<p>Today I met a doctor that went to CUNY City College for ungrad and got into Harvard for Medical School, everything is possible you guys! : )</p>
<p>Yes, and somebody from CUNY went on to become Secretary of State! Work hard towards your dreams, and I'm sure all of you can do it too!</p>
<p>how much of a shock is this? anyone can transfer to a better school. don't cc students transfer to ivy league all the time?</p>
<p>yeah it does</p>
<p>It came as a shock to me because I've always had the impression (in part due to some threads in CC) that in order to get into a top notch Medical School, you'd need to do pre-med at a top notch school.
I thought that transfering was much harder than getting in as an undergrad?</p>
<p>Well CC is wrong about the importance of prestige most of the time.</p>
<p>i dont' understand bigredmed. what do you mean?</p>
<p>I mean, obviously SOME kids at high-research-dollar medical schools come from low-ranked colleges. But your odds are better and your hurdles are less daunting coming from some schools than from others. I'd wager that a much higher proportion of Stanford's student body than CUNY's goes to (arbitrarily) Penn Med, even after you adjust for student talent.</p>
<p>Of course prestige matters. There are better professors, more research opportunities, better learning environments, more resources at more prestigious schools. It doesn't mean you can't go to a top medical school if you go to a state school. It's just harder.</p>
<p>bluedevil , you have to look at the quality of the students going to those colleges in the first place. If you switched the Stanford kids all to CUNY I think they would all still get in.</p>
<p>confused, you'll notice that my original message does include a clause controlling for original quality.</p>
<p>I don't think you're right. I don't think that all the students would do equally well if you swapped student bodies. I think the quality of the faculty matters. I think class size and access to projects, etc. matters. I think institutional priorities matter. In other words, Stanford kids do better than most CUNY kids partly because they're stronger students in the first place, but I think it's also partly because they go to Stanford.</p>
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Today I met a doctor that went to CUNY City College for ungrad and got into Harvard for Medical School, everything is possible you guys! : )
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Yes, and somebody from CUNY went on to become Secretary of State! Work hard towards your dreams, and I'm sure all of you can do it too!
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<p>The strong underlying presumption here is that CUNY is a bad school. In fact, for a significant period of time, CUNY was actually one of the very BEST schools in the nation. The reasons have to do with history but basically there was a time in history when the Ivy League colleges felt that they were simply admitting too many Jewish students, because the Jews were simply "too good", and they felt that they couldn't have Jews overrunning their campuses, taking the places of rich WASP kids. So they began to implement Jewish quotas designed to deliberately discriminate against Jews. These were the days before the Civil Rights movement when discimination like this happened all the time (for example, Columbia used to have an admissions policy that specifically and openly barred all African-Americans from attending). As a result, many Jews, particularly those who lived in New York City, where a predominant number of Jewish-Americans lived, found that they could no longer get into the Ivies and so they had no choice but to attend CUNY (and specifically CCNY, which was one of the constituent schools of CUNY). As a result, CUNY actually became one of the most intellectual and cerebral schools in the world. CUNY produced 9 bachelor's degree graduates who would later win the Nobel Prize - still the most of any public undergraduate program in the country, far more than the undergrad programs of such luminary public schools such as Berkeley, Michigan, UCLA, Virginia, etc. What is even more remarkable is that all this Nobel production came in a compressed time frame - from CUNY graduates from the 1930's to 1950's, when the Ivy Jewish quotas were in effect, and also that CUNY tended to have far fewer undergrads than did those other public schools. That was truly the golden age of CUNY. </p>
<p>CUNY also educated Andy Grove, the legendary former CEO of Intel and Time Magazine's Man of the Year in 1997. Grove graduated in 1960. I believe Colin Powell graduated from CUNY in the late 50's or early 60's, when CUNY was still considered to be a top-notch school. </p>
<p>However, in response to political power and especially to agitation for affirmative action, CUNY decided to implement open admissions, which caused a disastrous drop in quality. CUNY, which was formerly known as the "poor man's Harvard" (and secretly as the "poor Jewish man's Harvard), then became known for having lots of poor-quality students who simply weren't serious about their studies. In other words, the sterling reputation of CUNY was basically trashed. </p>
<p>You can read all about it here:</p>
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCNY%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCNY</a><br>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CUNY%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CUNY</a></p>
<p>So the point is, when you say that you met a Harvard MD who came from CUNY, I have to ask when exactly did he graduate from CUNY? Was it still during those days when CUNY as still considered to be the 'poor man's Harvard'? If so, then it should surprise no-one to find out that a guy like that can get into Harvard Medical School. After all, like I said, CUNY grads of a certain time period bagged a huge number of top honors, including plenty of Nobels. Be honest now. What is more impressive - getting into Harvard Medical School, or winning a Nobel Prize?</p>
<p>The point still remains, however, that some kids at HMS - or Penn or whatever - can, in fact, come from low-ranked schools. I just happen to hold that such odds are lower, even controlling for student quality, than they are at "elite" private schools.</p>
<p>I actually think that quite a few kids at the top med-schools come from low-ranked schools. Why? Simple. Numbers. Like I said before, the vast vast majority of students study at no-name schools. As I pointed out before, Arizona State University, all by itself, has more undergrads than do the entire top 10 ranked USNews schools combined. So if you just have lots and lots of people, then naturally, you should expect to produce a good number of top medical students, just because you have lots of people in the first place.</p>
<p>Sure, of course, but as a percentage, I think smaller, more selective, private schools tend to give you better odds.</p>
<p>sakky:
i don't know what you mean when you say "poor man's Harvard". But the person I met graduated about 12 years ago. She's Puerto Rican if that matters.</p>
<p>She graduated about 15-20 years ago from City College.
Also, what does that mean? "poor man's Harvard"?
And, she's Puerto Rican, if that matters.</p>
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Also, what does that mean? "poor man's Harvard"?
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<p>Poor man's Harvard is simply what it means - that it's a place for brilliant people who otherwise can't afford to go to Harvard. Keep in mind that Harvard did not always provide need-based financial aid. Richard Nixon, for example, couldn't afford Harvard even though Harvard waived all tuition. That's because he came from a relatively poor family and even though tuition was waived, he still couldn't afford even the living costs associated with attending Harvard. </p>
<p>It's like how the Chevy Corvette is the "poor man's sportscar", in the sense that the Corvette is actually an extremely powerful and well-respected sportscar that also happens to be relatively cheap (as far as sportscars go). A Corvette will cost about 40k, whereas a Porsche will cost at least 80k, a Ferrari will cost at least 150k, and a Lamborghini will cost at least 200k. But the Corvette can actually successfully race with any of those cars, and has won many "Car of the Year" Awards. Hence, the moniker "poor man's sportscar". It's a very good sportscar that is affordable to those who don't have huge amounts of money.</p>
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sakky:
i don't know what you mean when you say "poor man's Harvard". But the person I met graduated about 12 years ago. She's Puerto Rican if that matters.
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<p>While I don't want to get into the whole affirmative action snakepit, I will say that certainly the fact that she is Hispanic does matter a lot. That's all I will say about that.</p>
<p>However, more to the point, the fact is, there are obviously quite a few people who go to no-name undergrad school who then achieve great success. Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, and Lyndon Johnson went to no-name undergrad schools and eventually became President. Heck, Harry Truman never even graduated from college at all and eventually became President.</p>
<p>Mentioning the presidents isn't really germane to the topic and doesn't prove that the average person can be as successful coming from a no-name college as from an Ivy.</p>
<p>Obviously they already had political connections and it didn't matter whether they went to Harvard or some state college.</p>