<p>HELP!!! DREXEL BS-MD OR CORNELL CHE.
Request for help, please.
After getting back all my decisions, it has come down to Drexel BS-MD and Cornell College of Human Ecology. I know medical school and becoming a psychiatrist is what I want. My mom is a doctor and I have worked at her office for almost 5 years. My heart tells me Cornell, my brain tells me Drexel for the guarantee to medical school and less stress, and I do have an uncle right near Philly that I could even live with. My mother the doctor says go to Cornell, get the in state tuition break, do well and I can even do better. I had kind of made up my mind to go to Cornell. Now I just read two threads on college confidential's web site that have me like freakin out about Cornell and getting into medical school because of percentages that poster "norcalguy" mentions and grading that poster "tacomawa" talk about. I don't know what to do. Help please, pretty please... D.</p>
<p>Let me put something into perspective:</p>
<p>The old adage is that the first year of medical school is like drinking water from a firehose. The second year of medical school is like the first year, only you have to study for your boards in addition to your regular curriculum. The third year of med school is like the second year, only, instead of 8AM classes, you have to be at the hospital at 5AM for rounds and you have to work 6 days/week. Residency is like the third year of med school, except when you make a mistake, you don’t lose 2 pts on your test. You kill a patient. </p>
<p>Why am I telling you all this? If 1st year of med school is like drinking water from a firehose, college is like sipping lemonade through a straw on a hot summer day. The difference between Drexel and Cornell in terms of “stress” is basically the difference in the size of the straw. i.e. insignificant in the grand scheme of things.</p>
<p>I can’t make the decision for you since I don’t know how the finances work out or how much you like either school, but I just wanted to put the path to becoming a doctor in perspective. Getting into med school will not be the hardest thing you do in your life. Not. Even. Close.</p>
<p>If you can’t make it to med school out of Cornell (ie you can’t get a 3.4 at Cornell), you don’t belong in med school. You shouldn’t be a doctor. I have no problem telling HSers this because I don’t want people wasting their life pursuing something they are ill-equipped for. Not everyone can be a MD.</p>
<p>Do Drexel. Applying to medical school is stressful, and if you’re guaranteed admission you can enjoy your undergrad without having to do things you may not want to do (research for the sake of having it on your resume, volunteer work that you may not enjoy, etc) in addition to studying for the MCAT, filling out applications, interviewing, etc. It’s A LOT of work. I went to Cornell as a pre-med, and like so many, the whole thing was just too stressful and I changed my mind. If you think you’d be happy at Drexel med school and are 100% sure you want to be an MD, do it.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if you think you may change your mind about being an MD, go to Cornell. You can experiment more at Cornell, and having a degree from there will open more doors in another field if you choose to do something else. If you still decide to be an MD, you’ll have an excellent shot with a Cornell degree, it just won’t be guaranteed and will involve a lot more stress.</p>
<p>Someone just told me that there is no premed advisor at cornell until sometime in the future. Does anyone know if this is true? Does Cornell make no sense for premed? Help!!! D.</p>
<p>Derrick</p>
<p>This is a very hard choice. I believe that 70%+ of the pre-meds at Cornell are admitted to Med School, though I don’t know where I read this, so I may be wrong. So, statistically, you have a great chance. (Cornell is a great choice for Pre-Med) Also, though Drexel is a fine school, it’s med school though fine, is not a top rated school.</p>
<p>On the other hand, even at Cornell there are many pre-meds who are in the pressure cooker of where/will they get accepted anywhere. And, a significant number do not get in.</p>
<p>Perhaps – if you can’t deal with this pressure you shouldn’t be a Doctor in the first place (is that what you were suggesting, Norcalguy?). Having said this, I would think it very hard to turn down a guaranteed slot into Med School. Good luck with your decision.</p>
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<p>70% of those who apply to med school will get in from Cornell. However, this is not the majority of premeds.</p>
<p>There are roughly 1000 premed freshman every year at Cornell (this is estimated from the size of the gen chem course). Every year, ~470 students from Cornell apply to med school (50% as college seniors, 50% as alumni). From the Cornell data, the 50% that apply as seniors get into med school at a 70% clip. However, there is no data on how the alumni do and ~60% of premed freshmen will end up not applying at all.</p>
<p>Scary numbers but I’m okay with that. Not everyone who wants to be a doctor should be a doctor. If you can’t get a 3.4 in college, I don’t want you as my doctor. If you can’t score a 30 on the MCAT, I don’t want you as my doctor. So, I think Cornell appropriately weeds out the ones who won’t pass med school.</p>
<p>Much appreciated, with those numbers I think the choice that is best is Drexel.<br>
ps, if those are the premed admit numbers and they are right, then i would probably have gone drexel even without the bs-md program because they said during the tour I took that more than 85% of all Drexel applicants get in to a USA MD program. I wonder if the premed person that cornell used to have left because of the bad premed statistics at cornell that you mention. D.</p>
<p>I personally don’t trust acceptance % data. I’ve written entire essays on how data is misleading and can be easily manipulated. I guarantee you that Drexel doesn’t have a true 85% acceptance rate to med school. It is likely a 85% acceptance rate with a caveat (such as if you meet certain GPA/MCAT criteria or if you go through their premed committee) so it’s not comparable to Cornell’s 70%. </p>
<p>One example is Swarthmore boasting a 100% acceptance rate for its seniors. Pretty impressive right? Until you look at their data and realize that they had SIX, that’s right six, seniors apply that year (all 6 got in, hence the 100% acceptance rate). They had ~45 alumni applicants that year with far less success. That’s heavy, heavy screening which Cornell does not do. Swarthmore clearly refused to let its weakest applicants apply and managed only 6 applicants that it deemed worthy of applying as seniors. That’s why I saw to always ask for the FULL data, not just the %.</p>
<p>But, good luck to you at Drexel. I think you’re making an expensive mistake.</p>
<p>norcal or Derrick</p>
<p>With the drexel program, have you been admitted to the Drexel Med School, or do you have to apply somewhere along the way?</p>
<p>It is a conditional acceptance. Drexel’s requirements are quite stringent. You must maintain a 3.5 GPA and a minimum MCAT of 31 in order to keep your “guarantee”. Heck, if I had a 3.5/31, I’d try for a med school that’s much better than Drexel (which is considered to be an extremely low end med school). And, yes, the quality of your med school matters when it comes to residency applications. And the Drexel undergrad/school of medicine are both ridiculously expensive.</p>
<p>From Drexel’s website:</p>
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<p>Even with all the fine print, it looks like acceptance is still not guaranteed.</p>
<p>I’d definitely take Cornell, as it will give you more options if you change your mind about what you want to do.</p>
<p>By the way, the reason I post so extensively on this topic is that I have a special interest in medical education and the medical school admissions process. That’s why I’m on the curriculum committee and the admissions committee at my school. </p>
<p>The trend over the past 20 years has been to close or to curtail these BS/MD (guaranteed acceptance) programs. UCLA School of Medicine and University of Michigan Medical School both used to have guaranteed acceptance programs but shut them down. The oldest and most famous of the BS/MD programs is Northwestern’s HPME program. Recently, Northwestern sliced that program from 35 to roughly 15 students. They explicitly posted on their website that HPME students performed WORSE in medical school vs. their regular medical students, despite the fact HPME students were once in the upper echelon of high school students. You simply can’t expect to coast through undergrad and turn on a switch once you hit med school. It doesn’t work that way. That’s why I am a firm believer in challenging yourself in college.</p>
<p>^Doesn’t Brown have one that is working out very well for them? PLME?</p>
<p>Also - after reading the fine print, I recommend Cornell. Being forced to get a 31 on the MCAT to keep your spot is pretty stringent. As for the acceptance numbers to medical school, what norcalguy was saying is true. I talked to a career counselor about it while I was at Cornell, and she explained the way it works at most schools:</p>
<p>At the majority of schools, in order to boost medical school acceptance rates, applicants are “screened.” Essentially, the pre-med committee won’t write a letter for you if you don’t have certain stats. Since the pre-med letter is required to apply, they effectively keep you from applying, meaning only their best candidates get to apply. This guarantees a higher rate. At Cornell, ANYONE can have the pre-med committee write them a letter - hence, lower overall med school admit rate.</p>
<p>It just goes along with how Cornell is - we don’t game the system to get better rankings in anything. I admire it, it feels more honest.</p>
<p>I don’t have any data regarding the performance of PLME students vs. traditional medical students. It’s important to note that Northwestern’s medical school is a lot more selective than Brown’s medical school. The average stats of Northwestern’s traditional students is 3.8/35 so it’s not surprising that HPME’s can’t compete despite the fact they were once 4.0/2300 HS students. Brown is a mid-tier med school and is not nearly as selective so PLME students may fair better.</p>
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<p>I love this about Cornell. It is by far the most transparent college about its data. It explicitly states that its med school acceptance rate is for college seniors non-minority applying to allopathic med schools. I don’t think you can get more clear than that. Some colleges try to toss some of their URM’s into the data (since URM’s get into med school with lower stats) or try to count students getting into osteopathic med schools (which are less competitive than allopathic med schools). There are a lot of ways to game the system.</p>
<p>Please note the OP said Cornell COLLEGE, not University, was this a typo or is it actually the other school?</p>
<p>He said Cornell College of Human Ecology. Missing a comma, but I don’t think that the other school has a Hum Ec. School, so it’s University.</p>
<p>Okay thanks for the clarification :P</p>
<p>Norcalguy:</p>
<p>I’m curious, you say that if someone can’t get a 3.4 GPA/30 MCAT in college, you don’t want them to be your doctor.</p>
<p>Every year, however, don’t hundreds (if not thousands) of us students go to caribbean or international schools, and then eventually come back to practice medicine in the US? Don’t these same kids often have sub 3.4 GPAs and sub 30 MCAT scores? Don’t a good chunk of them actually turn out to be perfectly fine doctors?</p>
<p>I think the question of what makes a good doctor is interesting and pretty complex. I’m not sure if the factors you presented are hard line indicators.</p>
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<p>I wouldn’t want them as MY doctor. Obviously, that’s my personal preference. I don’t want just an average/below average doctor. Some people with subpar undergrad performance do end up becoming doctors, some good doctors, some average doctors, and some poor doctors. </p>
<p>Personally, if I myself couldn’t achieve a 3.4/30, I would just look for another profession. The risk of going to the Caribbean is just too great. Caribbean schools are for-profit schools, unlike US med schools. They routinely underestimate their boards fail rates and their unmatched rates. Even the graduates who do match, tend to match in undesirable specialties or undesirable programs within competitive specialties. It’s easy to point to the thousands of Caribbean graduates but I can also point out thousands of students who dropped out and are now saddled with debt. It is irresponsible for a med school to boast 50% or even 80% graduation rates and saddle their graduates with hundreds of thousands of debt. If I had to take on $200,000 worth of debt and I had a 70% chance of graduating and matching, I wouldn’t go to med school.</p>
<p>No, the numbers I pose aren’t hardline indicators. There are always late bloomers or people who’ve had stuff come up in their lives. But, I think Caribbean schools routinely prey on kids who refuse to let their dreams die (especially underachieving Asian kids under family pressure). Look at how many Indian kids are in Caribbean schools. Medicine is overrated as a profession anyway. People need to realize they can find happiness in many other professions.</p>
<p>I do want to say thanks for your posting normal, but I definitely decided on Drexel last night. I just feel that if your statistical analysis is correct (and it does look accurate), then there are hundreds and hundreds of students at Cornell who wind up wishing they could get into any medical school - Drexel, or any medical school here in the U.S. I know Cornell is a good school, a very good school. My dad read your posts and the other postings here, and if I want to be a doctor, my going to Cornell is kind of like a big lottery ticket because of the statistics you mention. I am no expert and don’t know much as I am still young, but with Cornell not having a pre medical advisor until “further notice” and there being so many many posts about problems with Cornell premedical and getting into medical school, I just feel that the guaranteed admit to Drexel, which by the way is a pretty good school, is what is right for me. I know I’m giving up a prestigious education, but a lot of people going for the prestigious education at Cornell, for one reason or another, just have a hard time getting into U.S. Medical Schools. This is obviously my personal opinion, I am no expert for sure. D.</p>