<p>During the admissions project, how heavily do medical schools weigh an applicant's school of undergraduate study? That is to say, does a student coming from a "less prestigious" university have a disadvantage against a student with a similar GPA and MCAT score from a top-level school?</p>
<p>i've been searching for this too! any help would be...well....extremly helpful!</p>
<p>Usually doesn't matter a whole lot. Some schools care more than others. A common complaint w/ a med school I will be interviewing at in a couple of weeks is that it is extremely snooty towards folks not from Ivy-level colleges.</p>
<p>Generally, you will find a lot of Ivy League students (and folks from Stanford, Berkeley, WashU, etc.) at your interviews (esp. at top med schools). However, I've met some folks from lower UC's and other assorted state schools too. It's up to the individual.</p>
<p>Ah, I see. Thank you for the reply.</p>
<p>The thing is, I'm a senior in high school right now, and truth be told, I really didn't put forth enough effort over the past couple of years. So, now I'm stressing over where I'm going to end up for my undergrad education.</p>
<p>Because I intend to put forth every bit of effort possible during the next four years, though, I really hope that the institution listed on my diploma won't hinder my chances at getting into one of the top research medical schools (Harvard Med would be awesome, but coming from a "third-tier" university?), should I choose to apply.</p>
<p>Does anybody else have any knowledge or experience? Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>Don't stress about something you can't control. The work you did in HS to get into undergrad is done and over with; what's done is done. If med school is your goal, then you should be looking ahead. It is absolutely doable if you put in the effort, no matter where you study at undergrad.</p>
<p>My brother graduated from UIUC. Obviously a good school, but nothing so overly prestigious. He's now an intern at Harvard Med School. Don't stress.</p>
<p>just wondering, which schools tend to be more biased towards ivies and which tend to not care at all.</p>
<p>Ah sorry, I really should have looked there first. Thank you for the link.</p>
<p>I don't think there's necessarily a consensus about which schools weigh undergraduate prestige the heaviest. You will probably find however that half or more of all interviewees at the top med schools will be from Top 20 undergrads.</p>
<p>How much is correlation vs. causation is impossible to say.</p>
<p>If you look at MDApplicants.com, you might get some idea, at least about the folks that report info there.</p>
<p>If you are concerned about where you graduate from, remember that you have another chance to prove your stuff: Do well your first year (or two) in college and you might be able to transfer to a more prestigious place. Happens all the time, but you really must perform to do so.</p>
<p>Right BDM (#11). Plus I think there is causation/correlation at multiple levels. For example, I do think that there is a lot of bias/peer pressure for students at Top undergrad schools to apply to more prestigious medical schools - that likely accounts for a significant portion of distribution NCG describes.</p>
<p>I'm sure it's way more correlation than causation but I just wanted to prepare them. Heck, I went to an Ivy and I'm still intimidated when I interview at top schools. In fact, I enjoy interviewing at lower tier schools much more because the kids seem more social and less competitive. The conversations I have w/ the Ivy interviewees at top schools tend to center around "where have you interviewed at" while at less prestigeous schools I actually have a chance to get to know my possible future classmates.</p>
<p>Re: NMD's post #12: If you're really doing very well your first two years, there's probably no point to transferring.</p>
<p>NCG - that interaction with your classmates is certainly something to consider when you finally have to make a decision...how much it matters is certainly up to you, but I can't imagine how much more horrible med school would have been had I not made a large group of great friends by being here.</p>
<p>BRM's right, except that your interview pool is very unlikely to be too similar to your eventual classmates. There's going to be an adcom rooting through them in a non-random fashion, and then they're going to choose a school in a non-random fashion, too. Use second-look weekends, as well as the older students you met, to judge a student body. Not an interview day.</p>