<p>What are the rates of success for pre-med students from Vandy & Duke applying to Medical Graduate schools? I know some schools of equal rigor are very different in this aspect (ie. 75% success from MIT compared to 90% success at Princeton)?</p>
<p>Read this thread, particularly posts #4 & 9:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/1484178-if-you-high-school-please-read-before-posting.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/1484178-if-you-high-school-please-read-before-posting.html</a></p>
<p>Note: The Resources Sticky thread at the top of this forum answers many basic premed questions.</p>
<p>@entomom: </p>
<p>I read through the thread and totally agree with the points but didn’t find any statistics particularly for Duke & Vandy. Any ideas? Thanks for the help!</p>
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<p>Sorry, but don’t follow your logic. You ‘totally agree’ that published med school acceptance rates are statistically apples and oranges, but you still want them (I assume to use as a factor in choosing an UG college to which you have yet to be admitted). No, there were no stats for D & V in the link I gave you, that was the point :rolleyes:.</p>
<p>@entomom: … Ahh, it is all very clear now 
Thank you for this guidance. You’re right, statistics are statistics and they are not guidelines. I guess I have been over analyzing the UG success. :)</p>
<p>The schools usually do not publish this kind of statistics truthfully. For some school, I heard of a rumor that after you have been admitted, they may show you some data if you are physically in their premed adviser’s office, but they will not allow you to make a copy of this kind of data.</p>
<p>The attrition or dropout rate seems to be more important than the admission rate, IMHO.</p>
<p>If you are still a high school student, you should focus on improving your academic skill now (e.g., ace your science AP classes and become a top ranked students. ) This is because getting into a med school is mostly an individual’s efforts. The school matters not much. Med schools just accept the top X percents of the students from each school with a certain reputation.</p>
<p>Both of these schools have affiliated med schools. So there will be a higher concentration of ambitious premeds at either school. So “hardening” yourself academically now as much as possible will likely serve you well.</p>
<p>@mcat: </p>
<p>I just did that–very helpful. Thanks</p>
<p>Be weary of acceptance rates unless you know exact who is being accepted. Some schools claim upwards of 80%, but they may not tell you that they only will support students who have a minimum GPA or MCAT score. This is an area where stats can be misleading.</p>
<p>@psychodad10 </p>
<p>If I have a 3.7 science/math gpa in a major in psych/bio program and a 36mcat score, would I have high enough stats to be hypothetically “included” into these then, unfairly, sorted groups of statistics? Or are the colleges even more selective in the groups they are using to report success rates?</p>
<p>3.7/36 should be good enough. stats-wise.</p>
<p>@mcat2: Ok, thanks for the clarification. For the record those are not my stats (I am only a senior in highschool). I was simply trying to get a general idea of the caliber of student that might be included in those stats. Thanks for all of the help!</p>
<p>BTW, premed classes may be hard not necessarily because of its contents. It could be because of the caliber of the peer students. For example, just for an introductory bio or statistics class, it could be the case that most of the students in the class have had an AP 5 before college. The professor may design a test so that it could distinguish the students most of them are pretty good academically. Sometimes the professor may overdo it. I heard in one year, at DS’s school, the class average of a intro bio was 46 out of 100.</p>
<p>Be cautious about assuming that you’ll easily be able to get a 36 MCAT. </p>
<p>A 36 MCAT is achieved by <3% of those who take the exam.</p>
<p><a href=“https://www.aamc.org/students/download/320554/data/combined12.pdf.pdf[/url]”>https://www.aamc.org/students/download/320554/data/combined12.pdf.pdf</a></p>
<p>Your MCAT competitors will also be top students.</p>
<p>
A 36 on MCAT is definitely good enough. OTOH, a 3.7 GPA is less than the average for these schools, I believe. Based on my reading of the Vandy school thread on SDN last year, there were at least 4-5 kids with these stats wondering why they weren’t getting any love (II). With Duke, you also have to negotiate that brute of a secondary. If the other parts of your app are good and you have a solid interview a 3.7 may be OK.</p>
<p>I think what OP was asking is whether a 3.7/36 from a college like Duke or Vandy would be good enough to get a med school (anywhere in US, but most likely in his state or nearby state.</p>
<p>VHS- your hypothetical stats look great and would make you very competitive. However, there are some schools that quote an 80+ acceptance rate, yet if a student’s GPA is less than 3.5 or so, he/she will not get a letter from the premed advising committee to support his/her candidacy. They are basically told in so many words “you need not apply”. Therefore, their stats have a selection bias, as only “supported” candidates are used in the calculations. There are other schools however, that report the acceptance rate based on all applicants (no one is told not to apply, but it is understood that students with lower GPAs and MCAT scores are going to have a much tougher time getting accepted). Always be very careful when interpreting statistics, as they can be misleading depending on how the stats are portrayed.</p>
<p>
Yes. I didn’t realize that this was another one of those uber-hypothetical questions. To make it very concrete for OP, my friend’s daughter, who is MS3 at UPenn, applied from Duke with 3.7/37 and got admitted off waitlist.</p>
<p>@mcat & @kal: </p>
<p>Yes that is exactly what I was doing, thanks for the information, especially @kal with the first hand experience. So it is definitely “possible” with the given statistics. That being said, I’m in no way claiming that a 36 is an easy feat, I was just trying to get some bearings for the rigor of selection. </p>
<p>@psychodad: </p>
<p>Ok, that was exactly what I was wondering earlier! So basically the weakest pool of students are eliminated from the statistics, so the stats are swayed towards in upward trend then and aren’t totally credible?</p>
<p>VHS- again, it depends on each school. For example, there are those who bash Emory as its acceptance rate for its students applying to med school is about 50%, but the school is very up front in posting acceptance rates for all applicants regardless of GPA and MCAT score (I’m sure you can google this info). On the other hand there is another very well known university that will not write a letter on support of applicants who have a GPA of less than 3.5, so the data is skewed. I think that the bottom line is that you when looking at acceptance rates, you want to know if there is a selection bias or if they are counting all applicants.</p>
<p>OP,
If you are trying to decide based on this statistics, my strong advice - do NOT do this. Go to the place that fits you personally the best from vey many aspects and forget about Med. School at this point of your life. Got to work hard on many things before you can even decide to apply…or not apply to Med. School.
I would say that 3.7 is enough from absolutely ANY UG to apply to Med. School. But there are other factors that count, the most is your desire in your junior college year. There is no quarantee that your desire does not change as most original pre-meds end up NOT applying at all.</p>