<p>Since getting input about "what are the best med schools'' by the people who actually know how this works almost never results in concrete information I'd like to try something different. So let's see if we can get a list of undergrad schools that provide the best help to pre-meds. By this I mean effective and personal pre-med advising, history of past success in getting students into medical schools, well taught science classes that prepare students for MCAT/Med school more-so than the usual, schools offering good MCAT prep courses, good recognized research opportunities, etc. </p>
<p>Thanks for any advice, from all prospective pre-meds!</p>
<p>What you’ve asked for is impossible to provide.</p>
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<p>Advisor dependent. What works for one pre-med may not work for another. You’re left relying on anecdotal evidence. </p>
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<p>What does this even mean? Can the fact that I’m now a physician stand as evidence that my undergrad has a history of past success? Does this mean that the school has a high retention of pre-frosh pre-meds who make it all the way through? Or is this along the lines of if you’re one of the 5 people (out of say 500 pre-med freshmen) who made it all the way through to senior year and then apply you’re guaranteed med school admission?</p>
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<p>This one is the most laughable. The med school pre-reqs merely provide a vocabulary of the basic principles. Knowing all the science does not lead to better MCAT scores if you can’t think. The premed classes don’t prepare you for med school and they rarely have any applicability to direct patient care. Quite often their breadth is far too wide to be of any use, and medical school classes will have a much narrower scope that they explore with far more depth. Further more, every college student knows that it’s the PROFESSOR that determines if the class is good. There’s nothing magical about the building where that person teaches. My organic chem prof would have been the same guy in Columbus, Ohio as he would have been in Palo Alto, California, as he would have been in New Orleans, Louisiana. But at my university, the other section of Organic Chem - with the same course name and the same text book and even the same lecture hall…but a different prof, was horrible. Students in that section would come ask students in my section for help. But my prof didn’t teach the class every semester, so if it hadn’t worked out for me schedule-wise I would have been stuck with the other guy. The point is, you can’t reliably decipher which classes are well taught or have expectations that you’re automatically going to be able to register for the “well taught” class.</p>
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<p>As opposed to commercial ventures? Is this something that would even factor into a decision on where to go to college? How do you go about ranking schools that don’t offer prep courses? Kaplan and TPR offer courses online and plenty of people never use anything more than a book from the library, so there are plenty of other options that are always available.</p>
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<p>Despite the fact that no one believes me, the truth of the matter is that the research opportunities are generally going to be better the larger the school is. Your flagship state publics and other Research I schools that are giving out hundreds of PhD’s each year have far greater research machinery in place, with profs who’s professional careers and advancement are dependent on their research output. This runs counter to what everyone wants to hear about small class sizes and individual attention at Liberal Arts schools. Liberal Arts Schools are noteworthy for the fact that they DON’T have a research agenda, that they don’t have thousands of grad students, that their stated focus is on teaching - that’s what they’re selling. And yet frequently there are posters on this board who claim that doing premed at such a school is the best choice for any premed student…</p>
And yet frequently there are posters on this board who claim that doing pre-med at such a school is the worst choice for any pre-med student. lol. </p>
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<p>The real truth of the matter is :</p>
<p>Generalizations of the type complained of (and offered by ;)) brm are generally wrong. Anyway, this process is far more individualized and it would be a mistake to rely on “generalizations”. Pick the right school for you. So sayeth me.</p>
<p>I’m going to disagree with this. Keep in mind, I’m a large-school person. I never applied to any LAC’s as a HS senior and I ended up attending a fairly large private school.</p>
<p>If I’m a young professor looking to jump start my research career, would I want to go to a LAC? Hell no. The caliber of research done at a liberal-arts college is just not comparable to that of a larger state school.</p>
<p>However, as an undergrad, you are not going to be doing that high caliber of research. Instead, what is more important to an undergrad is the quality of his research mentor and the amount of responsibility he is given in the lab. LAC’s may very well provide a better research experience in this regard.</p>
<p>Here comes another generalization : At most big research schools the grad students get the plum assignments/autonomy/responsibility. The undergrads? They are just rowing the boat and are rarely seen top-side. ;)</p>
<p>The quality of research at LAC’s? Depends. Generalizations are not that helpful. Well-funded research experiences with some autonomy/responsibility can be found at LAC’s and big schools. The question is…will you get one of them? Go where you are likely to get what you want if research is your thing. </p>
<p>For example : For my biology research-focused data point, an LAC (Rhodes College) trumped all other schools. Her choice of UG has served her/prepared her remarkably well for med school and a research-oriented medical career . She garnered some attention for her well-funded “quality” research, not to mention speaking/presentation opps nationwide. It was the kind of experience that was mentioned often by her interviewers. Some folks must have thought it was pretty high caliber. ;)</p>
At a large research school, the mentor is often a PhD student or a post-doc who is able to commit him/herself more fully than a typical UG. They, not the lowly premeds, are more valuable to the PI. How can a UG who takes a full load of courses compete against a post-doc or PhD candidate for a “good” part of research job? In the research circle, some even think that MD-PhD can barely compete against a career researcher like post-doc.</p>
<p>Personally, I’m aghast at the colleges that do offer mcat/lsat/other review courses and even provide graduation credit for such courses. Yeah, just my opinion.</p>
: At most big research schools the grad students get the plum assignments/autonomy/responsibility. The undergrads? They are just rowing the boat and are rarely seen top-side. ;)</p>