<p>WashU’s also a big pre-med school.</p>
<p>To the OP: I would say that if your son isn’t sure about med school, the relative difficulty of entering med school from various schools should not be a factor in his decision on where to attend. What undergrad you go to may have a greater impact in other areas.</p>
<p>You consider limiting the numbers of As and Bs in a class grade deflation?</p>
<p>Are you also considering that the professors should scale their students’ results too?</p>
<p>What kind of numbers are we talking about, in terms of grade deflation?</p>
<p>In my classes, our rule of thumb, which we are allowed to break if we can prove our case, is that there are 1/3rd As and Bs, 1/3rd Cs, and 1/3rd Ds and Fs. Lower level math and science classes are taught almost identically each year, and if they expect a certain number of each grade, that is up to them. </p>
<p>The best advice for your son is not to use any possible AP credits, and start with Calc 1 and the lowest level appropriate sciences too. He should ace the freshman classes, and be well-prepared for the upper-level classes.</p>
<p>He should go where he wants to go as long as you can afford it, and my suggestion about his track should be considered.</p>
<p>When considering a pre-med school, look at the availability of the extra-curricular opportunities. Are there research opportunities for undergrads in biology, chemistry, etc? Are there hospitals affiliated with the university or conveniently close to the university, which have mentoring, shadowing or volunteering opportunities? These types of extracurriculars are all but mandatory for medical school admission.</p>
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<p>Adding to above is a quote from Goro (a very frequent and well respected Student Doctor Network poster who is DO adcom), “Academically nearly all med school applicants are clones. Numbers get you to the door, but ECs get you through the door. I see no ends of post here from high stat people who were rejected because they didn’t have ECs.”</p>
<p><a href=“http://■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/threads/no-interview-invites-for-md-admission.1103125/page-2#post-15780733”>http://■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/threads/no-interview-invites-for-md-admission.1103125/page-2#post-15780733</a></p>
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thumper, The Hop matriculates ~1325 each year, so my guess is well over 500 of them are premed/prehealth.</p>
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<p>@bluebayou About 390 JHU students apply to med schools each year.</p>
<p>^^^
Too late to edit…</p>
<p>I don’t know how many get accepted. </p>
<p>I wouldn’t want to be one of 390 trying to get the best LORs from a smallish number of science profs.</p>
<p>right, but those must include reapplicants.</p>
<p>Hop even states that only 20% of those matriculating Frosh who are interested in med school ultimately apply to med school. Of those, 86% acceptance rate, which is not surprising since they most cannot get thru the gauntlet with a high enough GPA to get a committee rec.</p>
<p>Of course, what that really means is that 80% of those who matriculate to The Hop as premed do not make it. Sure, everyone finds other interests in college, but an 80% washout rate is HUGE, IMO, given that the students purposely choose Hopkins as a place to be premed.</p>
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<p>1/3 D and F grades is a pretty harsh curve. Does your school have a lot of poorly prepared students who fail to learn the material by any reasonable standard?</p>
<p>With that many D and F grades, the flunk-out rate from that school must be very high.</p>
<p>@bluebayou: that’s 20% of the class, not 20% of those who start out interested, but I’d expect the percentage who originally had medicine as their goal at Hopkins to be close to 50%, so yes, a lot of culling.</p>
<p>You want to watch out for any schools that tout a large % of acceptances but base it on the small number who get that far.
BBs quote comes from this: <a href=“Pre-Professional Advising | Student Affairs”>Pre-Professional Advising | Student Affairs; </p>
<p>This is not simply about the number of A’s and B’s being limited by some policy. It can be the nature of the testing in the fist place. </p>
<p>We can use the freshmen enrollment profile and AAMC data to figure out the med school application rate of each school.</p>
<p>Ex:</p>
<p>JHU
Freshmen enrollment: 1418 <a href=“https://apply.jhu.edu/facts/[/url]”>https://apply.jhu.edu/facts/</a>
AAMC med school applicants: 390, rate: 27.5%</p>
<p>UCLA
Freshmen enrollment 5701: <a href=“http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/prospect/adm_fr/Frosh_Prof13.htm[/url]”>http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/prospect/adm_fr/Frosh_Prof13.htm</a>
AAMC med school applicants: 919, rate: 16.1%</p>
<p>AAMC:
<a href=“https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/86042/table2.html[/url]”>https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/86042/table2.html</a></p>
<p>@PurpleTitan I don’t think so. At the beginning, JHU indicates that it is talking about fresh premeds…not the frosh population at large. Or maybe the below is ambiguous?</p>
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<p>Hop even states that only 20% of those matriculating Frosh who are interested in med school ultimately apply to med school. Of those, 86% acceptance rate, which is not surprising since they most cannot get thru the gauntlet with a high enough GPA to get a committee rec.</p>
<p>Of course, what that really means is that 80% of those who matriculate to The Hop as premed do not make it. Sure, everyone finds other interests in college, but an 80% washout rate is HUGE, IMO, given that the students purposely choose Hopkins as a place to be premed.</p>
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<p>Ahh…good point about there being reapplicants.</p>
<p>The washout is huge at virtually every school. Nearly every smart high school student is told, “you should be a doctor.” Smart = Doctor in many people’s heads. lol But, it’s not for everyone, not even for every smarty, so soon a bunch get weeded out. </p>
<p>I agree that @rhandco 's curve sounds odd. I think she’s a prof at a directional state school, but even so, that many kids should not be getting Ds and Fs. Does the school have a harsh withdrawal policy??</p>
<p>I think your son should base his choice of college based on size, location, academic offerings and “vibe” just like anyone else. He can major in anything and still apply to medical school (or physician’s assistant, nursing, acupuncture, whatever) after graduation. In fact, music majors have one of the highest admit rates as a group. The best doctor we have was an English major.</p>
<p>If he likes biology, that is a different matter, but it doesn’t sound like his strongest subject, though your posts are a little confusing on this topic 
Is biology something he loves? Does he have other areas of study that he is interested in? Or strong in? For instance, in the humanities?</p>
<p>So many kids want to become doctors (and parents want them to too). It can be a sign of true dedication, or a sign of insecurity or immaturity, even lack of sophistication. Either way, the decision to go on that long path can wait. He can major in whatever really interests him, then take the prerequisites for application to med school after graduation (there are programs for this or it can be done a la carte).</p>
<p>It’s a shame to base decisions on premed concerns. Most schools don’t even have premed. And it’s a shame to decide where to go based on potential GPA too. (Why not go to CC then?) Encourage your son to make his decision on where to apply and where to accept- on his experience in those 4 years as a priority, not some uncertain future goal.</p>
<p>@coolweather:</p>
<p>??? But if you don’t know the percentage of the freshmen who started out with med school as the end goal, you can’t actually figure out what percentage made it (and it’s assuredly a higher percentage at JHU than at UCLA).</p>
<p>^ It’s great if we know the percentage of freshman intending to go to med school. But’s it’s very hard to figure out that percentage. Many students change majors after the first and second year. A large part is weeded out after taking some basic math and science classes. Some students never thought about med school in the first 2, 3 years but then jump in later.</p>
<p>Looking at the number of med school applicants, the acceptance rate, and the total student population is one way to determine if the undergraduate school is good for med school preparation or not.</p>
<p>@compmom. he does love biology, and it is his strongest subject. He is excited to study biology in college, regardless of whether he ultimately applies to medical school. I think he would be happy in some type of job involving research. He doesn’t love chemistry, though, and struggled a bit with that in high school (earned Bs on his report card in honors chemistry his sophomore year; did not take AP chem). As I said, he is a good student in math and science–just not the very best.</p>
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<p>Why the percentage of freshmen who started out with med school as the end goal is assuredly higher at JHU then at UCLA? Do you have the numbers for both schools?</p>
<p>By the way, UCLA med school preperation is not bad. Acceptance rate is around 55%.
<a href=“https://www.admissions.ucla.edu/prospect/PreMed.pdf[/url]”>https://www.admissions.ucla.edu/prospect/PreMed.pdf</a></p>
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<p>However, note that UCLA is actually larger than it appears from frosh enrollment, because about 3,000 additional students come in as junior transfers. UCLA probably has about 8,000 bachelor’s degree graduates per year.</p>
<p>Your son should be aware that entry level research jobs in biology are very hard to come by and don’t pay all that well. (I work at a biomedical research facility.) Biology has poor employment prospects. Not just at the bachelor’s level but at all levels, including PhD.</p>
<p>Neither of my daughters (now both med students) majored in biology. In fact, both my husband and myself discouraged them from doing so. Each majored in a STEM field that they enjoyed which offered better post-graduation employability. </p>
<p>Med school admission requires not much bio (2 semesters) and much more chem (5 semesters). </p>
<p>I don’t think UCLA’s acceptance rate is very good. 53% (after weeding) is nothing to get excited about. It mentions the 13 with 35+ MCATs and high GPA’s having a 100% acceptance rate, but that would likely be true for any school.</p>
<p>I would prefer to see an acceptance rate grid with MCATs 28 - 38+…and GPAs 3.0 - 4.0</p>
<p>What % of UCLA med school applicants with, say, a MCAT 32 and GPA 3.7 get accepted? If that number is less than 75%, then I think they’re below average.</p>