<p>My comment was not about the OP post but about MiamiDAP’s. She said,
and I disagree with that. It does matter, to some degree. I want to be a practicing physician and the resources that a top 10 university will make available to me are likely to facilitate my learning and my overall medical education experience. Personally, that’s is important to me. </p>
<p>And it has nothing to do with prestige or name. It has to do with what the institution has to offer to me as a student, because after all, I am paying for it. You are not going to get at the University of South Florida what you will get at Johns Hopkins. Not in terms of the faculty, not in terms of the physical plant and not in terms of research access.</p>
<p>^ what do research access and physical plant have to do with a school’s ability to train competent clinicians?</p>
<p>It is definitely true that if you want to be a practicing physician, where you go to medical school doesn’t matter in the least. If you want a research focus, the top-ranked schools will typically offer a better environment (ranking algorithms are usually influenced in large part by research dollars).</p>
<p>I think prestige matters a Ton if you are thinking about maybe doing clinical trials or research as a physician. Those MD’s from HY and JHU attractive much much much more basic research dollars than those from other schools.</p>
<p>Now obviously, a doctor from Penn can’t be too far better than one from say… Brown. But then why is he/she much more likely to receive funding? Prestige!!!</p>
<p>Icarus, the library and the labs are part of the physical plant. To say that the quality of a medical school does not matter the least in terms of the medical education one receives is absolutely ridiculous. Students from all medical schools do not have the same USMLE scores for a reason. Practitioners do not have to settle for a less “stellar” education just because they will not be doing research. That is my point. </p>
<p>I am not talking about training competent physicians here. All accredited US medical schools are qualified to train competent doctors.</p>
<p>You’re misconstruing a lot of my statements, MyOpinion.</p>
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<p>I think you’ll see that I never said anything like this. I would argue that the “quality” of a medical school is almost entirely based on the medical education it provides. However, such a measure is not at all correlated with rankings which, as I pointed out before, are based in large part on research funding. In addition, the differences in education among US medical schools are very small. Medical education is very standardized - all medical schools will teach you basically the same thing. Yes, they all have varying ways of going about this (PBL v. Lecture-based v. Independant study, full dissection v. prosection, block schedule v. non-block, systems based v. not, research required v. not, mandatory thesis v. not, etc. ad infinitum), but in the end you learn the same stuff.
You might like the way one school does things vs others, but by any objective measure, all medical schools have a very similar “quality” of education. In that way, where you go has absolutely no bearing on your ability to become a practicing physician.</p>
<p>Generally speaking, I’d agree with the majority here. The prestige of a medical school isn’t all that important for a clinician. If you can’t get into a highly prestigious school, or if you’d come out carrying $200K in loans, then I’d say it’s perfectly sensible to go to a low-ranked medical school. </p>
<p>They’re all medical schools; they’re all excellent; there’s no sense worrying about it the way one needs to worry about an MBA program or a law school ripping you off.</p>
<p>But I would also say: if you happen to get into one and you can pay for it, then why not? To be blunt, something like location ought to be considered EVEN MORE TRIVIAL than the marginal difference in prestige between medical schools,* especially if you’re talking about a big gap.</p>
<p>(As UCSF explained at their second look weekend: “Let’s say you really happen to like Philadelphia. You like East Coast weather, you like cheesesteaks, whatever. That’s a perfectly valid reason to choose Penn and turn us down. But it’s not a good enough reason to choose Jefferson and turn us down.”)</p>
<p>*This is all the more true since most of the time, when people say “location” they mean “I’m looking for someplace really similar to where I grew up.” (There are exceptions, of course.) They’re robbing themselves of diversity and experience in doing so, such that a “good location” ends up actually harming their growth and breadth.</p>
<p>The more I study for the USMLE, the less I think that the actual school has anything to do with it. No wonder when I was interviewing, all of the medical schools (including ones with high USMLE scores) urged us to take average USMLE scores with a grain of salt. And some flat out refused to give out those stats to be used as a basis for selecting medical schools. </p>
<p>Now, if you can get into a top med school and can pay, why not attend? At worst, you can come to a site like CC and brag to all the prestige whores about how you attend a highly ranked med school. But, if you can’t get into a top ranked med school, there’s no reason at all to think you’d be receiving an inferior clinical education. Some schools do have serious problems with their facilities and curriculum. If you talk to the students on your interviews, you can find out what problems those are. But, I can assure you it’s not correlated with rankings.</p>
<p>No one can tell you this, since the scores you get don’t strictly correspond to a percentage (although I’ve heard that passing score is set at somewhere around 65-70% correct, varying from test to test). You get both a 3-digit score and a 2-digit score (which is not a percentage, but rather is based on the 3-digit score). National mean is about 220. Scores are based on some standardized statistical scale model. Minimum passing score is 188, and once you pass, you can’t take the test again (but why would you want to?)</p>
<p>No. But the top med schools have graduates from Ivy-type schools because they are talented and intelligent. Where would the naturally smart be studying if he or she can? Community college or Yale? If one is so academically exceptional, then he or she is likely to be at a prestigious school. That is why the top med schools are highly populated with Ivy graduates and such.</p>
<p>I don’t really know. US med students tend to use the 3 digit score, not the 2-digit score. </p>
<p>It’s hard to do well on the test as it’s curved against med students (ie tougher competition). </p>
<p>When I say the USMLE is an individual effort, I mean it’s an individual effort. I know people who started studying in their first year of med school. There are others (like me), who really didn’t start studying till 2 weeks ago (I have 5 weeks total to study for it). </p>
<p>Most schools’ curriculums are going to cover more than enough for any student to do well on the USMLE just as a typical college bio or physics course is going to cover way more than what’s on the MCAT. We hardly ever say that a particular college is great at preparing its students for the MCAT. Why should we say that about any med school?</p>
<p>“if you happen to get into one and you can pay for it, then why not? To be blunt, something like location ought to be considered EVEN MORE TRIVIAL than the marginal difference in prestige between medical schools” </p>
<p>-Agree 100% with 1st sentence. However, in regard to 2nd, everybody is different and what is trivial to one might be of the number 1 priority to another, there is no measure that fits all. It is 4 years of your life, and if there is a choice, then choose school that fits you the best based on YOUR priority list, not other people. This will actually cover desire to go to prestiguous school. If one get into top 10, has $$ for it and prestige is at the top of priority list, go for it. If not, go down to the next on your list.</p>
<p>^^Concur on the second point. It is likely 5+ years of your life. </p>
<p>Not sure if true, but according to a recent grade of Duke med, internships tend to be geographically parochial…it’s much harder to get back to the left coast if you attend a right coast med school. (Or perhaps that was just her specialty – opthalmology.)</p>
<p>This is just one special case, so we can not generalize it. DS happens to know one MS applicant who thinks the location is THE most important factor for her. Her fiance is working in New York, so she is very motivated to stay close to him. Fortunately, with her astonishing GPA and MCAT, she has no problem in getting into a very good medical school in NYC. Last time we heard about it, she had got into at least two top-10 medical schools. She was so confident in getting interview invites and getting accepted that she does not mind to let most of her friends know about her stats and her progress of medical school application (somewhat like Curm’s D? :))</p>
<p>I did not ask my D. about her reasons, nothing like above at all, but she said she will not apply to any Med. School further than 4.5 or so hours away. I do not care. She still needs to see MCAT score and apply accordingly, which could be no application at all.</p>
<p>This would be the case for DS also. As he puts it, “If the score turns out to be not good enough, it helps me make my decision easier.” He did not bother to learn from his premed friends that the first couple of AAMC tests are very old tests a week before the test – Originally, he was planning to take only AAMC 3,4,5 as practice tests. The newest MCAT test example questions in the printed MCAT guide book? Why bother? The MCAT test should not have changed much in the past 10 years. What a laid-back premed compared to many other premeds!</p>
<p>And it’s reasoning like this which is precisely why students shouldn’t consider location at all, or if anything should explicitly go to places they think they won’t like and are far away from home. Medical school – school in general, in fact – is not the time to be parochial. It’s time to get out and explore.</p>
<p>It’s not always important to choose the most prestigious medical school. But it’s CERTAINLY more important than getting to stay in a regional/geographic bubble.</p>
<p>D. has explored enough during UG (although only 3.5 hours away). Explored all the way to New Zealand. Also explored all kind of brand new activities, leadership positions and was offerred many opportunities which she was very happy to take advantage from. Very busy girl. In fact, her pre-med advisor commented that she has no idea how D. was able to fit it all in her schedule. It is not an argument. If one want to be far away, let it be. If one’s first priority to be close to home, let it also be. Opportunities are huge anywhere. It is aup to a person. And some will go very far and be in their room most of the time or being deeply home sick. It happens more often than not.</p>