Getting into a top medical school

<p>Many of us would like Kristin or similar as our doctor. :)</p>

<p>I agree with people that ask why do you want to go to a “top medical school” and what is your definition of such.</p>

<p>If you are asking “possible” then it is definitely possible. But realize grades alone are not going to get you in the door, at a lesser medical school sure. But the top medical schools have the luxury of asking applicants to not only be good academic students, but also good researchers, good human beings, interesting contributions to their community etc. Acceptance rates at these schools are 3-8%, more selective than the most selective colleges.</p>

<p>The big caveat is that if you look at the entering med school classes of Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Hopkins meds top colleges make up 50-80% of those classes.</p>

<p>from my personal experience, a friend of mine and i went to the same undergraduate institution around the top 50 schools. not sure about the research he did but he was heavily involved in the undergraduate community and was valedictorian of our college. he got his pick between jhu and harvard based on financial aid. </p>

<p>but as for me, i decided to do an early acceptance program that is not harvard but is perfect for me, and it couldn’t have worked out better. keep in mind that most med schools will get u into a stellar residency program. the name does not matter nearly as much as your 3rd year grades, step 1 and 2 scores, and EC’s in medical school. so working your butt off as an undergrad again, just like doing this in high school to go to a good college, won’t mean anything for residency applications. focus more on the research/activities you’ll do in your first 2 years of med school, kicking butt on the boards, and honoring in your 3rd year/AOA and you’ll be in much better shape than someone who didn’t do those things at jhu or harvard.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>^^^ YOU REALLY THINK THAT KIDS WHO GO TO JHU/HARVARD WON’T BE DOING ALL THOSE THINGS? ARE YOU SERIOUS? Those kids will be stepping it up to a whole other level. The caliber of students that JHU/Harvard med has will be able to do research and during the regular medical school year. They are the ones who will be doing more innovative things like starting up non-profit organiztions, doing research at international/national levels, AND they will be killing their classes, and doing well on the boards. I am sorry but I refuse to believe that the kids at JHU/Harvard med will just stop doing amazing things once they get into Harvard/JHU. No they are the ones that are going to be the future leaders of healthcare in America because they have done amazing things all throughout high school/college. </p>

<p>The same thing applies to kids at top colleges. They are generally the ones who are doing more research/getting better grades/better mcat scores than their friends who went to average state schools. This is obv. a general trend, and there are bound to be outliers. </p>

<p>The thing about going to an elite school is that when you are surrounded by peers who are doing amazing things for their age group, it makes you want to step your game up. But at an average school, you are surrounded by kids that are well, average. As a result, even if you only do slightly better than them, you start getting complacent. Kids at top schools will never get complacent because they are surrounded by kids are driven and who are doing amazing things.</p>

<p>^ Sure they may get cocky for all their amazing accomplishments, but a little bit of ego can sometimes be a good thing. It can stop you from getting complacent because you constantly expect yourself to perform on a higher level than your peers.</p>

<p>um so here’s my point-NOT EVERYONE CAN HONOR AT JHU/HARVARD. many of the students at my med school went to ivies for undergrad and are not doing half of the things they did in undergrad. and the med school class size at each of those 2 schools is ~100-200. how many residency spots do you think there are? many more than that. many of the members of senior classes at my medical school have gotten into top competitive specialties without any problem. and this is because they were the top of their respective med school class. not all JHU class members can be the top of their class, it simply doesn’t work that way.</p>

<p>OMG! Kristin, are you sure you’re not my oldest? Because you sound just like her! Right down to medical specialty preferences.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>^^ I don’t know if you go to a top medical school or not, but if you don’t then your classmates who were once ivy leaguers are not stepping their game up then maybe there is a reason they ended up at your medical school. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>^ Not everyone one at JHU/Harvard is gunnin for ortho/neurosurgury residency. Some are gunning for academic medicine. Those that are gunning for competitive specialties WILL get into those specialties ON A HIGHER RATE THAN kids who went to average medical schools. NOT because they went to JHU/Harvard, but because they DID AMAZING THINGS WHILE AT JHU/HARVARD.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Sorry forgot to respond to this. I haven’t seen many other undergrads at the NIH. I had a difficult time getting into the NIH for research. I actually have a spot at the CDC for this summer if the WHO thing doesn’t work out. I managed to get into the National Center of Immunizations and Respiratory Diseases at the CDC for a summer research spot. I had an easier time getting into the CDC, I emailed around 15 people and 1 accepted me, than I did getting into the NIH or the WHO. I guess that may be because of the CDC spot is only for 3-4 months, whereas the NIH spot is for the entire year. I guess to each his own, but that is the way I rank these institutions in terms of difficulty for undergrads to get in for research. WHO > NIH > CDC.</p>

<p>BTW I am not one of those kids who is defending JHU/Harvard because I plan on applying there. I don’t plan on applying there because I don’t stand a chance. I just hold a lot of respect for the kids who go to JHU/Harvard/Yale/Stanford/Duke/WashU because of the things they were able to accomplish as undergrads. I know med. students at those schools and when I asked them about their accomplishments as undergrads, it blew my mind. I never thought kids who were 18-22 could accomplish some of the things those med. students did as undergrads because people who are in their 40s-50s have not been able to accomplish things like that.</p>

<p>There is an unspoken threshold of USMLE step 1 for our residency program. But if you pass that line, other activities will come to play for the decision. While I don’t know other institutes, our program does have a list of “tier 1” schools we try to recruit from. A good school does help for the very competitive residency programs, which usually have several hundred applicants for a dozen spots. The reputation of the residency training program, however, does not have much impact on finding jobs for private practice, but will have some impact on finding a clinical fellowship training later.</p>

<p>

Just a thought here: Is it really worthwhile to be such a super-achiever at a such a young age? Somebody may just want to choose a lifestyle that is just challenging enough but not overly challenging, and see whatever efforts he/she is willing to put in can lead him/her to. As long as he/she can sustain himself/herself, s/he is contented as s/he has no ambition to be always the “shining star” wherever s/he goes.</p>

<p>Talking about achieving a lot at a young age (somewhat tangent to the discussion here), a quite extreme example is that, since last year, a 10-11 young singer has produced a platinum CD. She may be very talented, but she also needs to “work” extremely hard to get there – This is according to what her sibling said. I think a kid at that age won’t lie. She once commented that she has probably seen the seat on the airplane more than her bed at her home!</p>

<p>With my D’s longstanding career/research interest, I sincerely hope none of us have the choice of my kid as their doctor. :eek: </p>

<p>When my data point was younger, she had a health issue. Our local provider sent her to a specialist. The specialist sent her to the regional hotshot specialist. The regional hotshot sent the films and charts to a provider at Penn. She told me that day that’s who she wanted to be. That guy doing the research/practice/teaching at Penn. She was in the 9th grade. However unlikely it may have seemed in the 9th grade, that’s still her goal and, if it stays her goal, I’m not going to bet against her. She thinks she’s on track. ;)</p>

<p>Already had an inspiration about career/research interest in the 9th grade? My 9th grader back then was still in the fantasy land like The Legend of Zelda, WarCraft, and Counter Strike (just to name a few I could still remember.) Should we have probed his career interest at that time, I bet it would be a video game developer but he really did not know. I guess boys tend to grow at a slower pace. I still has no idea about what “track” in medicine he would be interested in going to. Hopefully, he could find his path soon. (He once hinted he might be doing the research year because most seem to do it. I do not know how it works.) Another “story”: the parent of one of his close UG classmates (actually DS might visit him on his way home during Thanksgiving break) once told him that his rural town may make use of a (future) doctor like him in the future. He might take his advice. Who knows! It seems he has zero interest in earning big money by becoming a specialist as of today.</p>

<p>Off-Topic: mcat2, in the 7th grade she made herself an expando file for her college admissions material. As I might have mentioned before, she’s wired funny. lol</p>

<p>And no. Not the topic of research or certainly not medical specialty. Those are still a work in progress, as to specifics. Just the overall “role” she wanted to fill. She wanted to be “the guy (or gal ;))” that you call when things get bad nasty weird. Naive? Well, yeah. When you’re 13 it’s kinda silly to say outloud. But she’s making it seem less naive with each hurdle she jumps.</p>

<p>curm, in the 7th grade, he likely believed he would be academically good enough to get into UT. That was the college he (and we as parents) was planning to attend. (So we signed up something called Texas Tomorrow Fund – public university option.) Most time in high school, after he (and we) had learned more, his “reach” became Rice (which is the only school we visited before/during application), and “match” was still UT. Unlike most of his academically competitive schoolmates in the 2300+ SAT club, he did not apply to many top OOS big-name research universities – We were obsessed with LACs back then. The schools of his college application were mostly LACs.</p>

<p>During most time in his medical school application cycle, he thought he would head to one school in his home state. So, after he had got into one of his in-state schools (which tend to admit students earlier), he almost declared to us “mission accomplished.”</p>

<p>Well, I guess each individual takes a different route, sometimes to the same destiny and sometimes to a different one. LOL.</p>

<p>Riseagainsthoyas,</p>

<p>As far as I can remember, you’re still an undergrad and probably in the process of applying to medical school soon. </p>

<p>I have a hunch that the reason you got a borderline-sarcastic reply to your #25 is because you come off as inexperienced yet acting like you know a lot, especially about how graduates of top medical schools do in terms of residencies. Would you mind shedding some light on your sources about how students at those schools perform? If you have info about how those students perform compared to students from other medical schools, I’d be interested in seeing that too.</p>

<p>The reason I’m asking is because as far as I’ve been able to tell, there’s a lot more to to residencies than which med school one attends, and there’s also considerable variation among residency programs themselves (such that what appears to be a top residency to an untrained eye might not in fact be one, and one that appears more no-name might really be the top of the field). In addition, there’s considerable variation among med students too–I mean, my school’s far from the cream of the crop, and we send kids to top residencies every year (because there’s such a variety of specialties and programs, that with such a wide variety of interests, it’s really possible for top students to find top programs). Even if last year’s class didn’t end up at the “top” residency (and who gets to decide what’s the top?), 94% of last year’s class matched into their first or second choice, which makes me think we’re doing something right.</p>

<p>Plus, as far as outside activities go, I don’t think it’s fair to assume that kids at top schools are going to also be doing “better” things with their free time. I can think of a long list of very impressive things people at my school have done, and (perhaps I’m being optimistic) I’ve never picked up a sense of complacency among my classmates–quite the opposite, really. I don’t think that was a fair assumption to make.</p>

<p>I think it can be challenging for undergraduates to grasp that there’s a ton more to a medical school than where it ranks on USNWR, and there’s a ton more to residencies than placing into a residency at a big-name research institution–so choosing a medical school in order to get into what one person calls a top residency might not be the best choice for you anyway.</p>

<p>As far as I’ve been able to tell (and again, I’m new at this), part of the reason match lists are so hard to analyze is because so much goes into play with them. Is the top program the one that collects the most grants? Or the one that turns out the “best” doctors? Who decides who is the best doctor? How does the structure of the program come into play? Or the location of the hospital? Or the population it tends to treat? It seems like there are so many variables to take into account (far more than with medical school), that it’s nearly impossible to determine which residencies (and by extension, match lists) are the best. </p>

<p>It seems like you have a considerably better grasp on residencies than I do, considering you can respond with such passion about the topic, so if you could share some of your sources I’d really appreciate it!</p>

<p>With regards to kristin5792 and Riseagainsthoyas, you both have valid points. Kristin presents probably a more balanced view of the process as I have been on med school admissions committees and residency admissions committees. Within residencies, there ARE top residencies within a chose field. Ask any chair of a program to list the top 5 or 10 programs in their specialty. There will be a high degree of overlap among chairs. People in the know are aware of the highly respected programs and the people that go there get associated with that degree of excellence. Kristin, I am assuming you are a medical student. If you have done your internal medicine clinical rotations, you will see interns and residents with in their pockets the Mass General Hospital pocket guide to medicine. Other programs will agree that MGH is a “top program” in medicine. That may not be true for emergency medicine or urology, but for that area it is. That has little to do with the USNWR ranking.</p>

<p>Now these top programs get access to the “top applicants” and they get to look at graduates from the elite medical schools of this country UCSF, Harvard, Penn, Hopkins, Stanford, etc. They also get to look at lower ranked schools. They compare these applicants side-by-side as a whole, but top student at Hopkins always beats out top carribean student. There is the accomplishment, the weight of the letters (i.e. if you got a letter from the “father of modern medicine”, it would carry some weight if it was truly outstanding), the interests, the prestige, etc. As an individual you can only do so much. The rest is your presentation which is affected by your school. I have posted previously about this and got largely agreements, with some incredulous responses. The reality is people who actually understand the highest levels of the process do not make up the majority of CC users. Some find it hard to believe that there are still old-boy networks and old-school mentalities.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>It’ll be a while before I apply to residencies, but I’ve definitely noticed this among faculty and physicians already. I can clearly tell “who you know” is quite important in this field (and obviously, credentials are too, but it seems like one won’t replace the other and both are crucial to finding success).</p>

<p>I noticed you compared top US MD grads to top Caribbean MD grads. What’s it like to compare US MD grads from various schools, aiming for the same specialty? (If that’s even possible, given the variation among students, schools, and programs.)</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Kristin </p>

<p>Interestingly, you have stumbled across a very valid point. In the course of my S’s residency application process he learned that at several of the programs that are considered by most to be the “top” programs in General Surgery, the graduates are not always coming out ready to excel in the OR. </p>

<p>The minimum number of procedures after 5 years is 800, and interestingly at many of those considered “top” programs that’s about what their residents finish with. Other programs can have residents finishing with 1000-1200 plus procedures under their belts. In fact, he was told straight out that oftentimes residents coming from those “top” programs are not as well prepared for the OR as those coming from other programs. </p>

<p>In some cases it’s due to a focus on research and in others it’s the fact that fellows and attendings are too involved for too long. It’s actually funny but on one of those school’s residency website the featured picture shows the the department head operating while being assisted by a fellow…not exactly a ringing endorsement for a potential candidate who is thinking that they will be doing more than scut work for a while.</p>

<p>Choosing a program will vary based on what your intended end result is. In my S’s case he wants to come out as the best technically skilled surgeon that he can be in order to move on to a fellowship in another area. That said, he selected the programs he applied to based on their reputation for turning out great surgical technicians and geography of where he might like to live.</p>

<p>His school walked the GS candidates though all 229 programs, their strengths and weaknesses and what each program is known for, then helped them cull their lists based on the criteria each candidate set forth as their top priorities. He ended up with 34 programs literally from coast to coast. He heads to the Pacific Northwest this week for interview number 2.</p>

<p>thank you, kristin. you were able to give input much more eloquently than i was.</p>

<p>In response to your question Kristin. Having been accepted to medical school already, I am sure you know that some medical schools are harder to get into than others. Residency programs recognize this, and put that as one component in the mix. USMLE scores actually help equalize the field to allow some comparison of applicants, but you can not discount that big name med schools have usually more resources and opportunities to participate in cutting-edge research at the envelope of medicine. Other med schools seek to train doctors to provide a public good. Additionally some top med schools have no grades. Yet their graduates still get accepted to top programs because residencies recognize the rigor of that school. I don’t want to compare individually named schools, but to be a clinician, you can go to any med school. To be a chair of a program, or go to a competitive specialty at a top program, pedigree including “where did you train?” matter.</p>

<p>I agree with Kilbeez012. It matters. If you do very well (AOA, 260+ scores) coming from a low-ranked medical school, you will still have your pick of residencies. And this situation isn’t that uncommon at all. However, this doesn’t mean that the prestige of your medical school does not matter. From looking at the online forums and from talking to past applicants out of my med school, it’s clear that no one thinks med school doesn’t matter (unlike the old adage that “your undergrad doesn’t matter” for med school, which I don’t agree with either). There was a survey of residency directors that is published on PubMed from 2009 ranking different components of someone’s application. In that survey, coming from a Top 40 medical school (in terms of NIH funding) was as important as AOA status and research during medical school. This doesn’t surprise me as it is a lot harder to get AOA at WashU Med than it is at a lower ranked medical school. The average USMLE Step 1 score for my graduating class was 241. I can’t even begin to fathom what is required to get AOA at my med school.</p>