<p>I'm pretty much sure that I want to go into medicine as a carreer choice. Harvard would thus pretty much be my top choice for college. However, I've heard from two completely independent sources that Harvard med school only accepts one person for Harvard university, or something ridiculous like that. I want to go to Harvard for med school, so can you guys give confirmation to this rumor?</p>
<p>That’s too far in the future for you to decide which med school is best for you. First get into Harvard undergrad, then start planning for the process.</p>
<p>^I agree with babydragon.</p>
<p>Why are you so sure you want to go to Harvard med right now? For all we (and you) know, Harvard med could totally be the opposite of a fit for you. I mean first off you don’t know exactly how Harvard itself is like because you haven’t even gone to Harvard, you having even applied OR even beginning to apply. Your only a rising junior in high school. IMHO, you should stop worrying about med school and work towards trying to get into Harvard College first.</p>
<p>from what I hear, HMS accepts 2 people every year outright and potentially 4 others
at a later time from the Harvard Undergrad community. The number of
past Harvard grads who are accepted into HMS are not included in these
numbers.</p>
<p>I actually had the same question when I was applying. In fact, I thought about turning Harvard down because I didn’t want to hurt my chances of getting into HMS. I realized that this would be silly because nothing guarantees you acceptance to HMS. Don’t even think that far. If you get the opportunity to go to Harvard, don’t pass it up because of wanting to go to HMS. By the way, I was told that Harvard undergrads are the most represented group at each of the graduate schools (including HMS).</p>
<p>I will be attending Harvard next year and am interested in medical school. On the admitted students website, they had a forum on pre-med advising and that was one of the questions that was asked. My understanding is that the number of admitted students from Harvard to HMS varies from year to year but that the average is somewhere around 12 (the quip is one for every house). Harvard students are the most represented at HMS and given that the acceptance rate into HMS is 3%, 12 students isn’t bad at all. Harvard will not hurt your chances of getting into HMS and will only help your chances at any other medical school.</p>
<p>“Harvard will not hurt your chances of getting into HMS and will only help your chances at any other medical school.”</p>
<p>Don’t count on that - particularly the second half of that statement. Go to the premed section of CC.</p>
<p>I have been to the premed section of CC. Since the average acceptance rate into med school is less than 50% and at Harvard it is 90%+, how could Harvard not help at getting into med schools? I am not saying that going to Harvard will ensure acceptance since acceptance generally comes through interview performance; however, schools like Harvard, Stanford, and Yale help in getting to the interview stage. In addition, they offer they resources and opportunities so important to success in the med school application process (like research opportunities for Harvard students at HMS). Students still have to take advantage of the resources and get the necessary grades and MCAT scores, but the availability of resources and leg-up in the initial and secondary application process is an advantage in itself. The med school acceptance rate from these schools should also signify an advantage.</p>
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<p>I highly doubt the school helps more than the personal ambition. You have to know that Harvard students have the ambition to learn, that’s why their percentage is high. You can’t simply go to Harvard, check out all the books read it and just expect you’re going to get into med school. Rice University has a 90% acceptance rate to med schools, they are ranked lower than Harvard, but their students have the ambition to learn.</p>
<p>I do understand that that the Harvard name alone will directly influence med school admission. I am just saying that Harvard affords opportunities for its notoriously highly ambitious student body to take advantage of, which makes it easier to shape a successful med school application. In addition, many med school application books (assuming they are correct) argue that having attended selective schools like Harvard will help students make it to the interview stage.</p>
<p>“Students still have to take advantage of the resources and get the necessary grades and MCAT scores, but the availability of resources and leg-up in the initial and secondary application process is an advantage in itself.”</p>
<p>You haven’t read carefully all the comments about the resources such as advising. Unless you’re on financial aid, I wouldn’t go to Harvard for premed, you’re going to need the money for med school.</p>
<p>DocT - I’ll take your advice and read the premed forum more closely. I still think Harvard confers an advantage, but I’ll see what I come up with. Maybe it will change my mind, who knows? </p>
<p>I need to start doing some more in-depth research on med school anyway since I am currently deciding if I want to be a doctor.</p>
<p>If I’m not wrong, unlike undergrad admissions which does weight in the factor of the difficulty and intensity of your school, med school admission doesn’t weight it as much. Mainly because not every is able to financially be able to go to certain universities. Because financial aid plays a big factor, a lot of students who could be Harvard capable could end up at say UM because they are financially capable. Also it is simply too difficulty to understand which college is truly better when it comes down to the top ones (like top 30). Like when you compare high schools, you can obviously tell that there are schools that are better than some other schools. And because the courses at each high school is quite similar. College, however, is harder to determine. See it’s difficult to compare a U of C Economics major premed with a Caltech Engineering major premed. So which school you go to isn’t as important to med school admissions as it was to undergrad admissions. It’s the GPA, the MCAT, the extracurricular and the community service.</p>