My undergraduate school had a pre med committee, too. If they said no, you were not going to med school without some additional study. But the students knew if they were on or off track early. No one was surprised in their senior year. And the head of a committee had huge sway in the med school community. Once he called a school who had not admitted a student but did admit his fiancé. Problem solved. So many advantages to that committee. None of my kids showed any interest in med school but I would sure recommend a school with a premed committee.
I’m NOT interested in salary power or whether Cal or UCLA is better than Pomona or vice versa or whatever. My post was directed at helping OP, not to get into debate about anything else with anyone to get off track, which CC doesn’t allow. Considering that my post has touched a raw nerve somewhere in your psyche, let me reveal that I’m a Cal graduate. I LOVE Cal more than any other institution of learning. As for Pomona, although my son was admitted into the Class of 2021, he ended up choosing another college. My post, again, was what I thought better in the interest of the OP and it has nothing to do with “hyping” Pomona as you falsely and irresponsibly accused me of in your earlier post or because I consider either Cal or UCLA as inferior institutions.
Please direct your posts in the interest of helping the OP as opposed to picking unnecessary debates.
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@TiggerDad . . .
Here’s how you stated things initially.
This sounds like a general reference to how more successful Pomona grads are.
I offered a counterpoint as primarily seen in #12 – which you still haven’t addressed, in which I give a legitimate reason why UCLA was invisible in the WSJ study, without delving deeper into the inherent flaws within it.
Additionally, as I intimated and stated in my posts, what relevance does this study have to do with students of this current day, especially since it is just a one-instance snapshot decades ago which can give an entirely wrong or falsely arranged “hierarchy of colleges” if the study were done, say, yearly? There’s a whole host of persons on CC that still cite it inclusive of yourself, some even quite frequently, when it was never relevant even at the at the time of its publishing because of its bias.
I believe a moderator even stated for those to stop referencing the study in another thread because it had nothing to do with the topic at hand. @bluebayou – sorry I invoked your presence; I didn’t want to reference your name without your having known I had done so – stated that none of the California SOMs, SOLs, and GSMs participated in the survey, even if the WSJ considered some of them elite (and some certainly are). The study, therefore, did evince a heavily regional bias, and the WSJ probably (hopefully) understood this and has therefore has erased it from its archives.
Let me see how you stated things in your current post…
Really? You can tell seemingly by the tenor of my writing – when it’s probably more clinical – that you “touched a raw nerve”? Where is this displayed? Rather, my referencing the NYT salary data shows that something is amiss if Pomona is legitimately ranked 12th in the nation in feeding “top-tier” grad schools, when Cal and UCLA who ranked significantly lower in the WSJ or not at all have higher median salaries at age 34. (By the way, this is median; it isn’t an average, e.g., the (50th %-tile) median SAT of all colleges is higher than their means; the NYT’s study would manifest the opposite: the mean salaries of graduates of the colleges is significantly higher than their medians.)
I disagree because of the above that my posting the NYT’s salary data was not off topic. And you certainly didn’t “touch a raw nerve in my psyche.” Rather, your latest post seems to me more agitated than any of mine ever were.
If cost is no object and you like the smaller LAC community, Pomona is a no-brainer here.
'Grats.
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@ucbalumnus in reference to the medical screening committees do you have any factual data to back that up? This is a common ASSUMPTION without any real data behind it. It’s more likely that a medical committee matches you to med schools based on your stats thereby achieving a higher acceptance rate then telling students not to apply.
No argument from me, but there is no need for the impugning of UCLA’s or Cal’s ability to place students in top-tier grad programs. Edit: Not from you but from another.
With this said, @Sand12 , here are the [Majors and Minors](https://lifesciences.ucla.edu/undergraduate/majors-minors/) within UCLA’s life sciences. The minors will be attached to one’s major, and they’re extremely researchy as well as are the majors.
I’m sure that the Claremont consortium would be able to make up for whatever difference in what UCLA may offer that Pomona does not from, say, Harvey Mudd, but if they don’t take a look at these M-and-m’s.
What you wrote is not contradictory. If the pre-med committee tells the pre-med that s/he does not match any medical school (or, more realistically, does not have a realistic chance at any medical school), then the pre-med is discouraged from applying because s/he then knows that the chance of success is too small to be worth spending the time and money applying.
So, with all the grains of salt being tossed around, take these for whatever you think they’re worth. For the med school class entering FA 2018:
(Matriculated / Applied / Percentage)
CAL 298/641 46%
UCLA 480/982 49%
Pomona 55/71 77%
Edit: To add that that the applicants shown here from all 3 schools include graduates from various years
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@otisp . . .
Thank you for the information. If you wouldn’t mind, if I could use your referenced data, I would be appreciative. Additionally, if you could cite your sources that would be great, but if not I would completely understand.
Furthermore, your numbers are incredibly consistent with the aamc.org website numbers – I don’t know why the aamc website doesn’t just give us the matriculant numbers of the baccalaureate holders’ institutions; additionally, there’s a bit of attrition in UCLA’s and Cal’s applicant numbers, which is natural given the numbers. Here is a cut-and-paste of all the CA universities who have ≥ 50 applicants, and includes your info (edited format):
…Applications, 2018-19…AAMC…Your Source…Acceptances…
University of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA…1,014…982… 480
University of California-Berkeley, Berkeley, CA…662…641…298
University of California-San Diego, La Jolla, CA…578
University of California-Davis, Davis, CA…435
University of California-Irvine, Irvine, CA…366
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA…302
Stanford University, Stanford, CA…241
University of California-Riverside, Riverside, CA…216
University of California-Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA…174
University of California-Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA…107
Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA…73
Pomona College, Claremont, CA…72… …71…55
San Diego State University, San Diego, CA…64
University of San Diego, San Diego, CA…60
California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo…57
Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA…54
San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA…52
Is it possible to fill in the rest of the numbers from your sources? I’m interested in UC’s placement into med school, because the glut in apps originates from the University.
And I’m sure for the UCs, the rates of acceptances will vary from year to year, but Pomona’s will be fairly steady. It was evident that the UCs would be somewhere between the national average of 41% acceptance and let’s say 55%; it was never going to be 60% because the UC never advises students not to apply as it’s all about enablement.
A couple of questions:
- Does Pomona advise some students not to apply at all, or do they advise them to attend a post-bac or grad program if they want to continue their quest to become MDs?
- Or is their progress-towards-degree counseling able to persuade students who aren't meeting the challenge in the classroom for med school to switch out of the premed track?
Anyway, thank you for the information again.
And undoubtedly, the applicant info crosses into various subsequent cycles beyond one’s year of graduation, and I believe that nationally, about 1/4 are those who reapply to med school.
Gee, I think we scared OP into another thread.
The numbers I cited are also from AAMC. Not sure the reason for the discrepancies, except that maybe they were cleaned up between when they were provided to med school AOs in Oct and when the numbers you mentioned were released to the public in mid-Dec (or maybe I scribbled them wrong on the post-it notes when they were being shown to me).
Not sure why the numbers I saw aren’t released publicly, but their granularity might lend themselves to misinterpretation and over-generalizations. I can’t imagine they’re top secret or anything, but I am not comfortable spreading the exact numbers around without the permission of who provided them to me. In general though, Pomona and Stanford cluster on the far high end with the Ivies and a few of the Little Ivies. UCLA and CAL - along with UCSB, UCD, USC, SCU, and USD - cluster just above the national average, while the others fall below.
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@firmament2x To answer your Pomona specific questions…
As you know (but others might not), nearly 2/3 of successful med school applicants take 1 or more gap years (and a third of those take 3 or more). Pomona advises all of its premeds to do the same. For one thing, successfully studying for the MCAT, completing secondaries for 20-25 schools and prepping and traveling to interviews can almost seem like a full-time job. Second, it’s time to earn a little money before plunging into med school debt (not everyone gets into NYU). And finally, it’s a good time for a student to stick their head up out of the academic swamp for some fresh air and to consider whether they really want to spend the next 7-10 years becoming a doctor. Some Pomona premeds do apply during their senior year, but it seems like most of Pomona’s premeds (including my kid and 46% of all other successful premeds across the country) engage in full-time research. Others do everything from TFA, to Peace Corps, to using a Fulbright to study “medical clowning” (Don’t ask. I have no idea…)
I would not be a fan of a committee that suddenly tells a student that they won’t provide them with a committee letter because they missed some arbitrary GPA screen. But, as I mentioned earlier, before classes even start, Pomona begins to provide premeds with med schools’ expectations for MCAT, GPA and activities. My kid is not aware of anybody who was counseled out of premed (n=1). But, given the close relationships that Pomona’s faculty members each have with their handful of advisees, I would certainly hope that after exhausting the college’s tutoring resources, that they would suggest to a student heading for an unfavorable application cycle to at least consider a “Plan B.”
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@otisp . . . I remember from my undergrad, an EE who had to take an ungodly amount of credits to graduate by the end of the spring term to be accepted into med school. So I agree that there should be a gap, but I’m not sure if it should be three or so. SCU’s premed advisor in that other thread stated the same thing. I hope that you don’t think my retort in the other thread was too harsh. That’s generally not my purpose, but rather to correct wrong notions. Thanks again for the info. Take care.
No problem! Just to clarify: Pomona advises premeds to take at least 1 gap year (although my kid does have a friend who took 3 years)
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And, for accuracy’s sake, I did transpose the numbers wrong on the post-it notes (I wasn’t kidding!). The actual numbers are:
CAL 307/662 46%
UCLA 492/1014 46%
Pomona 55/72 76%
(sorry 'bout that!)
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@ucbalumnus it’s not the contradiction that I’m writing about it’s the false conclusion you draw or insinuate…which is that if a school has a medical screening committee then its percentage is invalid and therefore comparable to a school without one (e.g. UCB and Pomona grads have the same basic admit rate barring a med school committee). I wholly disagree with that conclusion.
Presumably, the pre-health committee will give the pre-med a realistic assessment of his/her chances of gaining admission to medical school. It is likely that many of the pre-meds who are told that they have poor chances of gaining admission to medical school will opt out on their own (why spend a lot of time and money on what is likely to be a futile endeavor?).
https://www.pomona.edu/administration/pre-health/apply/pomona-process
@otisp . . .
Here are your prior numbers:
Comp To New Numbers…Acceptances…Applications…%of Change
CAL 298/641 46%…+9…+21…43%
UCLA 480/982 49%…+12…+32…38%
Pomona 55/71 77%…0… +1…Big fat zero!
Ahem, because UCLA has such large numbers, it didn’t move the rate down, still 49%. Okay, it’s now 48.52% and was 48.88%. You have to remember, these are people’s lives here.
@ucbalumnus . . . thanks for the information. Not having medical school for any applicant doesn’t => end of career.