<p>Do med school admissions committees give any advantage to children of alumni?</p>
<p>I've heard rumors of it, but tend not to believe it.</p>
<p>My girlfriend with something like 12 docs in her family who all attended her current med school (a private one) believes that's why she got in on off the waiting list...but if it was that important I wonder why she was on the waiting list at all. </p>
<p>If it does exist, it's probably more likely at private schools.</p>
<p>Bummer. (10 chars.)</p>
<p>From a strictly logical and common sense point of view (read: don't quote me on this), I think med schools are looking to create good doctors, not to keep a physician bloodline running. If they don't think someone will be a good doctor, I imagine they wouldn't admit them regardless of family connections. Unless those connections run really deep.</p>
<p>Presumably there's some small advantage, the same way undergraduate schools have some small advantage, thanks to the desire to keep your alums donating.</p>
<p>Like at elite undergraduate colleges, legacy admissions probably matter most if the family is a major donor to the medical school or hospital. Medical schools want to keep that source flowing as long as possible.</p>
<p>Children of faculty are another matter. They probably do have an inside track. Partly due to the fact that admissions committee members (typically other faculty members) may already know the parent and partly as a retention tool/?reward for a productive faculty member. Obviously, the applicant has to be qualified. On the other hand, children of faculty at one school do not have any advantage when they apply to another school.</p>
<p>In the 1970s, one book on the subject (studying four students at Penn) it was well-understood that children of physicians enjoyed a significant advantage. Children of physicians with affiliations at that particular school were yet more advantaged. I wonder if this is still, under-the-table of course, true.</p>
<p>I agree with bluedevilmike. I suspect that this is still true to some extent, especially with private schools. It does not mean that legacies are less competitively academically. It is just another positive in the application.</p>
<p>Medical schools really like to brag also about whole generations that have graduated from the same school.</p>
<p>If daddy's a doc, you stand a pretty good chance...</p>
<p>Maybe they don't give advantage just for the sake of keeping the legacy, but the kid who has one or two parents who are doctors has an undeniable advantage. He/She has been advised as a pre-med around the dinner table since age 5, has nice connections with mommy's friends for some sweeet reccomendations, probably started shadowing dad's operations at age 11... not to mention the parents are probably swimming in money and can use that to their child's advantage in many ways.</p>
<p>Life's tough.</p>
<p>"I wonder if this is still, under-the-table of course, true."</p>
<pre><code> I also thought chriscap was describing me as I fit his description to some extent. I believe physician's children do have an unspoken advantage(those physicians sitting on the admission cmte have children of their own and may have similar aspirations for their own children). My class has 2 faculty children in it as well as a few others who are children of physicians in the city. At our white coat ceremony, the speaker asked all of the physicians sitting in the audience to join in the hippocratic oath and to stand up-there were a large number of parents who stood up..I think that going into the 'family business' is not unusual in any family. Yes, coming from a medical family helps both directly and indirectly in the admissions process.
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