<p>How hard is it to get into penn medical college. I just got accepted to Penn this year (undergrad.) How tough is it? What percent of penn undergrad. get into penn's medical college? If I major in biology, will it decrease my chances of getting into the medical college since most people major in it- there will be more competition. Also, any word of advice would be really helpful.</p>
<p>well penn med is #3, right after harvard and hopkins - it’s pretty tough to get in</p>
<p>on the other hand, penn graduate schools generally prefer penn undergrads, so there is a bit of boost there</p>
<p>how do you know you want to stay in philly for 8+ years?</p>
<p>I believe the overall acceptance rate is about 4%, the average MCAT is 35, and the average GPA is 3.82.</p>
<p>That said, they do appear to give Penn grads preferential treatment, and I think Penn is the most represented college among the student body.</p>
<p>If you go to Penn and you above Penn MedSchool’s average ranges for GPA and MCAT (especially above the upper 25% for GPA and MCAT), then you have a VERY GOOD chance of getting in. </p>
<p>This is the same with any college that has a medical school… strong preference to the undergrads, because you are more likely to stay there for medical school if you’ve already spent 4 years undergrad there.</p>
<p>Reading this post with great interest. It seems my aspiring engineer now wants to be a doctor…so much for getting 4.0 as an undergrad! I hope the medical school will take into account that eng. undergrad is not the same thing as Bio. [I can <em>wish</em> can’t I?? :]
Congrats on your acceptance to Penn, Kajalkan. Great school.</p>
<p>Having a background in biomedical or chemical engineering is very good for someone planning to go into medicine or so I’ve heard.</p>
<p>does UPenn Med have rankings?</p>
<p>Not sure how accurate this is, but it ranks Penn at #3.
[Top</a> 10 Medical Schools](<a href=“http://www.studentdoc.com/top-10-medical-schools.html]Top”>Top 10 Medical Schools - StudentDoc)</p>
<p>no. that is not what i asked. does UPenn Med rank its students in competitive basis.</p>
<p>Can’t help you there, sorry.</p>
<p>I’m going to have to beg to differ here. It may be true that other Penn graduate schools treat Penn applicants preferentially, this does not seem to be the case with the medical school. This is based on my personal experience in the medical school application process in addition to chatting with admissions folks at the school. It’s my hypothesis (waiting to be disproved with real data–and not from mdapplicants.com) that Penn undergraduates with subpar grades/MCATs/LoRs that would not be contenders at other top medical schools will be accepted to Penn Med in no greater a proportion than will similar applicants from peer schools. As a corollary, Penn students with excellent grades/MCATs/LoRs will also not “automatically” be accepted at Penn Med–I and several of my friends, many of us at top 10 medical schools, are living proof of this.</p>
<p>The fact that Penn is the most highly represented undergraduate alma mater at Penn Med is almost certainly due to a sort of confounding by indication. That is, pretty much every pre-med student (or at least the vast, vast majority) will toss their hat into the Penn Med ring, even if they don’t have a very good shot. This may be because they do expect (or hope) that Penn will look more kindly upon them for having attended, because the medical school is on campus and so it’s wonderfully convenient (i.e., free) for interviewing, because they love Penn so much that they want to take any shot they can get to remain, because Penn Med is an excellent institution that would draw many applicants from a top school like Penn regardless of its undergraduate affiliation, etc.–and in many cases, likely a combination of these reasons. So, for example, even if somebody (for example, several people I knew) were applying mostly to schools in California/west coast, they would still apply to Penn as well, but not necessarily to Hopkins, Yale, Columbia, etc. </p>
<p>So, since Penn students are, for the most part, not hacks, they will earn interview invitations and acceptances in proportions similar to applicants from other top schools. This factor, combined with the very high absolute number of applicants, therefore, certainly results in high numbers of interviewees, acceptees, and eventual matriculants.</p>
<p>Pennalum - From what I know, I think your response is the credited answer. Some grad schools very openly state their preference for their own undergrads (i.e. Yale Law with Yale College), but it does not seem to be the case that Penn Med does this. Bottom line is, you better an outstandingly accomplished college student (along with being a great interview) to have a chance at Penn Med, and going to Penn undergrad won’t really differentiate a candidate in any way.</p>
<p>Of course Penn Med does not accept poorly-qualified applicants simply because of their Penn connection, but presumably they would favor a Penn applicant vs. [enter undergrad here] with parable grades.</p>
<p>Pennalum’s other theories undoubtedly factor into the equation as well.</p>
<p>It doesn’t make much sense that the medical school admissions office would arbitrarily compare individual applicants against other individuals, which is what the idea of the comparable Penn vs. non-Penn student implies. Rather, it is more of a first-past-the-post approach where they pick the people they like most from among the pool, rather than “seeding” applicants and facing the applications off against one another. First, there are at least 1000 students who have the grades, MCATs, and chutzpah to make it at a top medical school (there must be, considering that they will fill out the classes of the top 15 or 20 medical schools). So, there is no shortage of interesting, impressive applicants that would necessitate choosing on a rather arbitrary basis such as undergraduate institution. Second, the admissions office will have a rough idea of how many students they want to take, but there is clearly flexibility since they don’t accept the same exact number every year. So, the idea of debating the merits of two people, one from Penn and one not, for that last spot or two before drawing a line in the sand is probably not realistic. </p>
<p>However, even if they did do such a thing, it is certainly not a given that they would choose the Penn student over, say, a student from Harvard, MIT, or whatever other excellent, rigorous undergraduate institution. Maybe, since both cultural and intellectual diversity are so important, they want a student with experience within a different academic community? After all, for example, people graduating with a PhD from Penn are forbidden from applying for faculty positions for at least five years. Or, even more to the point, maybe the Penn student and non-Penn student have the same grades and MCATs (which, considering the limited number of values for these criteria, will happen quite often even in a single admissions season)–but we know that there are many other criteria that go into admissions decision for medical school as well. Maybe one interviewed better than the other? Maybe one has a medically relevant experience that the other has not? There are many possibilities. But the idea that two people are so exquisitely comparable that the only thing setting them apart is the name of the school on their college diploma seems pretty far-fetched to me, so much so that it seems purely academic.</p>
<p>We’re debating theory vs. practice. Certainly the admissions environment is far too stochastic to allow for such a setup - but in the case that it could, all I’m saying is that they would probably lean towards Penn.</p>
<p>Overall, I believe that you’re right.</p>
<p>More likely than Penn Med favoring Penn undergrads - which I agree would be patently absurd on a strictly meritocratic and frankly realistic basis and therefore negligible for discussion - is that of those students accepted, those of the Penn contingent yield at a far higher rate than the others, simply because they are more comfortable with the academic and geographic setting, etc.</p>
<p>But I think you said that already, or something similar.</p>
<p>Muerte - I don’t think it’s obvious that a grad school WOULDN’T give some preferential treatment to its own undergrads. There are a lot of grad schools that clearly have a preference for their own undergrads, and DO indeed accept slightly less qualified applicants into the grad school. They obviously won’t lower the standards by much at all, but there is a bit of a boost. What I think Penn Alum is saying, and what I agree with is, Penn Med is NOT one of those institutions that do that.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine any medical school giving that type of boost - only a law or business school.</p>
<p>Nah - when I was at Chicago undergrad, they openly talked about preferring Chicago undergrads, either through a linkage program between the college and the med school, or, when med school admissions season rolled around, valuing the traditionally “deflated” Chicago GPA quite heavily. I think Brown and Dartmouth are this way too, and I really wouldn’t be surprised if Harvard med was this way - Harvard tends to be a pretty incestuous place. </p>
<p>Again, the boost isn’t huge, I’m just saying certain schools still have a bit of it, but Penn Med doesn’t seem to at all. </p>
<p>Last point - certainly law schools and business schools, which tend to be less competitive than med schools, may give more of this preferential treatment. Stil, if you look at Harvard Law and Yale Law - which are pretty much as competitive as any medical school - there are probably 4 times more Yale undergrads at Yale law than Penn undergrads at Yale Law. Does Yale honestly have FOUR TIMES as many capable pre-law students walking around Yale than there are at Penn?</p>
<p>Interesting. The Brown and Dartmouth connections make sense: their undergrads are ranked significantly higher than their medical schools, and it might be an easy way to entice better-qualified students. Penn’s medical school doesn’t really have that problem.</p>
<p>Compelling point of comparison: Penn is the 4th most represented undergrad at Harvard Law, more so than Princeton - of course, this is also related to the number of students applying. Perhaps Penn just has good grad placement. (you’ll have to disregard the WSJ ranking of grad placement, which only considered a fraction of all top-10 schools and didn’t include any of Penn’s, a serious detriment to the study and of course to Penn).</p>
<p>Muerte - that’s not really getting at my point. I think each year, Penn probably sends 20 kids to Harvard Law. Harvard undergrad probably sends 50-60 kids to Harvard Law. Are there really 3 times as many top pre-law students at Harvard than at Penn?</p>
<p>The ranking of representation doesn’t matter as much as the actual numbers represented. Harvard, despite being smaller than Penn and, I think you and I will both admit, NOT having “3 times the quality” in the pre-law population, has 3 times the representation at Harvard Law than Penn undergrad. A big part of this is the preference a grad school can have for its undergrad.</p>
<p>Also, re: medical school, sure D and Brown’s med schools are ranked lower than its undergrad, but don’t forget how insanely competitive med school is. Dart and Brown medical school probably have around a 5-6% accept rate, lower than the respective colleges (and at D medical school, significantly lower than Dart undergrad). These schools can afford to be supremely selective. They still choose to favor their undergrads tho.</p>
<p>Don’t forget my initial example too - Harvard Med is prolly more selective than any other institution anywhere. Nevertheless, I’m confident that Harvard Med - just like all the other divisions at Harvard - have a preference for harvard undergrad.</p>