<p>Is anyone here attending or has attended either Harvard, Yale, Johns Hopkins, or Duke Medical School or any other extremely competitive Medical School (as if Medical School was not competitive enough!)</p>
<p>Post your stats:</p>
<li>Undergraduate Institution</li>
<li>GPA</li>
<li>MCAT</li>
<li>Extracurriculars (Leaderships)</li>
<li>Clinical Experiences </li>
<li>Occupations</li>
<li>Letter of Recommendations (Overview)</li>
<li>Courses taken that may have helped admission</li>
</ol>
<p>Suggest that you rely on your undergrad alumni connections to get a good feel for what it's going to take to gain entry into your target med school(s). </p>
<p>In addition to great GPA & MCATS, research experience is probably the most helpful factor that you have control over (as an existing or recent undergrad).</p>
<p>I'll be attending Harvard next year. I'd be happy to give you advice if you PM me but I'll warn you ahead of time that I think "stats" are an extremely bad way to measure one's eventual success in med school admissions. I am also skeptical of the idea of "designing your life" to appeal to an admissions counselor as I think your passions should come from within.</p>
<p>Obviously, schools vary in their decisionmaking criteria. HMS is a fuzzier school than, say, WUSTL/Baylor/Penn. Other fuzzy schools include UCSF and, to a lesser extent, Stanford. These schools place less emphasis on hard factors and more emphasis on leadership, activism, community involvement, etc.</p>
<p>Obviously every school values those things, and HMS still has a very high GPA/MCAT. So please don't go rushing off to take my statement to an extreme.</p>
<p>And unlike college, this isn't just about numbers, hours, and titles. They get to interview you, remember, so they'll expect to hear about what you actually accomplished and how you plan to continue it.</p>
<p>I am familiar with the admissions process of some of these schools. I think MCATs, GPAs get your application looked at, particularly if they are strong. On the other hand, these schools probably only interview about 20% of the appliants who apply. There will be students with outstanding records that will not even get interviewed. I think letters, extracurriculars (passions as zippership put it), background (URM, socioeconomic, unusual personal circumstances-usually stuff you can't control) also come into play. I think having at least one distinguishing activity that displays talent, leadership, creativity, commitment, and effective time management is important in making you stand out as an individual. </p>
<p>I would say that it is very difficult to predict who will get into which medical schools. I would apply to a range of them (and nowadays enough of them-probably 20 or so). If you are a strong candidate (statwise) and also have developed yourself in some non-academic area (even volunteer activities) you will get into medical school somewhere even if you do not get into the aforementioned schools.</p>
<p>Like ‘apfreak’ I would like to attend one of those medical schools but I have a question. What would be better? To attend a univ. that doesn’t have a medical school but I do my Bachlor’s and then transfer to a univ. that does have a medical school? I have always wanted to go Princeton but they don’t have a medical program, and Yale does >.<</p>
<p>I suggest that you forget about going to the Medical School of an University. It is very hard to do that. Many of these schools in fact discourage the undergrads.</p>
<p>I know of graduate of Johns Hopkins who went there to go the medical school. He was told it was not fair to have a class of all Johns Hopkins. He ended up going to a State U. medical school.</p>