duke and Emory. Emory gave him full ride scholarship while Duke just FA (that covers almost all the tuition and we can afford the Room & board). So it is about 100k for the four years. Frankly both are top notch universities while Duke may slightly be more prestigious. But it is said that Duke student success rate for medical school application is ~85% while it is ~65% for Emory. While this could be explained with the quality of the students body at Emory being slightly worse than that of Duke, does the prestige of the school matter in winning the admission to a med school (esp the best ones)? I heard someone said that it were only GPA and MCAT score, is it true?

Both Duke and Emory are fantastic choices and if med school is down the road I’d want to save the $100k (unless money is ABSOLUTELY no issue to your family and Duke is the preferred school).

Just want to make a general comment about medical school acceptance rates quoted by admissions. It may sound obvious, but it is very important to understand exactly what goes into the numerator and denominator of the ratio as not all schools calculate med school acceptance rate in the same manner. For example:

–Some schools have more “weed out” classes than others reducing the number of students who continue on the pre-med path for four years (lowering the denominator).

–Certain colleges have committees which pre-screen and recommend med school applicants. These committees generally only recommend students who have the stats, experiences etc. to make them very strong candidates for med schools. Students who are not recommended are left out of the equation. In contrast, other colleges support all of the students who want to apply to med school. So while the schools with the pre-screening will have a higher acceptance rate (because of the lower denominator), a schools that support all students may be preferable.

–It is important to know what constitutes a med school acceptance for the med school acceptance rate. Some colleges just count US allopathic med school acceptances and other schools also include acceptances to DO, overseas med schools, podiatry etc. programs in the numerator leading to a higher med school acceptance rate.

I don’t know how Emory and Duke calculate the med school acceptance rates, but I’d try to do some research to find out if that will be a factor in the decision.

Although the college attended is not of zero importance, a med school application has more than enough information (eg GPAs, MCAT, ECs, LoRs, PS) for a med school to decide whether to offer an interview, or reject, or waitlist an applicant long before looking at the name of school attended even, if ever, gets talked about. And even if one gets an interview, a poor interview could end one’s chances no matter what college they attend.

There’s a saying that floats around that GPAs and MCAT may get one to the med school door, but it’s the rest of the application that gets one through the door. Med schools certainly look for evidence that one can succeed academically (GPAs, MCAT). But as MDs typically deal with people, med schools will look for not only evidence that an applicant has some clue about what they are getting into (eg health related ECs), evidence of attributes (eg altruism, compassion, leadership, communication skills, etc.) that med schools believe MDs should possess, and also evidence in their PS that articulates in some meaningful way why the applicant is choosing medicine as a career. These attributes are found in non GPAs, MCAT parts of an application. So no it’s just not about GPAs/MCAT.

Congrats to your S on his two acceptances to two great schools. Both schools will offer ample opportunities and resources for S to produce a competitive med school app. Whether your S becomes a competitive med school applicant is much more about his efforts, less about school attended. As med school is very expensive and is typically paid for by loans, I’d take the full ride that Emory offers. Also keep in mind that most who show up on day one as premed change their minds, the 100k not spent on room and board at Duke may come in handy for say grad school. Good luck to S.

@tim123456
Schools report the med school acceptance rate differently. Emory does not discourage the students from applying even when they have low GPA’s below 3.0. Med school acceptance rate with a 3.5+ and 30+ was 85%. This was 4-5 years ago so its probably higher now.

^^ I wouldn’t assume that the admit rate is higher now. The average admitted MD applicant now has a 3.7GPA and 512+ MCAt (equivalent to 32-33 old MCAT)

@Jugulator20 - great point re: premeds changing their mind; it is a reality and nothing is lock down even at that stage for most students.