<p>My D is looking for a good liberal arts college with a solid pre-med program. She's hoping to find a school with good access to and relationships with hospitals, and possibly relationships with medical schools. Thoughts?</p>
<p>Not sure what you consider to be a “solid pre-med program.” Can you clarify?</p>
<p>Is your D a junior? What are her test scores and GPA? </p>
<p>what is your budget? If you need FA, will you qualify for the amount that you need?</p>
<p>Do you have any geographical restrictions?</p>
<p>A number of LACs are in rather “out of the way” locations and may not have easy accept to hospitals, etc.</p>
<p>A lot of Rhodes students volunteer at St. Jude.</p>
<p>Presumably students at the other (sub)urban LACs like Reed, Davidson, Lewis & Clark, the Quaker colleges, Colorado College, Trinity U, Occidental, Barnard, Macalester, Agnes Scott, etc. have plenty of options.</p>
<p>That said, it’s my impression that a rural location is not necessarily a hindrance. Students at Cornell seem to do fine in med admissions, for example, despite being located in small Ithaca with its medical school over 200 miles away.</p>
<p>It isn’t listed as a liberal arts college but look at Trinity University in San Antonio. It has 2400 undergraduates and is building a new sciences building. (Not to mention a 1 billion dollar endowment)</p>
<p>Might try Holy Cross in Massachusetts. HC(don’t have to be religious) has one of the best pre-med program in the East. HC has fantastic medical alumni network, Nobel Prize winner, medical school presidents, a leading MD at NIH, ETC.</p>
<p>Med-school admissions track records are not necessarily dependent on location. Williams, for example, is in a rural location but has excellent admissions success, excellent career counseling and lots of internship and networking opportunities.</p>
<p>muhlenberg college has programs for bachelors/md with both drexel and temple.
best all around school (IMO)</p>
<p>Agree that rural location is not necessarily a hinderance in getting into med school. Carleton, for example, does very well in med school admissions, even though they are not near a large city/hospital.</p>
<p>Agree that rural location is not necessarily a hinderance in getting into med school. Carleton, for example, does very well in med school admissions, even though they are not near a large city/hospital.</p>
<p>I completely agree. My comment about “rural locations” was in response to the OP’s desire that the LAC have “good access to hospitals.” </p>
<p>Certainly those who attend schools in rural areas DO get into med school. Having access to hospitals is not req’d for acceptance to med schools.</p>
<p>Some LAC’s also have cooperative agreements with certain medical schools. At Knox College, for example, qualified students can be accepted into George Washington University’s medical program at the end of their sophomore year. They’ve still got to finish out the bachelor’s degree, but the pre-med stress over grades is gone. Details are here: [url=<a href=“http://www.knox.edu/offices-and-services/registrar/catalog/depts-and-courses-of-study/medicine.html]Medicine”>http://www.knox.edu/offices-and-services/registrar/catalog/depts-and-courses-of-study/medicine.html]Medicine</a> | Knox College<a href=“Knox%20is%20on%20a%20trimester%20schedule,%20so%20when%20they%20say%20the%20end%20of%20the%20sixth%20term,%20that’s%20the%20end%20of%20sophomore%20year.”>/url</a></p>
<p>I would really recommend Pomona College. More than 93% of the students applying to Medical School get accepted- I think that’s tied with Yale for the first or second highest in the country. The school has phenomenal offerings in relevant pre-med offerings, such as chemistry, biology, psychology, molecular biology, and neuroscience, and many classes are oriented towards preparing students for medical school, such as Medicinal Chemistry. About 10-20% of the class tends to do pre-medicine, and with a phenomenal advising committee and a laid-back and collaborative atmosphere, pre-meds truly succeed here. </p>
<p>Pomona is located in the heart of Southern California, right in the middle of LA and the Inland Empire. The school pays for internships and transportation to get to them through the PCIP program, many of which involve hospitals and clinics. Pomona also pays for independent unpaid enrichment experiences, such as shadowing at a hospital. </p>
<p>You’d be hard pressed to find a better liberal arts college in terms of pre-med success. You’d be hard pressed to find a better liberal arts college, period, not just for pre-med, but for academic quality, financial aid, student happiness, and other essential factors.</p>
<p>You have oodles and oodles of options, so I’m with mom2collegekids thinking we need more info. Pretty much any LAC out there gets kids into med school. I can’t think of any who don’t. You do narrow it some by wanting those close to hospitals, but don’t lower it enough to do more than get recommendations of folk’s favorite schools.</p>
<p>And don’t go by Med School Acceptance rates. Many colleges with super high rates limit those who can apply, so if you end up with borderline stats (ie, you’re not the top of the top), your chances to go will be killed before you even get to apply. Instead, look at where recent grads have gone and what stats they had to get there. Then gauge what you think YOU can do. Do this conservatively - many students don’t do as well in college and they think they will coming from high school. Some do, of course, but you won’t know where you’ll fit in until you join the race.</p>
<p>If you haven’t yet, check out the pre-med forum stickies here:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/1122176-bluedevilmikes-ten-step-guide-picking-premed-school.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/1122176-bluedevilmikes-ten-step-guide-picking-premed-school.html</a></p>
<p>(Look at more than just the one I linked.)</p>
<p>In several years on this board, I’ve yet to see any evidence that factors other than GPA and MCAT scores, associated with specific colleges, make a significant, measurable difference in med school admissions. That’s not to say no other factors are important. An interview is part of the process. The interview exposes personal qualities (maturity, energy, sense of purpose) that can’t be captured by a GPA or score. However, I’ve never seen any evidence that, given equal grades and scores, students from College X consistently out-perform students from College Y in getting from interview to acceptance by med school Z.</p>
<p>Virtually any LAC will offer all the courses you need to satisfy pre-med requirements.</p>
<p>Agree with above post ! Get at least a 3.6 and the magic 30 or more on the MCAT and that’s the formula to admission from a quality 4 year undergraduate college. That being said, the better the science courses that are actually taught to you, the better you will learn the material to get at 30+ on the MCAT.</p>
<p>
Sure. If you can get into Pomona college, acceptance rate about 14%, average accepted SAT 2100 (96th percentile), then I’d say the odds are pretty good that you’re smart enough to go on 4 years later into med school (acceptance rate about 40%). Is the 93% success rate from the magic dust they have at Pomona? Or just that they turned gold into gold?</p>
<p>There is a FAQ at another well-regarded LAC, Amherst, that talks about what it takes to be a good candidate for med school. Find it at <a href=“https://www3.amherst.edu/~sageorge/guide1.html[/url]”>https://www3.amherst.edu/~sageorge/guide1.html</a> I suggest the D of the OP spend 15 minutes reading thru it.</p>
<p>*And don’t go by Med School Acceptance rates. Many colleges with super high rates limit those who can apply, so if you end up with borderline stats (ie, you’re not the top of the top), your chances to go will be killed before you even get to apply. *</p>
<p>Very true. I remember when a high school student that was a few years older than my son said that he was choosing a certain LAC to go to because it has a 95% acceptance rate to med school. He wrongly thought that 95% of those who are frosh pre-meds, end up matriculating in a med school. </p>
<p>By the time he graduated from his undergrad his GPA wasn’t med-school worthy. After 2 years of some GPA-repair-work done at a local state public, he’s now a M1.</p>
<p>^^^ I always recommend pre-med wannabes at my high school head to undergrad colleges where they are in the top 25% (even 10%) stats-wise (but not so top that they tend to be bored unless finances dictate that it needs to be that way with a full ride or something). It guarantees nothing, but it does give them a little bit of confidence that they should be able to keep up with their peers if they adjust to college well (and studying, attending class, being careful of a love life or a party minor, etc). Otherwise, choose based upon fit & finances. </p>
<p>The OP isn’t wrong to ask for fit details. We just need more info to offer decent suggestions for their situation.</p>
<p>Sure. If you can get into Pomona college, acceptance rate about 14%, average accepted SAT 2100 (96th percentile), then I’d say the odds are pretty good that you’re smart enough to go on 4 years later into med school (acceptance rate about 40%). Is the 93% success rate from the magic dust they have at Pomona? Or just that they turned gold into gold?</p>
<p>I knew this was going to come up sooner or later. To address your points, the average GPA for a Pomona pre-med applicant is a 3.53 (as taken from their pre-med PP). The average MCAT tends to be around 30-33. According to AAMC data (<a href=“https://www.aamc.org/download/321508/data/2012factstable24.pdf[/url]”>https://www.aamc.org/download/321508/data/2012factstable24.pdf</a>), students have a 52% admission rate with those credentials, so Pomona must be doing something BEYOND just the student to get a 93% acceptance rate. At Pomona, people aren’t turned away from doing pre-medicine, and considering the average GPA for everyone is around a 3.5 people get to do as they want, so it’s not like Pomona hand chooses who it wants to represent pre-medicine.</p>
<p>The big factors that really help out Pomona are:
+An incredible amount of resources allocated to student success and opportunities
+A fantastic pre-med advising committee
+A liberal arts curriculum that is truly meant to make students well-rounded, an important asset for applications</p>
<p>Pomona’s average enrolled SAT is 2152. The average accepted one must be at least 2200.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.pomona.edu/Admissions/files/2016-profile.pdf[/url]”>http://www.pomona.edu/Admissions/files/2016-profile.pdf</a></p>
<p>The average MCAT tends to be around 30-33.</p>
<p>The average MCAT is not a 30-33. The average MCAT score is in the mid 20s.</p>
<p>And, frankly, any school that has applicants presenting with MCAT 30-33 and 3.5+ GPAs is going to have a high admittance rate to US MD schools. My own kid’s big public undergrad says that they experience an 85% acceptance rate with kids presenting with a 29+ MCAT and a 3.5+ GPA. </p>
<p>FYI…reported admit rates just mean that students were accepted to at least one US MD school. </p>
<p>After spending some time on that “other” premed forum and looking at various applicants linked stats, it’s very clear that those with high GPAs and good balanced MCATs (and who apply early) have an excellent chance at admittance to at least one US MD school.</p>