<p>Our D wants to do pre-med and also wants to attend a smallish school (no more than 5,000 students) in North Carolina or nearby. Our strategy has been to ask each school how many of their recent grads were admitted to med school. Based on this critera, Elon and Guilford look fairly good. Davidson looks excellent but would be a reach. Any other suggestions? High Point? Rhodes? Thank you!</p>
<p>Ask specific, detailed questions. Schools tend to lump or confuse numbers. Get to the heart of it. </p>
<p>Suggestions: </p>
<ol>
<li> How many students were accepted to a US allopathic medical school? </li>
<li>What medical schools? </li>
<li>Don’t get distracted by percentages. Schools game those numbers. Apparently even well known schools.</li>
<li>Ask about screening or “supported” applications.</li>
</ol>
<p>For a science major premed only, a small downside of a small LAC college, I would imagine, is that some electives may be offered every other year. The sequence of classes may be planned in advance to work around this problem. But a good part is that you could avoid taking classes along with the engineering students in some calculus-based physics. (Many premeds do not like to do so for some reason, so they take algebra-based one.)</p>
<p>Some LACs may have more premeds than others. (Haverford? Too far?)</p>
<p>All that being said, Davidson is a superb school and a favorite of mine but is not known for GPA-enhancing grading. (Search the name hubbellgardner on here for personal experience with Davidson grading and the med school app process.) Other “in area” likelies include Rhodes, Centre, Wake, Emory, Furman, Washington and Lee, and Sewanee. A little further afield you have Hendrix in Arkansas and the Texas schools - Austin College, Southwestern, Trinity U, and of course Rice.</p>
<p>Thanks for these helpful suggestions! Curmudgeon, what did you mean about “screening” or “supported” applications? I have not heard those terms.</p>
<p>Many colleges use a health profession committee letter for their health profession (med, dent, vet, PA, DPsy, etc) applicants. </p>
<p>At some schools, everyone who requests a committee letter gets one. At other schools, only SOME of the students–those with the very strongest CV, GPA and scores and therefore most likely to get accepted-- will get one. </p>
<p>Basically, these colleges are using committee letters to manipulate their med school acceptance rates.</p>
<p>While it’s possible to apply without a committee letter it’s a giant red flag on the student’s application and can cause the application to be dismissed by med school adcomms.</p>
<p>BTW, just because a student doesn’t get the support of the letter committee doesn’t mean they are not a reasonable candidate for acceptance somewhere, but without the letter the student likely won’t have the chance to even be considered.</p>
<p>That’s very interesting about the committee letters. We hadn’t even thought about that aspect, just wanted to know the actual numbers of students getting into med school each year. Every school we have looked at claims to have a great pre-med program, blahblah, but if two schools have roughly the same size student body, and one is sending 4 or 5 times more graduates to med school each year than the other … well, the facts speak for themselves.</p>
<p>A couple of more items for your consideration:</p>
<p>1) Ask what percerntage of the incoming freshman class calls themselves ‘pre-meds’?</p>
<p>Because some schools restrict or constrict access to key required courses to weed out students the school thinks only have only limited chances for a successful application. (You can’t apply if you haven’t taken the required coursework.)</p>
<p>Because at some schools the grading curve is brutal and is used as way to ‘encourage’ academically weaker students to drop out of the program PDQ. (This seems to be most common where 30-40% of incoming freshmen are pre-meds. But ‘weeding’ occurs at every school. Just some are more vigorous about it than others. The freshman vs applicant numbers will tell you a great deal about the pre med program.)</p>
<p>2) Not all medical school acceptances are equal. Some schools count only MD acceptances. Some count MD and DO acceptances. Some count any med school acceptance, even those to foreign medical programs. Some include any health profession school (optometry, podiatry, dental, etc) plus all of the above. Some schools count only graduating students going immediately on to medical school. Some count any acceptance received by an alumni of the school, often up to 5 or more years after graduation.</p>
<p>Be sure to ask how a school calculates its numbers and ask to see the data to back it up. Schools massage their data 6 ways 'til Sunday…</p>
<p>NC resident or just like the area?</p>
<p>Kat</p>
<p>Whew, sounds like you need a degree in statistics to sort this out! (and to answer Kat’s question we’re in Raleigh area)</p>
<p>That helps, we are NC residents as well. Having that option is a HUGE benefit. The in-state choices offer great alternatives to the private ones, especially cost-wise.</p>
<p>As a NC resident you daughter is eligible for ECU’s med school which takes ONLY NC residents and UNC’s is capped at no more than 18%.</p>
<p>And as far as numbers go all the above posters are correct. The school’s don’t help get your kiddo in, your daughter will get herself into med school.</p>
<p>Focusing on the school’s percentages is a distraction. Look to your daughter’s stats, strengths and weaknesses and figure out where she will fit and be happy. The happier she is the better her GPA, the more successful she will be at her ECs, getting to know her professors for LORs and help and finding her niche.</p>
<p>Is she in public, private or charter? Her hs guidance counselor should be able to pinpoint many of the schools here in NC that are available to her.</p>
<p>What are her stats? Does she need financial aid? Does she need merit? Does she know what she might major in? Her likes and dislikes?</p>
<p>Kat
son is a current MS2 here in NC</p>
<p>I was asking a friend about Guilford in NC and she suggested looking at Earlham, which is also a Quaker school. It’s in Indiana which isn’t exactly near NC but actually closer to us than Rhodes or some of others mentioned. Just looking at Earlham’s website they seem to have a very strong track record on med school acceptances, but I know now (thanks to posts here!) that we need to look very carefully at the numbers. I am going to post also on an EArlham thread if I can find one, but if anyone here has any info would appreciate it. By the way we finally did hear back from High Point University. For this year’s graduating class they had 1 med school acceptance out of 3 applicants, they said a lot of their pre-med grads are going into non-allopathic programs. So think we will rule them out.</p>
<p>Older sister of a D2’s close friend graduated from Earlham a couple of years ago, but she wasn’t pre-med. (International studies, maybe?) She’s currently working (paid even!) for an international non-profit doing public health training and infrastructure development in Africa.</p>
<p>The young woman was very happy at Earlham, esp it’s emphasis on giving back to the community and the world. She found the school community to be close and supportive.</p>
<p>* Our strategy has been to ask each school how many of their recent grads were admitted to med school*</p>
<p>While that may seem like a good question, I’m not sure what it really tells you. If a smallish school has 50 kids with great stats accepted to med schools, but your child ends up not having great stats during college (BCMP GPA and high MCAT), then what have you learned from a bare number???</p>
<p>Are you asking how many students were pre-med frosh year, but “fell away” during their four years because of GPA, change of heart, lowish MCAT, etc???</p>
<p>Are you asking how many actually applied, and then how many were accepted to US MD med schools??? (not DO or overseas)</p>
<p>you seem to be thinking that the SCHOOL gets the student into med school. The STUDENT gets himself into med school…his GPA, his MCAT, his ECs, etc. The school can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear and push that into med school.</p>
<p>What are your D’s test scores and GPA. Her current stats can be a predictor for how well she does in college and her likely prospects for med schools.</p>
<p>Every school we have looked at claims to have a great pre-med program, blahblah, but if two schools have roughly the same size student body, and one is sending 4 or 5 times more graduates to med school each year than the other … well, the facts speak for themselves.</p>
<p>Not really. The “facts” aren’t really saying anything conclusive.</p>
<p>One school may have more non-pre-meds than the other school. Each school of similar size isn’t going to have the same number of pre-meds. Some schools are known to attract a large number of pre-meds (Creighton comes to mind). But the fact that it may send more kids to med schools than - say - UDayton or Marquette, then that doesn’t mean that a UDayton or Marquette pre-med student has a lesser chance of acceptance.</p>
<p>Do you have any financial limitations? </p>
<p>If you’re willing to pay full freight ($60k per year), then you’ll have options. But, if you have an unaffordable EFC or the school gaps you in aid (which most schools do), then what will be your D’s financial safety schools?</p>
<p>Mom2collegekids, these are all good points and we are trying to juggle all these considerations. Given that D wants a small school, we wanted to make sure she chooses a place where she will get solid instruction and good advising, and hopefully would be part of a group of smart, motivated pre-med students. It seemed to us that a school with these characteristics would be more likely to have a good track record on med school admissions.</p>