<p>Only a few days left to make a choice, and I am a little queasy with kid's choice. Kid wants to practice medicine, and has narrowed choices to 3 schools. One school is ranked in the 20s, one school is ranked in the 40s and one school is ranked in the 70s. Money is not an issue. Kid seems to prefer school that is ranked in the 70s because kid thinks being amongst the top 10% (as opposed to the very top of the 25-75%) of students will make it more likely to successfully make it through the pre-med gauntlet. The other schools have "names" and this one is not as well known. Should I let kid make the decision and run with it? Is a perceived "less competition" a valid reason for attending a school?</p>
<p>GPA is important for getting into med school…so choosing a school where he has more of a chance to have a higher GPA seems valid. You need to balance that against the rigor of the program so he is prepared for the MCAT…and the strength of the health careers advisory committee. Also which will have opportunities for research and/or volunteering at a hospital or the like. In addition one should consider all the usual fit issues. </p>
<p>@Forestlight It certainly does matter, but you want to make sure the “less competitive” school is perhaps as rigorous as at least the school in the 40s (I’ve been looking at science courses at many “top” schools and well, the levels of rigor sometimes don’t correlate with the ranking of the institution and instead the institution’s character/who is teaching there and what schools they got Ph.D’s from matters much more. You’d be surprised at the number of top schools that mostly require low level cognition to be successful in several key pre-health courses. Courses from these schools typically focus on every itty bitty detail, which won’t be retained, ask too much low level multiple choice, fill-in-the blank, and true/false, simple and single-concept computational questions in the case of intro. chemistry, math, and physics classes. And even short answer/essay questions often ask students to essentially recite or record exactly what they reviewed in book or notes verbatim instead of analyzing a new situation or data. Some schools just don’t have as much folks that know what actual rigor in science education is, ranking irrelevant), such that the son will be prepped for the MCAT (for example, if almost all pre-med science courses are mainly memorization and plug and chug, then that’s poor training for the new MCAT and I don’t know if a prep course would be able to completely save an individual going through a curriculum like that because you’d have to both relearn content and then learn how to really “think” about science for the very first time because scenarios will show up on MCAT that you haven’t seen/can’t anticipate. Like a GRE biochem/bio you just have to think your way through the passages and experimental data). In addition, keep an open mind. By this, I mean consider how good all 3 are in several other disciplines because students change their mind whether they are doing well academically or not. I wouldn’t go into any school with a “this is all for the med schools mentality” and then realize that the track isn’t optimal and have to find other programs that may be only mediocre at the school of choice.</p>
<p>Which one is he playing the sport at?</p>
<p>And yes the GPA is important but again the admission committees aren’t going into this blind. When filing out the AMCAS a student enters each and every college class they EVER took and where and the exact class title with grades. The adcoms know the schools and the transcrips, they don’t just see a GPA.</p>
<p>However some schools that have TENS of thousands of med school apps use a computer program to weed out too low GPAs and too low MCATs. Its the GPA and MCAT that get you a look but getting in is EVERYTHING else.</p>
<p>Your son shouldn’t like a school just because he thinks he will have a better chance of a better GPA for med school. Orgo and Calc are hard no matter where you go.</p>
<p>What school does he really like for undergrad? </p>
<p>Looks like Miami Ohio, BU, Northeastern and ivy? Which ivy?</p>
<p>Kat</p>
<p>A national university ranked in the 70s remains a very good school with plenty of rigor available to satisfy any med school adcom member. It seems he’s not considering regional schools or schools with directional names. These are hard decisions but l’d say your kid should go to the school he most excited about attending and not overthink the big fish in little pond issue. I’m sure he has what it takes to do well anywhere.</p>
<p>How is the advising at the school he prefers? There are schools with very high med school admissions rates- not just because they select strong students to begin with, and not just because the students who make it through the gauntlet are the most competitive- but also because they’ve got staff who have dealt with hundreds of different situations and know how to manage it. I know kids who have made it into (and out of) med school who have things on their transcripts which a less adroit advising staff couldn’t have managed- a semester off, medical withdrawal, incompletes, etc. Your son can be a top student and still get mono, have a mental health issue, etc. So having the right kind of advising is very important IMHO.</p>
<p>And of course- even the kids who have wanted to be surgeons or neurologists or radiologists since they were 6 years old sometimes change their minds. Pity to be at a place he doesn’t want to be if he decides med school isn’t for him (not because he can’t get in- because he finds something else he truly loves more.)</p>
<p>See the first two threads here:</p>
<p><a href=“Premed Resources Thread - Start Here First - Pre-Med Topics - College Confidential Forums”>Premed Resources Thread - Start Here First - Pre-Med Topics - College Confidential Forums;
<p>A school that is ranked in the 70s is most certainly good enough, and strong enough, to get into med school. My own son’s undergrad has been ranked in the 70s and he’s finishing his first year of med school now.</p>
<p>Med schools wont care if a school is ranked 20 or 70 or 150.</p>
<p>Premed prereqs are demanding everywhere. they are weeder classes and most schools limit the number of A’s, so it can be a good strategy to go to a school where every one in the prereq classes aren’t ACT 34+…lol.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Could money be an issue if you also consider the cost of medical school added to the cost of undergraduate, and the amount of debt the student will graduate from medical school with?</p>
<p>
I’m guessing by ranking, you mean USNWR ranking; and by top 10%, you mean top 10% test scores? Test scores add little additional value to predicting college GPA beyond other application factors, such as HS GPA and HS course rigor. Of course as HS GPA, course rigor, and other more relevant factors also tend to get lower as selectivity gets lower. So it is valid to be more likely to have a higher rank at a less selective college. However, selective colleges also tend to have a smaller portion of the class being pre-med, which often makes the academic ability of pre-med students being quite different from the the overall class, so it may not be so easy to be high ranked in pre-med classes, even if you have a better chance of a higher rank in general. It’s also not as simple as a better rank at less selective school A is superior to a moderate rank at more selective school B for med school admissions. More selective schools tend to have a greater degree of grade inflation, so the moderate rank at more selective school B might be a higher GPA than the better rank at less selective school A. </p>
<p>If you look at med school admission statistics, at many selective colleges the moderate and even lower GPA students have a high rate of med school admission. For example, among MD Applicant members who attended Stanford for their undergrad, the average GPA of students admitted to med school was actually lower than the average GPA of the overall Stanford class. When searching for specific GPA ranges, there was not a great difference in acceptance rate between applicants with high and low GPAs. The acceptance rates by GPA for members who did their undergrad at Stanford is below (self-reported data that may be incomplete). </p>
<p>3.75 to 4.0+ - 82%
3.5 to 3.75 - 85%
3.25 to 3.5 - 70%
3.0 to 3.25 - 80% (small sample size)
Below 3.0 - 100% (2 out of 2, at least of one of which applied/re-applied following a long gap after graduation)</p>
<p>Someone recently posted a link in the Stanford forum to a lecture with the Dean of Medical Education at Stanford, who describes what Stanford Med School is looking for at <a href=“Site Map - Scope”>http://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2014/04/25/stanfords-senior-associate-dean-of-medical-education-talks-admissions-career-paths/</a> . Note that the focus is on far more than stats. He talks about things like passions and personal interaction skills, and the focus matches up fairly well with what HS students said should be important in identifying a “good doctor.” </p>
<p>Answering your question, I’d suggest focusing on how well the college fits in terms of things like desired majors, academic opportunities, social/EC opportunities, how happy your child thinks he’d be there, and whatever is is important to your child as part of the college experience; rather than focusing on USNWR ranking and test scores of the college. The higher USNWR ranked college would be a better fit for some kids, and the lower ranked one would be a better fit for others.</p>
<p>I just warn against throwing this term “rigor” around randomly. Most schools will have “rigorous” science courses, but the question is what type of rigor. Is it memorize every single detail, pathway, formula, and algorhythm sort of rigor or is it more get good content foundation and then use it to think and problem solve at a very high level type of rigor (is it “just the facts, but tons of them” and formulas, or is it: Now take this to a next level. Lots of literature suggests that biology education, even at some high ranked schools, is stuck in “fact overload” mode without much emphasis on higher order thinking. It’s kind of sad. And yet all of these places, whether they fit that profile or are better, would be considered “rigorous”)? More of the latter will ultimately help more for the MCAT and typically yields a curriculum where more students can actually retain more of their skills and content knowledge. Some schools, again no matter the rank, just do science education differently, and rigor is defined differently at each school.</p>
<p>At one school, most biology courses may ask questions like: “Describe in detail how a mutation of p53 would effect each cell cycle or the cancer growth pathway” thus requiring students to literally memorize every detail of that pathway or several pathways to get a full credit answer. This is certainly challenging, but does not involve much higher cognition. Another school may do the following: present some experimental data or results and then ask students to explain those results in the context of what they know about cancer development, or perhaps ask students how the perturbation mentioned at the first school would alter the results. Something like "based on your answer in the first part, draw a graph or describe what the data may look like if… whatever…). I imagine that rote memorization of scientific facts and pathways is sufficient (though not an ideal approach) for getting through medical school, but problem solving and analytical thinking in science may increase the chances that a student gets in. However, it could hurt a pre-med student to try to take classes that do the latter as we were trained to do the former in high school (like for a student who can’t adapt away from that sort of learning, it could be a nightmare and the GPA may suffer). However, if a student is strong, I would go to school that seems to emphasize the latter sort of learning in the sciences This is hard to gauge, but you could ask students on visits who are in the sciences about their courses and what makes them challenging. If the students say, "lots of stuff to memorize, then it’s probabl “meh”, but if tons of students say, even in a whiny tone that “they try to make us apply stuff we’ve never seen before” or “the problems they give and the workload is pretty challenging”, then that is good. Because at somewhat selective schools and beyond, if students complain about memorization, there is too much of it, because we already should be accustomed to it from HS. It would make more sense if students complained because they are struggling as the instructors were trying to kind of orient them away from that sort of learning. In the end, the latter ends up kind of for the best as it isn’t enough to just stop at having/adbsorbing lots of content knowledge. Truly using it or applying it in a novel context is the next step that’s often missing that the MCAT and other standardized exams with a significant amount of higher level problems will require. Alternatively, you could go to a school that perhaps doesn’t emphasize it as much, but seek the classes and instructors that do. </p>
<p>I think this is a tough balancing act and you need to also factor in other things as well. The lower the ranking of the school, the less flexibility and opportunities he/she will have - inside or outside medicine. While there are certainly people who have attended schools ranked in the 70s, received high GPAs, adequate MCAT scores, and admission to med schools, it’s not the general rule. </p>
<p>The two higher ranked schools need to be seriously considered. Admissions offices do provide more leniency for higher ranked programs and tougher majors…it makes sense to. Betting the house to be the big fish in the small pond might be a little too risky in the grand scheme of things.</p>
<p>Johnny – I have to disagree with you. In my experience, no one cares where you went to undergrad and nearly no one cares where you went to med school. The general rule is that most docs come from undergrad schools ranked below 70 because there’s something like 2000 accredited colleges and universities in the US. I’m 25 years in medicine, I’m academic, I’ve also got a private practice, I know a lot of doctors, I know a ton of med students, I’ve got a partner on a major med school admission committee and no one is thin slicing the academic issues as finely as you and Bernie are. Look up the pedigrees of the Int Med and Surgery Chiefs at Harvard, Stanford, Yale, UCSF, Mayo and Wash U. That’s pretty tall cotton. They all go to top 10, 50, 70, 100 places? Nope. Didn’t seem to hold them back to far. I actually have no idea who 11 of those people are or where they went to school, but I’ve been around long enough to know that the pedigree thing means nothing in medicine. Good schools are good. My kid goes to Harvard so they better be because we are paying out the nose for it, but even that doesn’t count for much unless you want to be a supreme court justice, a big time IB guy on wall st or the president. After that, most people of substance look at the person and what they did a whole lot more closely than where they went to school. No one is trying to figure out if you’ve got memorization 3.9 or that analytical 3.9 … To the OP, these are big decisions, but in the end you’re son ought to go where he’s excited to go and where he’ll have the most opportunities both pre-med, and as Blossom mentioned, otherwise. Good luck.</p>
<p>"“Admissions offices do provide more leniency for higher ranked programs and tougher majors…it makes sense to.”""</p>
<p>it may make sense to you and me, but some of the med school app process is counter-intuitive.</p>
<p>You making that statement does not make it a fact. </p>
<p>There is no evidence that you can point to that indicates that med school adcoms provide any such leniency at all. You need to chat with LizzyM. </p>
<p>we are not even sure if adcoms even more than glance at an applicants major, much less give a nudge for - say - engineering over English.</p>
<p>I’m okay with the differing viewpoints. I’m just sharing what I noticed when my friends and I successfully went through the admissions process in the last 4-6 years. </p>
<p>Being a successful premed is challenging at most colleges…</p>
<p>Another factor to consider is: If he changes the career path in a few years, which college will likely be “better” for him?</p>
<p>The stats from Stanford posted above tells me that a successful premed only needs to be good enough academically but better the ECs, the more successful an applicant will be. At which school can your child have a better chance to shine in his ECs? The best college is not necessarily the college that provides the best research opportunity. If the student is unable to allocate enough time for research, the ample opportunity of research opportunity is of no use to him.</p>
<p>Also, the kind of the most challenging weeder class may be different at different schools. If your weakest area happens to be in the most notorious weeder class at a given school, it may be very discouraging for you. In this sense, the top school may not be the most challenging one for you.</p>
<p><<<
I’m just sharing what I noticed when my friends ** and I successfully went through the admissions process ** in the last 4-6 years.
<<<<</p>
<p>What med school did you attend? </p>
<p>My own son and his friends went thru the process a year ago (some of his friends went thru it 2 years ago and this current app season) with much success. </p>
<p>MCAT scores can be one of the biggest factors used in determining medical school admission. This puts all applicants on a level playing field. Many physicians go to state flagships schools for their undergraduate degree. Medical school admission committees will take into account the difficulty of the undergraduate degree so a highly ranked university will compensate for a relatively low GPA.</p>
<p>I would look at other factors than just the schools rank to make this choice. I would look at undergraduate research opportunities as well as opportunities to shadow physicians. I would also take into account expected undergraduate debt.</p>
<p>OP: I have no horse in this race, but this topic has been discussed multiple times on CC. You might want to search for “curmudgeon” on CC and read about his experience with his daughter. She too was interested in medicine as a career and chose Rhodes College over Yale for undergraduate. I believe she later attended Yale for med school.</p>
<p>@doubtful I wasn’t saying that admissions committees care, I was saying that it benefits many students for the MCAT if you have good content knowledge with great analytical ability. Just because a person is pre-med does not mean they should ONLY concern themselves about what admissions committees care about. They should optimize their education and yes, also achieve the best MCAT and GPA they can (which med. school adcoms care about). Schools with better science curriculum, especially those geared toward the pre-health crowd, have better success in this area. Do you think Harvard has its integrated science courses for fun? Those were specifically designed to better train pre-healths in the key pre-med disciplines. Harvard students are very smart, but their success on the MCAT also has to do with the level of intellectual training they received (regardless of what content was covered). The MCAT, after all, is not the SAT, which would explain why there is variation in student body MCAT scores even among schools of similar selectivity. Some schools simply do science education better. I can care less who “gives a damn” about how they were trained so much as the student getting the best training they can get for their own sake (and money). You describe it as if they should only concern themselves about what others think about their background, and basically assert that if no one in the field cares about they way and the level at which you learn and think, then you shouldn’t really care either…Since no one else cares and views it as all the same (if you make it to the same place), the person going through the process should not care. I’m sorry, but I just don’t agree. And yes, people come from all sorts of schools in a profession, but no one can deny that the scientific training provided at some schools is indeed better (and thus, at said school, many more people will be getting higher level training, and many more students at such schools may end up in good positions in either science or medicine), and the ranking of the school doesn’t usually determine this. Just because no one speculates about your training doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter. If you train yourself well, you can start off with advantages other don’t have in the long run. You can get amazing training at any school, if you’re aggressive enough, but some schools are better at providing it to the “masses” because they truly work on things such as how to make the science curriculum innovative and intellectually rigorous. At such schools, things are not rigorous by happenstance. Of course, some people can develop great abilities on their own with being trained that way…that’s good. But many can indeed benefit from training that shows them something other than the HS mode of learning. Not all or even most will just magically develop awesome critical thinking skills in science and math. There is a reason the overall MCAT average is quite low. Sure the admits are obviously fine, but the fact that you have tons of students with at least okay GPAs, who went through same coursework as those at other schools, and then got non-competitive MCATs kind of tells you something. We all know how “awesome” most biology majors perform right? Gee, I wonder why (even after you exclude those with particularly bad GPA’s). </p>
<p>For example, if I notice that Princeton has an introductory molecular biology sequence where the first semester is a hard core introduction to mol. biology and the 2nd half of the sequence is essentially a systems biology/intro. physical biology course, I should recognize that that is very unique training for a pre-health or any science oriented person in biology. Princeton doesn’t have the standard "memorize metabolic pathways, and key things about biomolecules. It’s giving ALL students who take the course (which pre-healths there must) a foundation in key things in modern biology and is even exposing them to the quantitative side. Just because no one but the student taking it at the time cares doesn’t mean it isn’t beneficial. The same thing can be said about Harvard’s courses.</p>
<p>If I go to a school that emphasizes more problem or case based learning in science courses throughout the curriculum as opposed to a pure lecture (ppt. slides, regurgitate concepts back on test), it’s likely a student will really benefit from that. That student shouldn’t care about who else cares about such benefits. It’s their personal and intellectual development, which if harnessed and applied properly, will get them places. A student shouldn’t attend a school where it’s a struggle to get a truly excellent science education. However, I suppose it doesn’t really matter if indeed the student just views the science courses as a set of hoops to jump through and that the only thing that matters is GPA. That’s an awesome approach to education (screw my intellectual development, that could help me for the MCAT, no one will know or care about it. Why should I bother). I feel as if that attitude plagues many pre-healths, even those at high ranked schools. </p>
<p>@mcat2 : I see what you’re saying, but how do you know what your weakpoint is before trying the course. Most students would not have taken legit college courses yet…A defeatist mentality when approaching a challenging course (the assumption before hand that you aren’t good at it and aren’t capable of getting better) can unfortunately become a self fulfilling prophecy. I air on the side of cautious confidence. Just believe that you can do well, or at least decently, if you work hard or exploit resources. Don’t assume you’re in trouble at the very beginning, more so than you may eventually need a little extra help. Again, STEM rigor varies at different places and even between departments within the same place. </p>