<p>Does anyone have data or information on percentage of applicants admitted to medical schools from various undergraduate colleges and universities. I read either here or someplace else (?) that the acceptance rate for prospective med students at MIT was quite low relative to the IVYs. My S has been accepted RD to MIT and EA to Yale, and presently thinks he wants to go to medical school in four years. I would appreciate any information or a reference. It is not the only factor to take into consideration, of course, but it would be helpful to know if my memory is correct or something I may have dreamt. Thanks.</p>
<p>The Wall Street Journal compiled a list of the top 50 feeder schools for top law, business and medical schools. Here are the results:</p>
<p>Top 50 Feeder Schools
1) Harvard
2) Yale
3) Princeton
4) Stanford
5) Williams
6) Duke
7) Dartmouth
8) MIT
9) Amherst
10) Swarthmore
11) Columbia
12) Brown
13) Pomona
14) University of Chicago
15) Wellesley
16) University of Pennsylvania
17) Georgetown
18) Haverford
19) Bowdoin
20) Rice
21) Northwestern
22) Claremont McKenna
23) Middlebury
24) Johns Hopkins
25) Cornell
26) Bryn Mawr
27) Wesleyan
28) Cal Tech
29) Morehouse
30) University of Michigan
31) New College of Florida
32) Vassar
33 University of Virginia
34) United States Military Academy
35) University of Notre Dame
36) Emory University
37) United States Naval Academy
38) Macalester
39) Brandeis
40) Bates
41) University of California, Berkeley
42) Barnard
43) Trinity
44) Grinnell
45) Tufts
46) Colby
47) Washington University
48) Washington and Lee
49) Case Western Reserve
50) Reed</p>
<p>Most schools have pages on their websites where they have specific information about grad/med/law/bus school acceptances. </p>
<p>I am not sure if the numbers in the list above are relevant for comparison purposes in that there is no common denominator?? Grinnell has 1400 kids.. UCB has at least 10 times that many. </p>
<p>As far as making a decision about where to go based upon med school acceptance rate(when comparing schools of the caliber of MIT and Yale, particularly) , I would be cautious. A student will do best at the school best suited to them, and in turn this will translate into success in terms of med school (or other) admission. Selecting a school by weighting this , or any other single variable, too highly seems risky. What if your child decides they want to get a PhD in Biochem instead? (as a possible example only)..</p>
<p>Most of those statistics (ie. 96% of our students get accepted to med school) are flawed. Often, they do not include everyone who wantd to go to medical school, but just everyone that the pre-med advisior thought was good enough to recommend (which means that some sudents who wanted to apply could not, essentially rejecting them before they even applied). At other schools, they only include percentage of students accepted who had above a certain GPA.</p>
<p>PM sakky about MIT specifically...she(?) always has a lot to say.</p>
<p>I think there would have to be some serious flaw in a student who graduated from either one of those schools who did not get into any med school at all. As long as your S maintains a reasonably high GPA, and isn't a disastrous interview, he'll get in someplace. With a background from either of these, he should have a high MCAT score, especially since he's already shown he can get into schools like these.</p>
<p>Therefore I concur with others that this should not be the reason for choosing a school. There are lots of other real differences between thse two fine universities, and that's what he should be looking at.</p>
<p>I just read somewhere that the national average for medical school acceptance rate last year was over 50%. I had no idea it was that high.</p>
<p>I think I would even go further than those to great schools; if your son were admitted to any of the top 20-30 schools in the WSJ list his application will be based far more on his actual accomplishments then his alma mater. For god's sake, Johns Hopkins is 24 on this list!</p>
<p>In general, the consenus on the pre-med board is that you should go to the best known school where you think you will be able to get the best GPA. Woodwork and I crossed posts, but he's (?) right that your app will be based more on your accomplishments than your alma mater at any of the top schools - then the question becomes, where would it be easiest to achieve these accomplishments? Usually, someone says that it is more difficult to get a good GPA at MIT than Harvard, for example. Sakky often argues that MIT pre-meds have a much lower rate of acceptance to med school than you might expect, because it is so difficult to get a high GPA and med school adcoms don't account for this completely. </p>
<p>Of course, your best bet if your main goal is to get into med school is one of the combined degree programs (like Brown's PLME, Northwestern's HPME, Rice/Baylor, Case Western PSPP, U of Rochester REMS, and others) - probably not the Wash U one though, I think that program is just terrible. I think secondarily to that, you should take the time to inquire (especially from the students) about the pre-med advising office. Is it easy to get appointments? Are the advisors knowledgeble? Do they have good relationships with med schools? Do they write good recs? Do they write recs for anyone who wants them? etc...
Personally, I think smaller schools generally do better on this count. But that's just me.</p>
<p>I was premed at MIT, albeit a long time ago. One huge advantage to being premed at MIT is the incredible UROP program which facilitates participation in research quite easily. Also, since the first semester is pass fail, a student can "adjust" while not being so worried about their grades in some of the pre-med requirements.</p>
<p>Beyond this, however, as an MIT student who is premed (let's say you choose to major in Bio as I did) you are working no harder than your other classmates...which might not be the same at other schools.</p>
<p>All this said, I would still pick a school for the "school" so long as the choices are a prime as Yale and MIT....the miniscule differences in med school admissions are irrelevant...</p>
<p>I've criticized that WSJ list before, and I really don't intend on debating it again...but I will point out for those who aren't already familiar with its shortcomings that by limiting their universe of "top" professional schools to five--in each category--(law, business, medicine), they have created an essentially useless list. None of Stanford's professional schools were considered "top" schools for the purpose of ranking the "feeder" schools, nor were UPenn's medical or law schools, Duke's medical or law schools, Northwestern's business or law schools, NYU Law, WashUStL medical, and on and on. Top professional schools by any definition, and by omitting them, the WSJ really can't be said to have ranked much of anything.</p>
<p>Having served on an admissions committee (many years ago), I can advise you to go with fit. The committee pays scant attention to the school of origin. They look at undergraduate accomplishments (GPA, service to the community etc.). They look at the MCAT for validation. (BTW MCAT scores correlate very strongly with part I of the National Board taken at the end of the second year of med school) They read essays for interest and commitment. They read recommendations for clues to character. How the Medical schools look at Yale Vs. MIT should take up 0.00001% of your time spent making a decision.</p>
<p>My concern wasn't whether the med school admissions committee was partial to one school over another, but rather whether the apparently lower grade point averages of MIT students made it much more difficult for them to go to medical school. I remember reading something in that regard, and was trying to find that information. The two schools my son is contemplating have very different cultures, strengths and weaknesses. Professional school admissions is just one more factor in an already complicated, though exciting, equation.</p>
<p>Do a search on sakky's posts. He or she claims that MIT has terrible med school admissions. Sakky has posted quite a lot about this on the Princeton board, in a thread on the new grading policy there, but there are other posts of sakky's on these boards as well. Congrats...quite a nice choice to be making.</p>
<p>Smomb, I agree with the other posters. For one thing, I'm not so sure that a high GPA is all that easy in the sciences at Yale, either. I think all the Ivies have fairly competitive pre-med courses, with Cornell being famously difficult. The decision between Yale and MIT is a wonderful problem, and should be made on other things besides med school admissions.
The med school differences I see are these - at MIT he has to take the med school pre-reqs to graduate (all but one or two courses) so there is no opting out, vs at Yale where you might take frosh chem or bio and decide to finish med school pre-reqs elsewhere, and major in Medieval History, etc (not a bad plan for med school admissions). Also, at MIT the "hidden" first semester grades can backfire, many med schools will require those grades to be unmasked, because they include required classes - so a kid may have been adjusting to MIT, end up with reasonable grades in the end, but have his worst grades in some of the most important courses. On the other hand, if he does well at MIT, I think that would be a big selling point for med school (engineers, for example have high %admission rates).
Another point to consider when visiting the schools - shadowing and clinical exposure are very important parts of med school admissions, Yale has a med school and hospital attached, I'm sure it has varied, but relatively conventional clinical/research offerings. MIT has no attached hospital, but I'm sure there are some clinical arrangements, and the research in biomechanics, etc is cutting edge, but more "specialized" than Yale's. What if he is a plain 'ole biology major - can he ride down to Mass General and see patients or do research? Or maybe the biomechanics/bioinformatics type stuff is his cup of tea.</p>
<p>I'd go somewhere with the idea of NOT being a biology or other "pre-med" major. Do music, medieval studies, philosophy, art history, something that will feed your soul long after you are part of the medical grind. Won't hurt your med school admissions one iota (at some places, it might actually help it) - you'll still have to do the same 11-12 pre-med courses. Med school admissions rates for those who can get into the top 100 or so schools in the country as undergraduates are hugely high - the trick is how to pay for it.</p>
<p>At Williams, the percentage of music majors in the past decade going to med school is higher than that for biology majors.</p>
<p>
[quote]
At Williams, the percentage of music majors in the past decade going to med school is higher than that for biology majors.
[/quote]
What an utterly fascinating piece of information! Can you expound on it at all? (not doubting, just really interested and curious).</p>
<p>It just is. You can even find the future career plans of the music majors for the last several decades on their website. When my d. was admitted as a music major (she turned them down), the adcom, knowing of my her naturopathic interests, made a big point about how the music majors do lots of other things as well.</p>
<p>A person who gets into one of the top 100 schools and applies him/herself for four years is going to get into med. school. It just isn't that hard. The biggest risk is going to a program where they make a point of weeding down the pre-meds before they apply, or limiting the number of folks for whom they will write recommendations. The other big risk is being saddled with huge loans from undergrad days, and then having to add on another $100-$200k for med school on top of it.</p>
<p>While I agree, Mini, that you can major in anything and go to med school so long as you take the required courses, I think that it is unrealistic to assume that the majority of kids who would be pre-med would not want to major in a science of some sort. </p>
<p>The practice of medicine might be an art, but the study of medicine is a science- and is largely a study of sciences. A student who truly wants to do 2 years of pre-clinical courses in medical school will often have a passion for sciences in general. </p>
<p>I think it is fabulous for kids to study music, or anthropology or English and then go on to medical school. Their own life experience is different, they bring something different to their learning and practice of medicine. They will never be the majority of medical students, however.</p>
<p>And, I agree on the "other risk." I had 90,000 in debt when I finished in 1982...you can bet it has impacted my life. Biggest mistake I made was going to an Ivy League medical school, when there would have been no difference in my life outcome of going to my state medical school....</p>
<p>
[quote]
The biggest risk is going to a program where they make a point of weeding down the pre-meds before they apply, or limiting the number of folks for whom they will write recommendations.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Most schools have classes (usually Organic chem) that are designed to weed out pre-meds. It's a dog eat dog world and if they can't survive those classes then they probably couldn't cut it in med school either.</p>
<p>It's true, but some schools are more supportive than others (tutoring, review sessions, office hours, TA homework help sessions, student formed study groups, test banks, etc.)</p>
<p>Ok, I have to go study for MY chem test now! Don't want to get weeded out!</p>