<p>I know Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is strong at engineering, and what seems to be a fairly decent bio dept, but i was wondering if anyone knows how good they are for pre med? maybe how many grads go to med school?</p>
<p>and if not them, who is good at premed? i know many ppl say it doesn't matter, but an extra edge doesn't hurt.</p>
<p>PS i like in va and i dont wanna go further south or even west coast. i can really only afford instate so i need a school with good financial aid and merit scholarships</p>
<p>school choice is relatively unimportant in terms of medical school admissions. The pre-med curriculum is big on breadth, but short on depth, and most schools are unlikely to be notable in all areas, and most students are unlikely to benefit from a single outstanding program.</p>
<p>the things that might make a school a "great" pre-med school are likely hard to quantify and rank with only an outsiders' perspective - advising, opportunities for research/volunteering/involvement/leadership, interview prep, etc. </p>
<p>the thing is that while "top" schools and those with smaller enrollments are likely to have these resources more visible, even larger schools will have the same resources. The only difference is that at a larger school a student might have to expend some more energy in hunting down these resources.</p>
<p>The biggest thing is find the school which provides the best fit for you. NEVER choose a school b/c of how you think it might affect you in medical school admissions. the attrition rate for pre-meds is high and it would be horrible to end up at a school d you hated simply because you think it will help you in medical school admissions.</p>
<p>^^Bigredmed said it all. Apply to colleges that you believe you'd be happy at. Get a basic science foundation and do well. And discard the nonsense about "getting into a good medical school." The overwhelming majority of US medical schools are better than good. There are not many pre-meds whom will turn down a medical school admissions offer from most anywhere in the U.S.</p>
<p>Ok, well think of it this way...2 white males or females(whatever) are applying to say.....Cornell Med school. One goes to Cornell Pre med...the other..say RPI. The one at RPI has a 3.85 GPA, and the one at Cornell has 3.85 GPA...they both have the same ECs and all that...now who do you think theyre going to take? A man that GOES to Cornell with a very high GPA for such a tough Pre med program(at least last i heard it was tough) or a guy that went to RPI for pre med, a school that excels at engineering? Now I'm not saying it matters everywhere...of course not..but it's not the fact of where you go, its the fact of where your competition goes.</p>
<p>you might be right, if that scenario is ever likely to happen.</p>
<p>First, no set of EC's is exactly the same, that's just too imprecise. Different volunteering, different research, different organizations, different accomplishments, there's just no way you could go and say that two people are going to have identical lists of post-secondary experiences on their AMCAS primary.
Second, no interviews or personal statements are going to match up equally either. And if the secondary applications from the medical schools require essays, those aren't going to be identical either. </p>
<p>The fact that all this information provides a clear picture of the applicant is why medical schools ask for them. They know they can't just look at grades and MCAT.</p>
<p>The other thing is that while you're in competition with other candidates, most applicants never end up with a situation in which they're being measured directly against another applicant. Yes of course, there likely has to be some "last position in the class" sort of argument but there are only 125 medical schools - that means that only 250 out of some 44000 applicants will ever have their application in such a position. And you know what? Considering how fluid acceptances are and how mobile alternate lists are, if you are the person that loses that battle and becomes the first alternated on the list, than odds are that you will be getting an acceptance letter from that school anyway.</p>
<p>That's the general view of things. For your specific example of applying to Cornell Medical school, you're wrong there too. The Cornell student is going to have an advantage simply because many private schools tend to look out for their own. It doesn't matter where the other person went to school if one of the applicants went to the undergrad institution. Hell, if two people are applying to Creighton Medical School, and one is from Creighton undergrad, and the other from Harvard, the Creighton grad is going to get in...</p>
<p>What I'm saying though is that when something like that matters, it doesn't matter at how difficult the college is perceived as being...Creighton is a great school, but no one is going to confuse it for Harvard, and yet the Creighton student is going to have the advantage. Most private schools will look out for their own, but not all do, and you only get one undergrad school - so it's a small advantage at one place, when you may be applying to 15 - 20 schools...a small advantage for an unlikely scenario.</p>