Medical School Opinions

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
21

As always, my chief advice to students (undergrad, med school, whatever), is to check with schools that interest them well before any application happens. If schools provide info sessions, attend them and ask questions. One is likely to get the best “up to date” advice right at the source. Use the internet to get the basics, but when questions arise even with the basics, check with the source as the “basics” can actually vary pending school (undergrad or med school).

My son is now in his application year for med school. He’s shooting for MSTP, so his competition is fierce. Two of the schools he’s applied to were the two we visited. He knew ahead of time that they were on his radar, so that’s where we went when they offered “days” and we wanted to know more info. Time will tell what happens. He has the grades, MCAT score, and ECs, etc, but did I mention that the competition is fierce for MSTP?

In the OP’s case, she didn’t have the same direction ahead of time and has good financial reasons to start at CC. She also lives in WA, so has a terrific (very state biased) med school with U Washington. There may be more there too, I’m not that familiar with WA med schools - just that one. I think, with decent grades, MCAT score, and ECs, that she will be fine.

Her original post didn’t convey that much info - just the “typical” question, so my original answer answered that question as it was answered to us.

In general… if one wants an interesting read about what accepted med school students had going for them, I enjoy reading U Rochester’s every year:

https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/MediaLibraries/URMCMedia/education/md/documents/2019-profile.pdf

(That’s where my son has been attending undergrad.)

22

As to taking prereqs at CC, the answer does depends on what med school you’re thinking about applying to, but in general

Lizzym’s on SDN has a lot of credibility as to admissions and would seem to disagree with above
http://■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/threads/which-classes-should-i-take-at-community-college.1164168/#post-17018582

I think second paragraph of post makes a great point about problem with waiting to take prereqs until one is at a 4 year

gyngyn on SDN has a lot of credibility as to admissions and would seem to disagree with above (see post #11)
http://■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/threads/online-bcpm-classes-at-a-cc.1077208/#post-15348130

goro on SDN has a lot of credibility as to admissions and would seem to disagree with above
http://■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/threads/should-i-stay-away-from-community-college-at-all-costs.1129737/#post-16365035

gonnif on SDN has a lot of credibility as to admissions and would seem to disagree with above
http://■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/threads/is-community-college-really-easier.1192232/#post-17607314

23

I’d like to point out that URMC’s incoming class data is skewed by several things:

  1. UR’s med school class is relatively small (100 students per year)
  2. approx 7-15 students per year are accepted thru UR’s BA/MD program
  3. approx 5-10 students per year are MSTP
  4. another 5-8 students per year come thru either early assurance admissions w/partner schools OR through linked post baccs at Bryn Mawr, JHU

Also this type of news release is pure PR. It doesn’t particularly mean anything. All med schools put out these puff pieces to encourage donors & alumni and to look good in the local communities.

(I’ve read all of these URMC releases for the past 8+ years and they all read more or less exactly the same–even down to boilerplate of “This is our best class ever”.)

BTW, while Washington state has a very strong in-state bias in admissions, UWash is also part of WWAMI with dedicated seats held in reserve for applicants from consortia states. (100 seats of the 240 available are reserved for residents of Wyoming, Idaho, Alaska and Montana who do their basic science years on campuses in their home state, then do 6 months of clinical rotations in Seattle, then return to their home states to finish clinical training.) So admission to UWash is actually more difficult–and yes, nuanced-- than it appears to be on the surface.

24

<<< FWIW, the question asked was the often repeated (everywhere), “If I go to a CC first, then transfer, will that hurt my med school chances?” No “reason” was given by the students in the question.

Along with the answer above, it was recommended that students NOT take their pre-reqs at the CC, but at the 4 year school. They should take their “other” courses at the CC if they chose that route


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that’s a horse of a different color. Of course that Q gets asked a LOT. We’ve seen it here on CC!

What I’ve doubted is that med schools are going to think…“hmmmm…Joe Smith went to UAH by his home, instead of Tulane or Vandy, so he probably went there to get better grades and we don’t like that…so round file his app.”

I don’t think anyone is questioning whether taking prereqs at a CC is a good idea. It’s not a good idea. The rule of thumb has long been that if a student does that, then he needs to take “higher up” classes in the sciences at his Univ to show competency at the Univ level.

That said, it’s not uncommon in Calif for premeds to start at a CC and then transfer. The CCs in Calif are very good, so maybe that’s why it’s not a huge deal there…but those premeds are still advised to take higher up classes at their UC…and to take a glide year to apply.

25

quote

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Graduation speeches are similar too (to start with). Very much a template. :wink:

Nonetheless, these sorts of releases tend to be very motivational to high school students looking to head pre-med - esp when they are considering which school they want to attend for undergrad (seeing the list on there helps them realize it doesn’t have to be an uber top school).

UR isn’t the only school that puts one out, of course.

WRT everything else. People can make their own choices based upon info they come across. We all do. There is no single “right” path. For the 39% who make it in, their path worked. The rest will likely wonder where they went wrong and it’s tough to answer that question. Was it their school choice (too tough, not tough enough)? Who knows?

(I think 39% was the last percentage number. I’m too lazy to look it up right now.)

26

And while it may be "recommended’ that students not take their med school pre-reqs at the CC, students who do start a at CC often don’t have that option. In-state transfer and articulation agreements require CC students to take X classes (often all of their lower level major classes) before they transfer. IOW, students who are science or engineering majors have no option other than to take most of their med school pre-reqs at a CC. The core class requirement is because state FA is typically limited to 7 or 8 semesters total. Pell grants are also limited to 6 years FTE and even federal students loan have limits. States are highly motivated to see that their higher ed students finish their degrees before the FA runs out and taking intro level major requirements at the CC before transferring is part of their plan to help them do so. (The good news for these students is that they will be taking the upper level science/math/engineering classes that mom2 talks about to complete their degree requirements and thus demonstrate for acdomms the rigor of their undergrad academic preparation.)

27

The recommendation could very well be what their ideal world is vs the real world. I doubt I’m the only one who has been in undergrad admissions sessions and heard a student ask, “Is it better to get an A in an Honors course or a B in an AP course?” only to hear the usual answer, “Well, to be honest, we want to see the A in the AP course.”

Yet students get Bs in AP courses and As in Honors courses and still get admitted to colleges…

I’m sorry y’all feel the need to nitpick everything I write and assume I was sleeping or daydreaming rather than relaying what I’ve experienced IRL, not to mention taking the original post at face value rather than delving into the situation more.

It’s pretty obvious I don’t fit in here.

I wonder what the admissions folks would have said if I’d read CC first and were able to correct their answers though… or call them in their bluff to the high school students they were talking to.

28

One thing to remember, Creekland, is the people who make these presentations/info sessions about med school admissions to high school students are admission office staff employees. They’re not Admission Deans. They’re not voting members of the adcomm. Even if the presenter is a current med student, they don’t have access to the adcomm’s internal discussions or any special insight into decision-making processes about why the adcomms select the candidates they do.

Most of what is presented at info sessions is a lot of generalized, one-size-fits-all conventional wisdom–which is a good enough a place to start for a kid thinks that maybe someday they might want to be a doctor, but it’s not accurate for all students or for all situations.

Real life is messy. So are med school admissions. Applicants come in a wide variety of flavors and from a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences. The admission process has to take all that into account somehow so admissions are far from formulaic. (Even schools that use scoring rubics to evaluate applicants have a great deal of discretion/leeway built-in to the system to account for non-ideal or non-typical situations.) Admissions is a black box process, with a different black box operating at each school. (Otherwise med school admission decisions would be easily predictable --which they aren’t at all on a micro-level and are only moderately statistically predictable on a macro level.)

29

<<<
BTW, while Washington state has a very strong in-state bias in admissions, UWash is also part of WWAMI with dedicated seats held in reserve for applicants from consortia states. (100 seats of the 240 available are reserved for residents of Wyoming, Idaho, Alaska and Montana who do their basic science years on campuses in their home state, then do 6 months of clinical rotations in Seattle, then return to their home states to finish clinical training.) So admission to UWash is actually more difficult–and yes, nuanced-- than it appears to be on the surface.


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Absolutely!

If you’re not a Wash resident, from a WWAMI state, or a MSTP applicant, it’s really a waste to apply to UW SOM.

30

<<<
BTW, while Washington state has a very strong in-state bias in admissions, UWash is also part of WWAMI with dedicated seats held in reserve for applicants from consortia states. (100 seats of the 240 available are reserved for residents of Wyoming, Idaho, Alaska and Montana who do their basic science years on campuses in their home state, then do 6 months of clinical rotations in Seattle, then return to their home states to finish clinical training.) So admission to UWash is actually more difficult–and yes, nuanced-- than it appears to be on the surface.


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Absolutely!

If you’re not a Wash resident, from a WWAMI state, or a MSTP applicant, it’s really a waste to apply to UW SOM.

This is from a very recent year…

Of the 245 MS1 seats at UWash SOM, 228 students were from WWAMI.

Only 17 were from out of WWAMI region…I don’t know if most of those are MD/PhD students, of which there were 12.

If 12 of the 17 are MSTP, then it would appear that about 5 to 7 out of region non-MD/PhD students matriculated.

Even if none of those are out of region, when you consider that there were 7209 OOS applications (8100 total) the odds are horrible.
I can’t imagine having UWash SOM on one’s app list unless he/she has an irresistable hook or hopes to be MD/PhD.

31

Just to correct some other misinformation being pushed onto my IRL experiences, one of the major presentations from one med school admissions “day” (for high schoolers), was indeed presented by the Dean of the Med School. He made a point of telling everyone how difficult med school is to get into now compared to in his day. (If he does this each year on this day, chances are others may recognize which school he’s with.) The major presentation at the other school was led by a Med School Admissions doctor (who is on the team doing actual admissions to med school) and had others (like her) on a panel (same presentation).

These are specific days these schools have for high school students interested in medical fields. They are not “General Admissions” days with a med school component.

I still encourage those who are interested in the field to find schools that offer such days and go to one or two sitting in on them and listening. They are a wealth of information, both presented and through question answering. As with any highly selective college admission, there is definitely no single “right” or “guaranteed” way to get noticed, but there certainly are trends to end up with better odds - according to the folks we listened to IRL.

32

<<<
He made a point of telling everyone how difficult med school is to get into now compared to in his day.
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I think high schoolers already know that. Who doesn’t know that. Did he tell y’all the sky is blue, too?

33

@Creekland I value your opinion. Thank you for posting.

34

That part was directed to parents as many of them were also physicians and not necessarily up on how difficult it is to get in compared to “their day,” just as many come into this process unaware of how difficult it can be to get into some undergrad colleges and how expensive college can be. Even at the high school where I work parents often come in pretty uninformed - esp for their first youngster entering the process. It’s common to assume it’s “not much different” than what they experienced a few moons ago. Not everyone keeps up on college or med school entrance trends - more don’t than do IME. I know, as a parent, I learned a ton of what was probably “basic” information as my kids went through the process (and only one is pre-med).

I suspect they already knew the sky was blue. I don’t actually recall if it was that day though (and I doubt any cared). I think so. The whole visit was well worth the time and I think something like bad weather would have stuck out in my mind. There certainly wasn’t any rain that day.

35

Regarding UW-SOM, with my known sample of N-1, I can say that DD was admitted right after her interview, UW seems to admit about 10% of the class right away. A facebook page was started and the UG schools of those students were mostly well known and impressive AND there were also people admitted from schools in WA that, really, only WA people would know. There was a directional state school admit and a small private Christian school admit. For me that summarizes that the various med schools probably have a list of schools they respect, that list likely varies school to school and state to state.

Regarding the CC>4 year path, I think the trick is the presentation. If the applicant has a viable reason to have taken that route and the application and writings support that, plus the student has taken upper division classes to show they are competitive with the four year students in STEM areas, that ought to suffice.

One issue I have seen in WA is that people like “Running Start” a program which allows a student to spend their last two years of HS at the CC, earning an AA. In that case, the average 17-18 year old simply had not had the time to amass that necessary ECs and also is at a disadvantage in getting to know the profs at the 4 year school for LORs.

36

<<<
A facebook page was started and the UG schools of those students were mostly well known and impressive AND there were also people admitted from schools in WA that, really, only WA people would know. There was a directional state school admit and a small private Christian school admit. For me that summarizes that the various med schools probably have a list of schools they respect, that list likely varies school to school and state to state.


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I think the take-away is that the students with the better high school foundation (science and otherwise) often end up at the better schools in the first place…and end up being the successful premed applicants. Sure there are some heart-warming stories of the high-school C student who pulled himself together at his local directional and got into med school, but usually to succeed as a premed the student needs to have a strong high school science foundation…and that often means that the student ended up at a better undergrad.

When I look at some of the local med school admits, I see that many are from the same “better” schools in the area. Likely, those were the better high school students in the first place.

37

Yep, or the student chose the path of the school we would think of as lesser known or lesser reputation, like the directional state U, but could have gone to the more impressive schools and did a stellar job at the school they chose.

So, likely in CA more UCLA & Berkeley students go on to med school than those at Cal State Fullerton, but the really strong students at CSUF could still go to med school, they just need to have very strong apps. For example, here is the first thing that popped up on Google:
http://calstate.fullerton.edu/news/2012su/Health-Professions.asp

5 CSUF students headed to US MD degrees, it can be done, but it’s a more challenging road than at the higher ranked schools.

38

Replace “better” with from higher SES neighborhoods or who attended private schools and I think you’re on to something.

According to AMCAS data, students who were designated as EO1 or EO2 (as used as a proxy for SES disadvantaged status) comprised only 27% of the applicant pool for medical school. That 27% percent also comprised over 85% of the FAP recipients and were overwhelming African American and Hispanic. (Effective Practices for Using AMCAS Socioeconomic Indicators in Medical School Admission)

Also data reveals that 1/4 of all US medical students had at least one parent who was a physician. (Khan & Sneed ,AMA Journal of Ethics, 2015) Additionally, between 60% (for private med schools) and 50% (for public med schools) of all US medical students had a family income in the highest quintile of all US households. (Mean household income over $190K in 2014.) The number of med students coming from highest income groups has been increasing steadily for well over a decade while the numbers from the lowest and next to lowest income groups has dropped to less than 15% of all US med students. (AMCAS, Analysis in Brief, 2008).

39

<<<
Replace “better” with from higher SES neighborhoods or who attended private schools and I think you’re on to something.
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While I meant “better” colleges/universities (not better K-12), you’re right that likely many came from better school districts or private K-12.

My kids went to private schools before college. My son didn’t go to his med school alone. While he’s been there, at least 7 students from his private K-12 years have been at the same med school.