<p>
[quote]
Now, if you show me that Duke kept track of their X number of freshmen who registered as premeds
[/quote]
</p>
<p>See posts 5 and 7! If there's something wrong with that, please enlighten me as to why everybody is ignoring it! I'm more than a little confused, here. Are you protesting that negative attrition should be ignored and that Duke doesn't keep good enough track of it?</p>
<p>OK bluedevilmike: With the Singer's numbers in 2005 , 280 premed dropped to.... how many? She does not says. You have 118 premeds who ended up applying to med school, and of those Singer does not say if they were all part of the original premed number either...right? ( Post # 5 ) or if some extra people from other majors decided to switch. Now, how many of those got accepted into med school? Even better, how many of those got their first choice of med school ? ( She does not even tell you that for the 118 number which is not clear either. ) Those are the numbers that are valid to talk about...and Singer does not say a word about it in your post.</p>
<p>As far as post 7, lets talk one thing at a time. You are talking about "adding premeds to the initial number" and that has nothing to do with the point above.</p>
<p>does only Duke premed department post these reports? what about reports from other departments like economics?</p>
<p>I don't think how many students want to be pre-med is a big isue. Only think about how many students finally decide to take MCAT and apply the medical school. I beleive, every school stats would be how many students applied and the accepted rate depends on that number.</p>
<p>1.) She very clearly says that the end number of premeds for the year is 303. The fact that some of those premeds are alumni cancels out over time, because after all they have to apply eventually. Now, if you're arguing that some kids switched in and some switched out, then while I'll give you that the data doesn't exist, this is a pretty good proxy.</p>
<p>2.) I'll personally tell you that the odds of admission into any particular medical school are so low that talking about "first choices" simply doesn't apply to the process. Generally students don't form specific first choices, or at least not until they've interviewed there.</p>
<p>1.) I have already argued this point. You do not know the number of premeds that got into medical school ( seniors ) from the original group that went as freshmen to Duke. If you do know, please help me out and just fill in the blanks....</p>
<p>NUMBER OF PREMED FRESHMEN= for 200_
NUMBER OF PREMED FROM THE ABOVE GROUP THAT GOT ACCEPTED INTO MED SCHOOL= for 200_</p>
<p>DO YOU HAVE THOSE NUMBERS?? DOES SINGER HAVE THEM? Please, just help us out and answer that question.</p>
<p>2.- Again, you are talking "personally". Unfortunately, anecdotal info has little to no statistical value. The first choices DO apply to the process. Just like high school students have 'first choices' for colleges, so do undergrads for med school and graduate school. I have data from several ivies that track that data in a very statistical and meaningful way.</p>
<p>MovieBuff, I don't understand why you say that statistical data that doesn't include the "original" number of premed students is not useful. It's entirely irrelevant how many students enroll at Duke with thoughts of being premed, what matters is how many students decide to apply to med school and how many of these applying students are accepted. If every student who enrolls at Duke with intention of completing the premed track actually completes it and applies to medschool, I would argue that Duke is doing an awful job. I spoke with my lab partner today - someone asked her "are you premed?" and she responded with "I was". It turns out that the science courses weren't her thing. She doesn't enjoy them like she thought she would, and now she's thinking about going into administration in medicine. So many students enrolling at Duke want to go into medicine because it's an alluring field associated with power and success, and it so happens that students who enroll in a top tier university tend to be ambitious - with thoughts of power and success. Many students soon realize that the field isn't what they want to spend the rest of their lives doing and instead decide to do something else. Also, being serious about premed is a serious social sacrifice - I've learned this first hand - and many students don't believe it's worth it. If that's what you call "weeding out" then I fully support the weeding out process, because it leaves me working harder and learning more than I might have otherwise.</p>
<p>You ask for the number of students who were premed their freshmen year and subsequently how many of them were accepted to medschool, regardless of how many apply. I ask you this, then: where in your model do you leave room for the students who decide they would prefer to study political science and go on to law school and a successful career in that field?</p>
<p>And in response to your claim:
"unfortunately, anecdotal info has little to no statistical value"
I completely agree. A personal story does not give you emperical data. However it does give you insight that statistics cannot. If bluedevilmike is a Duke alumni or student who was or is premed or has been associated with other Duke premed students, then his general experience is arguably more valuable than what statistics can tell you.</p>
<p>-GDI</p>
<p>No doubt that Duke's got a great Pre-Med program. With that said, I personally think that the 84% is a buffed up, inaccurate measure. I agree with MovieBuff. I would really be interested to know how many students actually got weeded out. Any current/alumni Duke students know?</p>
<p>
[quote]
I would really be interested to know how many students actually got weeded out.
[/quote]
Fewer than get weeded "in". While MB doesn't seem to care about this net balance, I certainly think this particular point is valuable.</p>
<p>I'll be the first to concede that it's not complete, of course. But his utter disregard for such a statistic befuddles me.</p>
<p>Furthermore, his insistence on only using seniors baffles me as well.</p>
<hr>
<p>I certainly think that students do prefer some schools to others, but with the exception of in-state schools, I've never heard a Duke student express that he has a top choice until after his interview invitations are in.</p>
<p>I'm very curious to see this data for any other school, assuming it comes with a methodology.</p>
<p>Your average medical school has an admissions rate in the 5% range or so, while even the most elite undergraduate schools in the country have rates that are usually approximately double that. This is why I certainly did not select a top choice until after I had interviewed at a place, and this was the approach I saw from the vast majority of Duke students.</p>
<p>I don't understand this. Most undergrad programs use similar percentage systems. And ALL SCHOOLS have kids weeded out of pre-med. Some for what people say here: other interests. Others...hmmm. anyone heard of organic chemistry!? lol. Duke isn't the only school with organic chem. Taking the number of kids accepted divided by number of kids applying seems like the most logical thing to do in my opinion.</p>
<p>What are you all trying to prove, seriously.</p>
<p>It is like a high school saying they have a ___% acceptance rate to college. Is the high school not allowed to have that percentage system/rate if there are kids that do not choose to attend college!? This whole last discussion is very comical in my opinion.</p>
<p>quick question. Does someone know the acceptance rate for duke grads to unc for med school?</p>
<p>27/123 = 22%. Remember that this is artificially depressed by the time-cycle of medical school applications.</p>
<p>I applied to Yale School of Medicine, for example, but was already offered a full-tuition scholarship to a school that I preferred. I thus declined to interview with them when I was invited to do so. I thus would count as a "rejection" from Yale SOM even though I probably would have stood a ~40% chance of getting in. When I was waitlisted by Columbia, Duke, and UCLA, I elected not to pursue those waitlists even though I probably would have gotten into at least one of those.* The 16.5% is an artificially depressed number.</p>
<p>(As it turns out, they don't have very good administrative skills. I did get into one of those anyway.)</p>
<p>MovieBuff...go to that Ivy then. Obviously you don't seem to like Duke.</p>
<p>mboyle1988: This is not about which school I like or do not like. I refer you to the original post. </p>
<p>As I can see, no one has been able to answer my question and provide the numbers in question.</p>
<p>No school can provide you with the numbers that you are asking for</p>
<p>^^^ Exactly. So, let's stop misleading people with the wrong data. The 84.4% that has been thrown around in this thread is not really indicative of what the OP was suggesting.</p>
<p>rd31, the debate is around statistics some universities like to use while trying to illustrate how succesful their "premed" programs are in getting students into medical school. A high percentage of freshmen premeds ( Duke's reportedly 84.4% ) getting into med school would make their undergrad program more atractive for people that eventually want to go to medical school.. Right?. That could be an important consideration for a prospective undergrad premed student. The problem is that the 84.4% they used is representative of something else because the data used to calculate it... is not correct. Therefore, it is wrong to assume otherwise.</p>
<p>84.4% Percent of Duke undergrads that applied to Medical Schools got into at least one of their choices. What, if I may ask, is misleading about that statement?</p>