<p>The average acceptance rate in medical school is nearly 2%. Are there any universities with high percentages of students getting into medical school?</p>
<p>Those won’t tell you ANYTHING because those acceptance rates are AFTER the school has weeded out the weaker students.</p>
<p>To further clarify:</p>
<p>Frosh year: 400 premeds (then after Bio and Chem, a bunch change their majors)
Soph year: 300 premeds (then after OChem a bunch change their majors)
Jr year: 200 premeds (then after MCAT scores a bunch decide that their score is too low)
Summer before senior year: 100 apply to med school.</p>
<p>So, out of the remaining 100 who apply to med school, at many schools about 70% (plus or minus) will get accepted to at least one MD school. So, those schools will boast a 70% (plus or minus) acceptance rate to med school.</p>
<p>SO…how would THAT stat affect you, a high school kid? That doesn’t tell you that as a frosh you have a 70% chance, now does it? NO.</p>
<p>Acceptance to med school is largely numbers driven. GPA and MCAT score. It has little to do with the school.</p>
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<p>Your school either has very high grade inflation or you’re a poor test taker. Either way, that doesn’t bode well for med school. How will you get a strong MCAT score? </p>
<p>Again, a school’s acceptance rate would tell YOU nothing. A school could have a 90% acceptance rate, but that would NOT mean that YOU would have a 90% chance of acceptance. </p>
<p>Most people who make it to med school have an ACT floor of about 27-28, so the elite schools that have that floor tend to do pretty well in getting people into med school because of the students they are working with. They do not turn average ACT-score students into med school material, rather they take the people with the potential already built in and shape them into successful candidates. I know that’s a politically unpopular opinion, but it’s reality.</p>
<p>I would guess that most of the weedout occurs in freshman year, in classes like Chem 101 and Bio 101. That’s where you get to see how you really measure up against your competition for those precious med school spots. You’ll quickly find out if your HS GPA was worth anything and if you developed the study skills you need to survive. If you can’t score Bs or better in those classes, it’s time for a reality check - either you don’t have what it takes or you don’t have the work habits it will require and you need to get them.</p>
<p>I remember taking a Bio 101 class at a local branch of Big State U that accepted just about anyone with an average ACT/SAT - it was full of pre-meds. By the end of the class, there was a U-shape grade distribution, you either had an A/B+ or you had a D/F. Very little in between. A lot of med schools dreams were broken in that class and the Chem 101 class. After that, it becomes a marathon, and if you have the perseverance and drive, you will likely make it.</p>
<p>You forgot:
Summer before senior year: 100 apply to med school.
And only 70 of those have a recommendation from the Med School Committee.</p>
<p>@bopper: Not all schools use the committee letter for pre-meds. Those (even well-known ones) tend to have a success rate of at most 50%.</p>
<p>BTW, roughly half of all pre-meds applying get in somewhere.</p>
<p>It may be true that given a certain level of ability and motivation and given certain work habits, where you go as an undergrad will not significantly alter your probability of success, but a particular student may find more motivation at certain schools, because of a better fit, than at others, and by the same token a student may be more likely to develop the necessary work habits at some schools than at others. </p>
<p>Looking at it another way, note that the more rigorous schools will likely give you a clear indication of your chances early on, giving you that dreaded C in a critical class in the first or second year, while a less rigorous school may string you along with decent grades when you are not really learning all you need to know to do well on the MCAT. So the more rigorous school may have an 85 to 90 percent acceptance rate, because the students who were not going to make it learned that long before the time to apply (and were able to switch majors and plans accordingly), while the less rigorous school may have a 50 percent acceptance rate or less as it kept the pipe dreams alive well past their due dates (leaving the rejected students in an unenviable position).</p>
<p>More selective schools will generally have more of the pre-meds who can get the higher GPA and MCAT score needed to be competitive in medical school applications.</p>
<p>Of course, higher grade inflation (relative to student abilities), lower costs, and convenience of pre-med extracurriculars can matter. Whether a school does committee letters can matter – they may be helpful for those who get them (need the highest GPA and MCAT scores), but some schools refuse them for those “on the bubble” stats-wise in order to keep their medical school acceptance rates high (no committee letter at schools that do them = don’t bother applying).</p>
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<p>They [schools with high MD acceptance rates] do not turn average ACT-score students into med school material, rather they take the people with the potential already built in and shape them into successful candidates. </p>
<p>I know that’s a politically unpopular opinion, but it’s reality.
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<p>I am going to copy/paste those words and steal them…(but giving @MrMom62 credit 
)</p>
<p>@MrMom62 is exactly right. Every premed student isn’t on the same level, so each one’s chances for successful admission into med school is not the same.</p>
<p>If a high school senior, who does well in math and science, has a strong interest in medicine, and has a balanced ACT 32+ and a 4.0 GPA with rigorous curriculum, asked us to predict whether he/she would get into a MD SOM, we would say something like:</p>
<p>Your stats (test scores and GPA) indicate that you have the foundation to do well in college and to score well on the MCAT, so if you continue getting top grades, and take the MCAT seriously, and you have a sensible MD SOM application list, you will probably get accepted to at least one MD SOM. So, a prediction of 90%+</p>
<p>But…
If a high school senior, who has a high GPA, and a modest ACT asked the same question, we would likely say something like:</p>
<p>Did you take a rigorous curriculum (AP Bio, AP Chem, AP Calc, etc and what were your scores)? Does your school have grade inflation? Are you not finishing the ACT; why the modest score? If you’re not a good test-taker, how are you going to test well enough on the MCAT? A modest MCAT score is lethal.</p>
<p>One concern would be that the student’s high school foundation was weak and that he/she would struggle in college-level BCMP classes and the resulting college GPA and BCMP GPA would not be med school worthy. </p>
<p>The other concern would be that even if the student manages to get a high enough GPA, if he/she is a poor test-taker, then the MCAT score will be too low. </p>
<p>Really, does the ACT score have even any impact on your performance? Cause you can just spend money on tutors and programs to raise it.</p>
<p>^^</p>
<p>It’s not that easy. if it were, then everyone who hires tutors would get high scores. Sure, with tutoring, a number of people can raise their scores a few points. But to go from modest scores to high scores would be very rare…even with tutoring. I have a nephew, who with intense tutoring, went from an ACT 29 to a 32. Could he have gone from a 22 to a 30? doubtful. </p>
<p>While test scores may not have a direct impact on performance, being able to do well on standardized tests is important on the road to becoming an MD. First you have to do well on the MCAT, but that’s not all. There are standardized tests that a student has to do well on during med school. If a student can’t do well on standardized tests, his chances of getting into a MD school are practically zero.</p>
<p>The ability to raise your ACT score beyond your innate ability through tutors and other tricks is pretty much a myth, but there’s a whole industry that’s been built on convincing people that it can be done and a whole group of people who believe the tests are unfair because some people can afford to do that and others can’t. </p>
<p>The vast majority of people who try to improve their scores that way fail or see a small 1-3 point improvement. Yes, there are exceptions, but I believe that if you really studied those exceptions that what you would almost always find are people who had some bad test taking skills that were interfering with their ability to maximize their potential. Even those small improvements are basically just removing those bad habits, like getting stuck on one question and refusing to move on or not reading the questions correctly.</p>
<p>Try reading “The Perfect Score Project” to understand that although there is a possibility for some small gains, large gains are almost impossible and certainly can’t be guaranteed.</p>
<p>@mrmom62 I somewhat disagree with your comment about small 1 - 3 score improvement is the norm for preparation for ACT. Also I imagine for someone that tests better with SAT, with preparation can raise their score some, maybe not as dramatic as ACT.</p>
<p>Both my students increased ACT scores - one 5 points, and one 6 points from ‘baseline’ taken at end of sophomore year (that allowed a lead time to absorb test taking tips, practice, take in extra help). If the student begins with a strong score at the get-go, raising 1 - 3 points is major (say going from a 30 to a 33, or a 32 going to a 35). Bumping up each point above a respectable 30 (Presidential level scholarship with some schools in combination with a 3.5 GPA) is helpful for merit with some very selective circles. I know a very good student who went from 29 ACT composite to a 33 composite the second test time, after much individual preparation (and the new reading format in the Sept testing gave that student a ‘low’ score of 30).</p>
<p>Neighbor had a 29 ACT first time; probably reviewed some test taking etc and got a 32 the second time in Sept. Another neighbor knew he needed a 30 ACT for the scholarship and got a 30 his second test time. Both in public school that does a lot of standardized test-taking, but both are smart students with well educated and involved parents.</p>
<p>I think some students take more standardized tests in their elementary/MS/HS years.For very good students that ‘test badly’ - more preparation and tutoring will help them improve. Some students are testing ‘naturals’. Instead of spending $$ on certain things, buying a few test prep books, ACT/SAT local classes, fine-tuned individual tutoring - and the student taking the time to do practice tests, etc can have a huge pay-off. DD1 who went up one final point increased her automatic scholarship $12,000 ($3000 per year); DD2 bumped up to Presidential scholarship which was a more significant increase of $$ with departmental and university level scholarships. The one test prep place kept providing us with practice tests so DD1 could bump up that last point. DD2 kept doing practice sections in-between tutoring - very concentrated effort (and kept EC low to allow room in her schedule to focus on this test taking).</p>
<p>The bottom line is that schools look at the numbers (weighted and un-weighted HS GPA, and SAT/ACT) and the other things. Quantifiable along with other qualitative things. </p>
<p>A gal in financial planner’s office said she failed to realize the standardized test situation until it was too late - two kids were in high school sports. </p>
<p>With tuition continuing to climb, it is getting more important to pay attention to ways to earn scholarships. Tuition is climbing so significantly - parents income cannot easily cash-flow many of their kids college costs, and college saving/investments have not climbed as fast as tuition increases.</p>
<p>@SOSConcern
Yes, a person can bring up a score by a 4-6 points between sophomore and senior years. There is maturity and more knowledge that has been gained during that process. Your students were able to do that because of age, maturity, a very good high school education, and practice/tutors. The important part, is that they had the basic foundation to score well. </p>
<p>This student is already a senior with an ACT 21. That speaks to his abilities as a 17/18 year old. It suggests that he is either a poor test-taker or his HS curriculum wasn’t rigorous or grade inflation (due to his high GPA). That isn’t unusual. </p>
<p>Few students will see more than a 1-3 pt improvement within a 6 month period (testing over the summer, and then testing in the fall). </p>
<p>My nephew went thru a rather pricey ($2500) ACT class because he needed to raise his good score (29) to a level that would allow a top school to recruit him for his sport. He was able to get those few more points. But he already had “the foundation”…attended a strong private prep high school, had scored well on English/science/math AP’s, and he already had demonstrated that he could score in the 90th percentile. He just needed to “fine tune” his test-taking ability. That can be done with someone who already tests well. </p>
<p>To go from a senior-year-score of an ACT 21 (which is 56 percentile) to a score that suggests med-school-material at this point, is highly unlikely. An exception might be if he had a strong HS curriculum, but he has high test anxiety which would be managed with meds during future tests. </p>
<p>A senior with an ACT of 21 - that is problematic.</p>
<p>Extremely irrelevant statistics. Of course, UGs who heavily pre-select their students and accept only cream of the crop of the cream,…etc. will have a higher % of Med. School acceptances and so will some Honors colleges at State Publics that also heavily pre-select because of huge number of applicants and very few spots available. The high % of Med. School acceptances is not reflection on the UG, but reflection of the student body who are attending there. Again, goes back to a personal responsibility. No UG will place you into Med. School, your efforts will. And when you are there, no matter where you came from, you will discover that despite of very “strong elbow” attitude of some (not all) Ivy / Elite graduates, others are NOT inferior in preparation at all and again the effort that person will put into everything will determine various degree of success while at Med. School, which actually is about the same since only top of the top got accepted, but a bit varies and this very tiny difference will determine if one can apply to selective residency or not, but some very top medical students just have their heart set up on something that is not so selective anyway. At that level, practically nobody failes because of enormous support of Med. School towards every student.</p>
<p>“BTW, roughly half of all pre-meds applying get in somewhere.”
Considering big picture, as well over 100K start college as “premed” and then have to try to survive the gauntlet to a point where they can actually apply to med school, in 2013 just over 41% got at least one acceptance whereas over 58% did not get accepted anywhere. </p>
<p><a href=“https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/”>https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/</a>
Table 1</p>
<p>Columbia SGS’s post-bacc pre-med program reports a medical school placement rate of 90% for students who complete the program.</p>
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<p>If you’re not using “innate ability” to mean baseline then I completely agree with you, but if by innate ability you mean baseline score then you’re totally wrong. I don’t know much about the ACT so I might be totally wrong, but I personally raised my SAT score 260 points (old scale so out of 1600). That corresponded roughly to a percentile jump from the 88th percentile to the 99.9th. I’m not unique. I raised my MCAT score from the 75th percentile to the 97th, and my USMLEs (both times) from roughly the 50th-55th percentile to 85th-90th percentiles.</p>
<p>With standardized testing, everyone definitely has a ceiling, but to say that you can’t improve significantly improve your score through training is absurd. Think of it like basketball. You can be quick, and jump really high but that doesn’t automatically make you a good basketball player. You have to learn offensive/defensive strategy, how to shoot the ball, how to dribble, etc. That’s not innate stuff, those are skills that have to be taught. But, similarly, no amount of practicing offensive/defensive strategy, shooting, and ball handling will make someone who is really slow, short, and can’t jump a good basketball player. So while yes, everyone has their ceiling and tutoring can’t guarantee someone a good score, to say that everyone who has good scores could get them without tutoring is definitely wrong.</p>
<p>Maybe the ACT is so different from the SAT that the above isn’t true. But it was definitely true for the MCAT and the USMLEs so I don’t see why the ACT would be so different.</p>
<p>@Jugulator20,
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<p>When the person you responded to said:</p>
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<p>If by “somewhere” you include DO and Caribbean schools, then he/she is probably correct.</p>