Does Undergrad School Matter?

“Elite colleges admit smaller number to begin with, not as many take pre-med, ones who pursue medicine end up all over the country”

@Riversider : I’ve always remembered the statistic that my Ivy League undergrad told us at Convocation: That fully 50% of us were pre-med! And then most of us fell off like dominos. I’ll bet that many of those who washed out would have ended up in medicine if they had gone to less prestigious undergrad schools.

@collegemom3717 : you’re welcome! I’m always trying to spread this word to help kids avoid debt (and heartbreak).

The one caveat that I thought of to my “it doesn’t matter where you go for undergrad” mantra is that it does help to go to a school with at least a decent pre-health advising service (usually all in one combined center now for pre-MD, PA, DO, DDS, PT, OT, etc). As to the OP’s original question about getting into PT school, ANY big state school will have plenty of experience getting kids into all the health professions. Having said that, I’ve had some top-notch applicants from tiny LACs and podunk State Us that I’d never even heard of. So while ‘big’ means at least adequate pre-health advising, don’t necessarily rule out ‘small’ schools.

Med school applicants who hadn’t had good advising and have NO IDEA how hard it is to get into med school these days simply don’t get in. Getting accepted requires not just top MCAT scores and grades, but also extensive paid medical experience (usually as a scribe, EMT, or CNA), research, AND volunteer experience.

And while I have no idea what it takes to get into PT school, any good pre-health advising service should be able to tell prospective applicants exactly what is needed. So, anyone interested in any health career should definitely consider the strength of the advising center when comparing undergrad schools.

Your personal experiences may be out of date. Surveys and stats suggest a much smaller portion pursue pre-med at Ivies, and drop out rate tends to be lower than at most less selective colleges. For example, Yale’s freshman survey mentions “15 percent reported plans to pursue a career in medicine after Yale.” The table at https://www.aamc.org/download/493728/data/factstablea2.pdf indicates Yale had 190 med school applicants in the 2018-19 cycle . NCES reports 1313 bachelor’s graduates. 190/1313 = 14.5%, so reasonably close to the 15% reporting an interest in a career in medicine in the freshman survey. I am ignoring repeat applicants. However, repeat applicants typically compose less than 10% of the total applicants at Yale. Yale reports ~85% of first time applicants were accepted

C grades are not common at most Ivy-type colleges, including in most pre-med classes. In many such classes, the most common grade is A. I previously mentioned median GPAs as high as ~3.8 in the most recent Harvard senior survey. Many try to encourage more of a collaborative atmosphere than competitive, although some pre-meds are competitive at almost any college.

And we’re still pretending that PT school is as hard to get into (and out of) as med school?

@Data10 : you may be correct about fewer Ivy students being pre-med these days; I have no idea. And if the median GPA for Harvard seniors is truly 3.8 (!!!), then grade inflation is indeed rampant.

All I can say with authority is that at least at my state medical school, the name or prestige of one’s undergrad is in no way considered as a factor for admission.

And I hope that at least one very sad HS senior who is just now learning that s/he got shut out of the Ivys will find some consolation in this thread. There are many, many paths to success in life.