<p>In response to the question in the title of this forum, I would just say:</p>
<p>No. It is a bad idea.</p>
<p>duke's 100% is misleading. they don't let all pre-meds apply to med school. only students they know will get in are selected to allow them to apply. this is why they have 100% acceptances. it's like if you only let the top 10 in your school apply to college. your top 50 college acceptance rate would be staggaring compared to a school that allows all 500 students in the class to apply.</p>
<p>The 100% Duke premed admit rate is incorrect. The rate is 85.2%</p>
<p>I also don't believe that Duke only allows top students to apply to med-school in order to boost their rate. In any case, if anybody has any evidence that states that this is the policy at Duke, I would like to see it.</p>
<p>Duke BME has 100% acceptance in med. Did not mean for it to be confused with ALL pre-med.</p>
<p>Also, wrt the MIT statistics, think about a few things.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>When the statistics include only undergraduate applicants and not grad students/alums/whatever random people who applied that year, the rate of acceptance jumps to 88%. That's not shabby.</p></li>
<li><p>Some MIT premeds are more serious about being premed than others. It does take a certain amount of planning and effort to be an excellent premed at MIT, but it's not at all impossible.</p></li>
<li><p>Is it really the best choice to run away from difficulty before you've even entered college? Picking HYPS over MIT simply because of the GPA is copping out. Might as well learn how to work hard -- news flash, med school is rough.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>My bottom line: Sure, it's hard to be premed at MIT. But if you don't like hard work, I wouldn't advise a career in medicine in the first place.</p>
<p>wow great advice molliebat.</p>
<p>I would like to see the data that indicates that when you look at only undergrads from MIT (not alums), the premed admit rate is 88%.</p>
<p>They give the rate for "Total Applicants" (77%), then "Undergraduate Applicants" (82%) {not 88%, sorry, I read it this morning and misremembered :(}</p>
<p>13% to harvard vs princeton's 15% to harvard isn't a HUGE difference...</p>
<p>I never said it was a huge difference. But that's not the point. the point is, networking and proximity to a particular medical school do not seem to be important factors in gaining admission - otherwise, you would expect to see Princeton premeds having more trouble than MIT premeds in getting into Harvard Medical. Seems as if Princeton premeds are doing rather well for themselves.</p>
<p>As are MIT premeds</p>
<p>Are they really doing that well?</p>
<p>According to the latest numbers, 77% of MIT premeds who apply to med-school get admitted somewhere.</p>
<p>Yet 90% of Princeton premeds who apply to med-school get admitted somewhere. </p>
<p><a href="http://web.princeton.edu/sites/hpa/2004.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://web.princeton.edu/sites/hpa/2004.pdf</a></p>
<p>Unfortunately, the Harvard and Yale data is not online (they have it only in hardcopy), but about 90% of Harvard and Yale premeds who apply to med-school get in somewhere.</p>
<p>And this is not just one year. It's consistent. Harvard, Yale, and Princeton premeds who apply to med-school will get in at roughly a 90% rate. MIT's rate has been in the 70's range for years now. Why such a discrepency? Why do MIT premeds consistently get into med-school at a lower rate than HYP premeds do?</p>
<p>Because it's not a school to train pre-meds. I can't speak for everyone, or even most MIT undergrads, but had I set the whole of my college experience on admission to medical school - I'd be sending in my "yes" card to Columbia right now. </p>
<p>Perhaps it's not practical, and perhaps it will be my undoing - that's usually what they say of dreamers, but MIT offered the opportunity and I'm going to take a shot at it, because, hey, you only live once. For me personally, medicine is a safety net in case all else goes awry. Sure, there are a good deal of people intending premed from the start at MIT, but there are a good deal of people like me, as well. And I don't think it's the hardcore pre-meds at MIT not getting accepted into medical school ;)</p>
<p>I understand what you mean pebbles. I feel like MIT is this challenge and unknown territory I've yet to explore while Stanford is a safety playground. One more week left to decide. :(</p>
<p>"...medicine is a safety net in case all else goes awry", pebbles? Maybe I am misinterpreting you, but that sounds to be a little overconfident to me. You can't just wake up one fine day and simply 'decide' that you want to do medicine. That's like me saying that if my current career doesn't work out, then I'll just simply go play baseball for the Boston Red Sox. Playing for the Sox is not a choice that is up to me. There are boatloads of people who want to play for the Sox who don't get to. Similarly, there are boatloads of people in the world who want to be doctors who can't get into medical school. Nationwide, almost half of all premeds who apply to medical school get rejected from every med-school they apply to. And that's just talking about those who apply. There are many others who would like to become doctors but who don't apply to med-school because they know that with their grades and/or MCAT scores, they won't get in. Similarly I am not going to waste my time going to a Red Sox tryout, because I know that I won't get picked. </p>
<p>Furthermore, I would ask what you mean by hardcore premeds vs. non-hardcore premeds. That 77% number stated above has to do with MIT premeds who actually apply to med-school and get admitted. I would argue that anybody who goes through the whole application process is 'hardcore' in my eyes. After all, think about what we're talking about here. To apply to med-school is not exactly a trivial act. You first have to take the MCAT, which is a very serious endeavor that many people take months to study for. Then you have to arrange to send official transcripts from your school's registrar to AMCAS. Then you have to pay the processing fees for AMCAS to send your transcript/MCAT scores to various med-schools you apply to. That's just the round-1 app. If a med-school likes what they see, they will invite you to submit a more formal application, where you then have to write a whole bunch of essays and personal statements, arrange for recommendations, possibly fly out there and get interviewed, and so forth. I would argue that anybody who is willing to go through all that is 'hard-core'. You don't go through all that if you're just lolly-gagging around, looking for a backup career because your original career didn't pan out. </p>
<p>Hence, I think everybody who goes through that whole drawn-out process is pretty hardcore. Yet the fact of the matter is, 23% of all MIT premeds who go through that whole process, and almost half of all premeds nationwide, get rejected at every med-school they apply to. </p>
<p>Incidentally, this calls into question one of the other assertions that I have seen on this thread - that MIT premeds are only applying to the elite med-schools and not to safeties, and that's why MIT premeds have a lower admit rate than HYPS premeds do. Does that really sound logical? Seriously? After all, if you're going to go through the pain and the expense of studying for and taking the MCAT, getting your transcripts to AMCAS and all that other stuff, and doing all the other arrangements for your application, you might as well apply to a whole bunch of safety schools too. It only costs a little bit more to do that. So unless MIT premeds are unusually short-sighted and/or arrogant, I don't buy the argument that they are not applying to safety schools and that is why the MIT premed admit rate is lower than that of peer schools. At the very least, I don't see why MIT premeds would be less prone to apply to safeties than would the premeds at HYPS. </p>
<p>I think your first sentence, pebbles, is where the real truth is. MIT is not a school to train premeds. So you have to think carefully about what that means. It seems to me that if you are absolutely sure you want to do premed, then to be perfectly honest, MIT might not be the best place to go, for you might be better off at HYPS. Don't get me wrong, MIT has a high percentage of successful premeds. On the other hand, those other schools seem to have an even higher percentage of successful premeds.</p>
<p>Well, then, here's my two cents.</p>
<p>If you feel that you're part of that 13% who wouldn't be good enough to get into medical school if you took some tough biology classes, but would be good enough if you copped out, then go to HYPS.</p>
<p>If you're willing to buck up and do some hard work, then go to the place that makes you the happiest.</p>
<p>I'm not going to get into a 10-page long argument with you where we repeat the same things over and over again, because you've certainly done enough of that yourself :P. I'm not interested in that. I've stated my stance on the situation, using myself as an example (and yes, I do consider pre-med a backup solution - a practical career if I have shot too high/far otherwise, and I would very much expect to decide on it "one morning" in college since I have yet to plan out my life for the next 20 years), beyond that, feel free to sneer/criticize/judge as you like.</p>
<p>I already know what you're going to say to this, but statistics are flawed... easily manipulated - and never do they tell the whole story. I pity those whose college decisions rest solely on a set of numbers.</p>
<p>agreed, pebbles and molliebatmit! I want to go to med school, but I'm leaning towards MIT over HYS (Princeton wait list) because I really enjoyed myself during my stay.</p>
<p>but you know MIT CPW is a big lie right? I love MIT CPW to death. </p>
<p>I love mitra, the admission office (Matt and Ben. Yay), and all the people i met during CPW. You guys were all awesome.</p>
<p>I didn't get the chance to go to CPW, but I visited this past week. I had fun...and saw some friends there!</p>