<p>I am just interested to hear how people decided on where they wanted to go to medical school and what helped their decision on picking 'the one.' Also, how many schools did you apply to and get into? Thanks!</p>
<p>I am a college freshmen already looking at where I want to go</p>
<p>
Usually it is the other around. A med school picks you, not you pick a med school. (I know this may not be an answer you would like to hear, but this has some truth in it.)</p>
<p>An applicant will have a difficult time to decide the list of schools to apply to unless he has 1) cGPA and sGPA 2) MCAT score 3) a list of ECs. It is well too early for you to think of this.</p>
<p>In terms of where to apply, I chose geography first (East coast + Midwest, urban > rural). Next I looked through the MSAR to get a range of schools that I would be competitive for (this actually bit me in the behind because I didn’t realize that the stated scores in the MSAR are quite a bit higher than the real averages of matriculants, so I ended up applying to way more schools than I should have). That gave me a list and I whittled it down to the number I wanted to apply to. As far as picking which school was my top choice after interviewing and later amongst my acceptances, it was fit followed by finances with geography already having been factored in.</p>
<p>Small school (100/class). Innovative curriculum. Focused on training clinicians rather than researchers/physician-scientists. Midwest or not far from it. In terms of med school debt, not too much. Somewhere that wouldn’t be terrible to live for 4 years.</p>
<p>6/6. Love my school. </p>
<p>I applied to 13, had 4 interviews, and withdrew from the schools I hadn’t heard from after I was accepted. Looking back, I had a great app season (there were def some bumps along the way though). Good luck!</p>
<p>My medical school was the one that picked me. I applied to 20 medical schools, was invited for 3 interviews and got 1 acceptance. The majority of applicants get 0 acceptances so one was fine with me.</p>
<p>mmmcdowe, what do you mean the MSAR numbers are higher?</p>
<p>Having been on CC for a while, I think I understand what mmmcdowe meant.</p>
<p>The MSAR numbers are the GPA/MCAT numbers of accepted students, not the numbers of matriculated students. Because high stats applicants may apply and are accepted to many schools but they only matriculated at one med school in the end, the numbers for the accepted students, as reported by MSAR, are skewed higher as compared to the numbers of those students who actually enroll at the med school.</p>
<p>High stats kids are sometimes overqualified for some med schools. These kids really should not apply to too many of these schools whose matriculated students have lower stats. It wastes everybody’s (school’s and the applicant’s) time, efforts and money. – I think mmmcdowe was a high stats applicant; and his target schools should be mostly those top tiered ones and he did not need to apply to so many other schools that are not his “best-fit.”</p>
<p>In a sense, higher stats are not necessarily always better when an applicant applies to certain med schools.</p>
<p>mmmcdowe, correct me if I am not right.</p>
<p>Lemaitrel, I think when you applied to med school, it was even harder to get into any med school. That was one reason why your generation of physicians (or a genneration before yours) were paid better (unlike the “stupid” association of “law schools” who hurt their students by putting the school’s interest first.)</p>
<p>Everybody has his/her own criteria and at the end, if there is no decision or deciding between 2-3 Med. School that already have accepted you, Second Look event is helpful.<br>
However, your list has to start with schools matching your stats, unless you want to go way below for various reasons.</p>
<p>More or less what I was going for mcat2. The average MCAT scores posted in the MSAR can be as much as 3-4 points higher than the actual matriculant average. A kid with a 43 thats accepted to 20 schools is counted towards all of their MSAR averages. I applied to a larger number of schools than I cared to, because I didn’t realize this and thought that my stats were below average to average for most OOS friendly schools.</p>
<p>Agree with most of the responses. You pick a med school only from the ones that accept you. Many people have no choice at all. Only a few are lucky enough to be able to choose but even those people could probably not have predicted which schools they were going to get into beforehand.</p>
<p>^ rpg1 is right. The medical school I was accepted at was not on my original list in the summer and I asked AMCAS to add it later during the fall. The year I applied there were over 49,000 applicants for a little over 16,000 total positions at U.S. MD medical schools but I think my MCAT score of 31 was considered better relative to other applicants than it would be today.</p>
<p>I was fortunate enough to be accepted to 6 MD schools all over the country. When considering schools the big thing came down to cost. The first two years of med school will be the same anywhere (excluding schools with 1-1.5 preclinical year curriculums). Typically your state school is a great option because of the cost. However, these schools are often focused on producing PCPs and have less time to do specialty rotations during your 3rd and 4th year. I ended up picking Georgetown because of the location in DC, good reputation and match list in specialties I was interested in, tons of specialty rotations, and because the cost was not significantly higher than my state school. Everyone has their own criteria on what is important but I did not consider schools significantly more expensive than my state school.</p>
<p>“A kid with 43” - Do you know any? You made my day just mentionning about 43, I will definitely keep on smiling for the rest of it. If you are the one, big congrats, you belong to very exclusive group with very few members even counting decades of applicants.</p>
<p>One of my kid’s best med school friend’s had a 42. Of course, she was also a PharmD. Jeebus. It’s a wonder my kid got a look at all.</p>
<p>I have a classmate who scored a confirmed 45S. I always tease him by asking if he ever considered retaking for the T.</p>
<p>I applied to 18 schools-received four interviews-I felt fortunate to be accepted to three schools and will be attending the University of Connecticut Medical School in my home state. As a state resident, I knew that cost would be a big part of my decision as I am paying for my education. The best part of UConn Med was the feeling I received when I spoke with students and faculty during my interview–everything positive was confirmed during my 2nd look visit and I knew it would be the place where I could learn and thrive as part of a team.</p>
<p>I had an RA this year who was choosing between 4 or 5 great medical schools. His choice came down to between Stanford and Harvard. He chose Stanford, I believe.</p>
<p>Sorry this post is late but I have been intrigued by the responses. I really think finding a medical school is like dating. You take a few visits down to the school, read their website to find out all their information and really get a feel for the school. I won’t apply until next cycle but I’m pretty sure I want to go to MSUCHM in Michigan. The location, people, program, you just get a really good feel for the school. I think if you want to have an option to “pick” a medical school I think you need to do your research, make some calls and visit some of the places you can. Once you find a school you like understand their mission statement and make sure you fit what they are looking for and make sure your application reflects that.</p>
<p>Like I said I haven’t applied yet so I could be completely off but I really think you do have a lot of power in choosing where you want to go to school. You control your grades, your spare time (extra curricular activities, volunteering etc.), personality etc. which are all the things medical schools look at when they apply.</p>
<p>I see some people making a lot of excuses on here about things happening that causes them to get bad grades (which I understand) or things that cause them to not have a lot of volunteering but medical schools don’t always have that sympathy for that, especially because if you can’t hack it in undergrad how do you expect to hack it in medical school? They are looking for certain types of people to become the doctors that THEY want to produce and it’s really about finding that school that matches your profile. I think if you visit a few schools you’ll know what I mean, good luck!</p>
<p>:)
Christy</p>