Good pre-med schools??

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I am thinking of going premed in college. Just was wondering what some good schools were that had a strong premed program and my chances of getting in. Would kind of like a school that has some prestige just to help my chances of getting into med school.</p>

<p>Here are my stats:
Sats: M-770 E-630 W-700 total-2100
Sat Subject: Biology-730 Math2-700 Spanish-750
Act: Math-34 English-34 Reading-28 Science-36 Writing-33(10 on essay) overall-33
GPA: weighted- 4.3 Unweighted- 3.9
EC's: same job for 2 yrs, spanish honors society, soccer
Summer programs: spanish immersion prgrm for 1 month, cosmos (university of cal program for science and math)
*might have elc (top 12.5% transcripts were sent to university of california office) , which is the top 4% of my junior class and guarantee's admission into one university of california school.</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

2

<p>johns hopkins for sure...you have a pretty good shot at getting in too</p>

3

<p>Are you going to be taking AP level science and math courses? Are you familiar with research? Are you truly a top dog in the sciences? If yes, schools like JH or Cornell or others with a rigorous premed program are for you. If not, and you are interested in being a practicing MD, not so much in research, you are better off going to a good, nurturing school that you will enjoy and will help your subjects thoroughly, where you can get good grades, and are supportive of kids going to med school. Many of the more competitive undergrad schools have a gauntlet you have to run to get their rec for medical school. Most kids do not need this sort of gatekeeping.</p>

4

<p>I have taken pretty much all of the ap science and math courses offered at my school, or i will be taking them my senior year, as i'm about to finish my junior year... I have taken ap chem, ap bio, ap enviro, and will be taking ap physics next year. I have also been taking honors math and finish precalc h this year and will take calc ab and bc next year... I'm not sure about the level competetivity of the school I want yet tho.... not too interested in research science i am thinking about becoming a pathologist and med school is necesary for thattt, or so i've heard</p>

5

<p>Jessica, also look at Michigan, Wisconsin, Pitt and Carleton. Best of luck!</p>

6

<p>get a book on medical school admissions. It will go into more detail, but the bottom line is getting into med school depends mostly on what <em>you</em> do in college and not where you do it. See also the Amherst premed guide online at Amherst</a> College Premedical Guide As they note
[quote]
Amherst College has no magic touch that automatically elevates a student's chances of entering medical school simply by virtue of the student's coming to Amherst; no college or university has that kind of magic touch. What does elevate a student's chances is to go to an institution (1) that energizes and challenges that particular student academically, while providing good teaching and academic support so the student can meet the challenge satisfactorily; and (2) that provides opportunities for accomplishment and leadership in extracurricular areas. Of course the student must take advantage of these educational and extracurricular opportunities - in the end it's the student's accomplishments that count, not the name of the institution.

[/quote]
So what it really boils down to is selecting a college that's a good fit for you, the same type of college you'd be picking no matter what your intended future</p>

7

<p>from the premed forum:</p>

<p>
[quote]
First, the "top" BS/MD programs in terms of being associated with selective medical schools are probably Wash U and Rice.</p>

<hr>

<p>Second, look for a place where you believe you'll excel - not just as a student (although of course that too) but as a person. Where can you find room to grow? To learn to nurture others, to demand the most out of yourself? To understand how to work and inspire confidence and professionalism - all these things are less tangible aspects that I think you can feel when you walk onto a campus.</p>

<hr>

<p>Third, there are, in fact, specific things to look for. I have a particular thread which I love - it's how I earn my Blue Devil stripes. The point is not "Come to Duke!" (well, that too) but just gives you a basic idea behind what things you ought to look for:
Pre-med</p>

<hr>

<p>Fourth, reading through old posts on this forum may lead you to one of three conclusions: prestige helps you, grade inflation helps you, and your choices doesn't matter at all. All three of these hypotheses have grains of truth without being completely correct.</p>

<p>On prestige, notice we are discussing medical students competing for residencies, but the logic probably holds:
Quote:
Bluedevilmike: The general consensus is this: they have a list of "good schools" and list of "other schools"...</p>

<p>If you are from a "good" school, and your application has no glaring flaws, then you get an interview. If you are from an "other" school, and your application does not have any glaring HIGH points, you do not get an interview. Once you get an interview, that becomes the most important component of their decision, although other things still matter.</p>

<p>Special features - either good or bad - might be board scores, class rank, a second degree, etc.</p>

<p>Bigredmed: That's a great way of putting it. What I have tried to say all along, whether it's undergrad, or medical school, or even residency, if you do well, then where you went is not likely to impact your chances. Doing well is a panacea for almost everything.
Competing for a residency</p>

<p>On grade inflation:
Quote:
bluedevilmike:If undergrad GPA was all that mattered, and undergrad institution didn't matter at all, then you'd see that among undergraduate schools, all the kids admitted would have the same grades. After all, if school doesn't matter, then isn't a 3.65 the same, no matter where you get it from? A 3.65 from nowhere state should be the same as a 3.65 from Berkeley, a 3.65 from Duke, and a 3.65 from MIT.</p>

<p>Empirically, this simply isn't what you see... adcoms really are paying attention to undergrad institution... Notice that this is not [perfectly] correlated with prestige.
Grade Inflation Isn't The Only Thing</p>

<p>On whether it matters at all:
Quote:
Bigredmed:[Don't] look at prestige as a deciding factor - that name recognition... But there are plenty of other factors that undergraduate institutions provide that vary from school to school... These are probably hard to quantify in a really meaningful way. And the schools that really do well in these categories may or may not line up with the prestige rankings...
So your undergrad college doesn't even matter?</p>

<p>Quote:
norcalguy:Clearly the caliber of students is the single biggest reason for why schools like Duke or Stanford have a higher acceptance rate than state schools but that doesn't discount the obvious advantages of going to a top school.
Will going to a college that has a med school help you get in?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>from the thread:<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/202936-good-pre-med-schools.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/202936-good-pre-med-schools.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>My $0.02 is that you can't really know if you want to be a doctor or not when you are 17 years old. I started out as a premed and decided that I did not want to be a doctor because I had no interest taking all that science in college. I have friends who switched into premed after a year at college because after talking to med students and professors they found that they really wanted to be a doctor. There is so much in changing minds and this and that, so you should really pick the college that fits your personality and needs best rather than blindly going to JHU or some other school that is universally accepted as "good for premed" (not many people knows what that means anyway). (note, JHU is really good fore premeds but for far more reasons than because it has a great bio department and the #1 or 2 med school in the country).</p>

8

<p>WashU for sure</p>