<p>You started off really good, but then crashed. ;-)</p>
<p>I’d think in medicine, an actual medical degree would be a “must have” throughout a career. ;-)</p>
<p>In the field of engineering, we care that you actually have a degree. There was a time, back in the day, when engineering was a maverick field and there were gifted people without degrees doing very well. Those days are pretty much gone. The few without degrees stay where they are, because the can’t get a job elsewhere. </p>
<p>Even though we have a couple of VERY good people like that on our staff, worked their way up from tech… just had a knack for what they do… I can’t hire someone without a degree today no matter what I think of them. I would think there would need to be extraordinary circumstances to get that by senior management at any company these days.</p>
<p>I was always a bit uncomfortable when people said things about my undergrad school (ivy but not HYP) as a new hire. It was as one dimensional as just identifying me by my race (Asian) and didn’t really describe me as a person.</p>
<p>While I agree that the college you attend will have an enormous impact on your life, just going to an ivy or any prestigious college doesn’t mean the impact will be a positive one if the school is a poor match.</p>
<p>Go to the school that bests fits you academically, socially and emotionally. If it’s HYP, then apply. But don’t apply just because the school is listed among the top 10 in USNWR.</p>
<p>Anyone who doesn’t know where their co-workers went to school clearly isn’t working in the heart of NC… trust me, when ACC basketball rolls around, you know EXACTLY where everyone went to 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>My father served on an oversight committee on med school admission for one of the HYS universities. He has said that undergrad institutions do have a meaningful impact on admission.</p>
<p>One anecdote from your dad is hardly representative of med school admissions. Your undergrad has an impact, but minimal at best. </p>
<p>Like I said, med schools will not give your academics a break just because you go to a “better” school. If you don’t have the grades to cut it, thousands of other applicants, who may or may not come from “better” schools do.</p>
<p>If you take a look at the link, the AAMC surveyed 113 med schools about which factors are most important for interview offers and acceptance offers. The most important factors for interview offers are GPA and MCAT. No where on the list does it say perceived quality of undergrad. </p>
<p>People from ivies and top schools will get into better med schools, only because of the types of students the ivies and top schools admit. Students from top schools tend to be better test takers and more academically driven. However, their admission into med school is a result of their merit and not because of the name of their schools.</p>
<p>It is intersting to notice the following statement in the aamc article: “Overall, admissions officers reported a wide range of data are important to admissions committees’ decisions. The data are used differently, however, in deciding whom to interview and accept into medical school. Even though UGPA and MCAT were high on the list in deciding which applicants to interview, these dropped in importance in deciding which applicants to admit. Admissions officers reported that non-academic data, such as interview scores and letters of recommendation, are the most important data for deciding whom to accept into medical school.”</p>
<p>In my own experience, a 3.8 GPA from Caltech is treated very differently from a 3.8 from a regional school, at least in terms of interview decisions.</p>
<p>The answer is it does not matter very much to a hospital who is considering hiring you where you went to college. That is because they are looking more closely at:
Your fellowship, then your residency, then your medical school and lastly your college.
That being said, you are assuming that from any college you can go to any medical school, and from any medical school you can go to any residency, etc. Which is not necessarily true. They tend to cluster together, be it because of the person or because smart people try to go to the “best” places. For example, top 10 college graduate goes to top medical school, etc. This also depends on what kind of physician you want to be at what kind of place. Pedigree only matters in certain elite circles, i.e. chairman in a competitive specialty at a top hospital. For the vast majority of other situations it does not. </p>
<p>In short your college credential gets diluted, but only if the other institutions you train at make up for it, and not the other way around. Same thing as if you were editor of your high school paper, it might be important to colleges, but certainly not to graduate schools, even less so to employers after you have done 11 more years of schooling.</p>
<p>This is purely dependent on what field you are dipping your toes into. If it’s not business, engineering, law, or something to the effect of neurosurgery, you’re better off saving yourself thousands going to an in-state school or school of little prestige (and additionally little cost). Only the aforementioned fields are TRULY, at the core of it, dependent on your choice of college/university.</p>
<p>Ah, I see, you’re hoping to delve into the medical profession. I now revise my last response. What EXACTLY do you intend to do with your medical degree? Again, is it something to the effect of neurosurgery? If so, it might be better to go to the best possible school for you in your financial area of comfort, but if it’s something less intense then don’t. It’s not worth the cost just for the hype of a university name that you’ll only ever really utter to interviewers, your bosses who won’t much care as long as you’re good, and your friends along with your eventual significant other and children if you choose to acquire them.</p>
<p>Thingoflegend, I am not exactly sure of what field of medicine yet. I don’t plan on having any high positions or anything such as chief of surgery, etc. For now, I am just aiming on becoming a practicing doctor and that’s about it. I have heard that for those higher positions though, it is best to go to an Ivy League or another prestigious university.</p>
<p>I work with a lot of neurosurgeons, again prestige doesn’t matter. Although, they were and continue to be workaholics. I see that being much more of a common trait than then the school they attended. As for being department head of a prestigious research medical school, prestige matters for your residency and more importantly where you do your research before becoming a chief. If you want to be chief of a top 10 department, you better have a history of producing a lot of publications and raising research money. Yes, prestige also helps.</p>
<p>My dad works in NYC, and people at his job are all making 500,000+ a year…
He says atleast in business, where you went to school matters. A lot of his bosses (who make seven figures) are always more likely to hire guys from their schools, as well as narrowing down applicants sometimes based upon where they went
In that business environment, he stresses where you go can help you a lot
On the other hand, my uncles who are physicists and chemists (both respected, one taught at Princeton for a while) say with science, it more falls upon the individual and not the name</p>
<p>Wall Street investment banks are generally regarded as being among the most school-prestige-conscious employers, along with management consultants. Big law firms are also said to be school-prestige-conscious with respect to one’s law school.</p>
<p>Relax. Concentrate on your studies and your ECs. Enjoy the college search. It’s fun if you do it right.</p>
<p>You have a doctor, right? Why don’t you ask him/her first? If they’ve put their children through college, even better.</p>
<p>My guess is that they will tell you that any quality undergrad college where you can perform well is OK. Save for medical school. </p>
<p>My experience is that where you go to medical school is less important than how you performed where you were. A more “prestigious” medical school might be beneficial in obtaining grants/funds, however.</p>
<p>The way I’d look at it, is any school you choose will be more prestigious because you chose it.</p>
<p>You’re forgetting about which admissions pools have more overlap and what the relative yields look like within those pools. Students who apply to Harvard tend to apply mostly to other top schools and, if they were indeed top school materials, usually end up at top schools. Your UCB/Fullerton cross-admit who prefers Fullerton would be an anomaly in the study. It’s unlikely this Student A is indicative of the general pattern.</p>
<p>Your statement is inconsistent. What you are in effect saying is that a 3.5 Ivy is considered the equivalent of a 3.9 from Podunk. (If that is not premium bonus points for undergrad college, I don’t know what is…)</p>
<p>The real question is whether an unhooked 3.5/35 from Podunk will get in along with a similar stat Ivy/top LAC candidate, is it not?</p>
<p>To be honest, yes your college does matter in the grand scheme of things, albeit probably not as much you’d think. Often times your graduate career is more critical to your job opportunities. Regardless, the only things different that an IVY league offers over, say, a state university are resources and connections. Many IVY students, however, don’t take advantage of these opportunities and let them go to waste. Like people on this thread have already said, it’s about how you use your time at college. I guarantee that someone who’s the top of their class at a state school will be more well-suited for a job than those who went to a prestigious school and simply cruised. </p>
<p>Also, if a job offering chooses someone else over you simply because they went to a better school then good on you - that place wouldn’t even be worth working at. A real application process will look at you holistically. It’s similar to how colleges don’t just look at your SAT scores when applying, but everything you’ve done.</p>