<p>Ok, well I have read over the "major" threads on prestige of your undergraduate college and its impact on medicine. While a slight majority of the people on these major threads and the people I talk to in the real world say that "going to those name-brand, ivy league schools is just a waste of money," I just don't know if I am convinced and want the feedback of some of the main posters here on CC. I have visited many "top schools" like Rice, Washu, Princeton, Dartmouth, and UPenn. The thing is, I also really love alot of these schools (namely Rice, Dartmouth and Princeton) and am pritty confident that I'll get into some of these schools. So, is it worth it to spend the money to go to these colleges that I really love or endure 4 years at my state schools getting paid to go to school. </p>
<p>My cousin who is also a doctor tells me the same thing. He says if your going to become a doctor, your going to earn the same money as a person whos goes to a small city school. But it makes a BIG difference if you want to do something like engineering or business. So if you wind up changing your mind off medicine then go to an ivy. If you are steadfast then stay with a school that can pay you to go to college because medical school is what you really need to save your money for.</p>
<p>it’s always worth it to go to the college you love. When you’re fifty years old do you want to look back on your good times at Dartmouth? Or do you want to think about how you sacked up for four long years at San Jose State?</p>
<p>If Rice and the likes give you a good feeling, its worth going there. Just because prestige isn’t going to help your application much doesn’t mean that there aren’t other reasons to go to private schools (fit, namely). Many of the top schools are very generous with financial aid, so you might actually not pay that much more than a public school (unless they give you a full scholarship or something).</p>
<p>If you’re going to a school just because it’s prestigious, it’s a waste (assuming it’s substantially more expensive than your other options). If you’re going there because it offers you the opportunities and environment you want, then it’s absolutely the complete opposite. Some people may say that, for me, going to Cornell is a waste of money because it’s so expensive. I say the opposite. I love it here and wouldn’t go anywhere else (except McGill. haha) and that’s enough justification for me. </p>
<p>As far as medical school though, prestige doesn’t get you anywhere. The prestige of your school for med school admissions is on par with whether you made a 3.87 or a 3.88. It’s essentially negligible. Granted, if all other things were equal, yeah, the kid who went to Harvard would probably get in over the kid that went to UT El Paso, but beyond that, it doesn’t matter much at all.</p>
<p>LOL. I have heard some remark that is even worse: When a student A told student B that she was going to apply to Rice (when asked). Student B said: “Why would you apply there? Most students going there are pretentious.” I personally heard about the similar remark about Cornell as well. (To clarify, I personally do not believe that most students at Cornell are pretentious. There are these kinds of students everywhere.)</p>
<p>Doing well at either a top private school or a well-known state school is not easy. At one time I met a student from UCLA. He told me that it is not easy to be a top student there as there are so many competitive students there. I believe him. Even among the state schools, there are more competitive ones and less competitive ones. This may be the reason why the number of admitted students from UT Austin is much higher than those from some other less known UT campus, year after year.</p>
<p>My D is interviewing this cycle. All of her interviews so far (until today) have been at Texas state schools. Interestingly, A&M is ahead of UT at every school but UTHSC-Houston where UT had the lead. At some schools the ratio was 2-1 A+M to UT on days she was there. (The students have their UG schools written on their name tags.)</p>
<p>curm, I heard from several people that the undergraduate science/engineering programs at A&M are at least as good as those at UT Austin, even though UT Austin kids are supposedly a little bit “better” in terms of their SAT scores and class ranks when they are admitted to the college. It is rumored that if you are to be a premed, it is not necessarily good to be a Natural Science majors at UT Austin – It may be better to be in Plan II or even business honor (easier to stand out and/or “secure” a better GPA as you can hand-pick those precious few upper-division science classes that may be easier in their grading). This is only hearsay though so do not quote me on this.</p>
<p>I also heard that there are more Aggies (than UT Austin students) who were originally from a rural area (e.g., more farm boys than city dwellers.) Some of these kids are academically strong at their high schools and they never think of applying to any schools other than A&M as A&M is their number one choice.</p>
<p>I also noticed that at many UT medical schools, the number of admitted students from each of the so-called “prestigious” National Research Universities (e.g., Ivies, Stanford, JHU) are only a couple per medical schools. I wonder why this is. Does this prove the prestigious factor is really very insignificant in the medical school admission game (as many posters said it here before)?</p>
Very few out of state students apply to the UTs due to their mega preference of in state kids. Because of this, only the fraction of pre-meds from those schools that have Texas residency are going to be applying to the UTs.
Some students that are Texas residents but don’t attend Texas universities choose to only apply outside of Texas for a number of reasons.
Students that were admitted to top universities tend to do very well in the application cycle. I would bet that, of the Texas medical schools, UTSW and Baylor have the highest numbers of students from the top private universities.</p>
<p>Regarding 1) “the UTs due to their mega preference of in state kids.” I heard that it is required by some law in Texas that 90% of the TX state medical school students have to be in-state.</p>
<p>Regarding 2) I once heard that at most colleges (including the top ones), over 70% of applicants who are admitted to at least one medical school end up going to their state schools back home.</p>
<p>Regarding 3) I heard once that for a top school in the Northeast, it is often the case that each year, there are about 10 students who are admitted (maybe matriculated? I am not sure) to each medical school like JHU, H, UPenn, Columbia in the NE/NY areas. I could be wrong here, as this is just my impression. (I am somewhat sure about JHU and H medical schools though.) I think some people referred to this phenomenon (i.e., top medical schools admit too many of their own kinds) as “incest among Ivy/top schools.”</p>
<p>Supoose that it is true that 10 kids are admitted to these 4 top schools, and maybe a dozen more (say 10) who are admitted to similar schools. Then, there are about 50 kids who are admitted to these so-called very top medical schools. But there are about 250 to 300 applicants from one of these colleges, and about 200-240 applicants are admitted (Here, I assume that the admission rate is as good as 80% – not an impossible rate for a school like Harvard college, for example). Subtracting these 50 kids who go to the very medical top schools, we still have about 150 to 190 kids who are admitted to state medical schools or those private medical schools whose admission rates are similar to state medical schools. Is my reasoning correct?</p>
<p>Edit: In my reasoning above, I have forgotten the cross-admit factor. So it is not likely that as many as 50 kids from these colleges will be admitted to the very top medical schools. I would now guess it would be at most 20 only.</p>
<p>I do not know about Baylor (BCM). I believe that more students from these NE top schools are admitted to one of the NE medical schools that I just mentioned than to a south medical school like UTSW.</p>
<p>1) I don’t know what the law is for sure, but it would not surprise me if it was set at 90% or higher. Most public medical schools are obligated to prefer their in state students, seeing as state tax money pays for the medical school to function. </p>
<p>2) I don’t know any stats on this, but it wouldn’t surprise me. In state med schools tend to be cheaper (Texas is crazy cheap thanks to all that oil tax money) so there is often that incentive to stay in state. Also, if you only get into just one school it is most likely going to be an in state school due to the preference that is given to in state applicants.</p>
<p>3) Probably the case, I know that here about half of our class is Ivy League and most of the rest went to top schools. I prefer to believe this is just due to the average quality of applicants at top schools (who were top high schoolers and are likely to continue that trend) than mainly an inbreeding thing. I personally didn’t feel like my non-top school hurt me on the application trail.</p>
<p>As far as the question as to where do the rest go, you are right. Harvard pumps out 300 pre-med applicants each year, but clearly they don’t all end up at Harvard or even the top 10. My personal guess is that, roughly, the number of Harvard kids at a given school declines as the rank of the medical school declines. This probably is true for most of the top undergrads. The reason why I cited Baylor and UTSW as having higher numbers of top undergrad kids is due to the fact that they are both highly respected medical schools with reputations that would draw students from top undergraduate universities.</p>
<p>My D interviewed at BCM today. She said that there were kids from almost every top research school (and many top LAC’s) there today. Much different than what she’s seen so far at the Texas state schools (she put off her UT-SW interview). In fact, she mentioned Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Duke, Stanford, WashU, MIT. She also noticed a distinct difference in the “intellectual” feel from the interviewees (positive) and maybe a few more "less socially skilled " students (negative) among the interviewees. </p>
<p>Bet they were wondering if my poor little cedar-chopper kid was at the right address. ;)</p>
<p>BCM appears to rank the applicants who have submitted , send out invites, interview, immediately rank them again 1-50, and then each subsequent Friday do it again and see if anybody can knock them off the list (or something like that anyway). On the negative side they suggested they didn’t sent out that many invites on October 15th.</p>
<p>She was mighty impressed. Like a kid in a candy store, her eyes are big as saucers. I can’t wait till UT-SW. Her head may explode by then.</p>
<p>Probably wouldn’t call it incest, but more of the “continuation” that someone talked about earlier in the thread. Just as these people were academically successful as HS students and that continued, they also were the type that made the decision to attend one of those “top” schools for whatever reason (prestige, family pressure, peer pressure, etc), and they continued that trend 4 years later as well. I mean, there are lots of academically successful people everywhere, but not everyone wants to go to a top school. If you make that decision and believe that going to a top school is worth the expense, what in your experience is likely to change that view 4 years later? In fact, probably given the peer pressure, you’re going to make sure you’re applying at least to some of the big name medical schools - whether you’re competitive or not - simply to be able to talk to everyone else…</p>
<p>It is sad for them to have this burden, isn’t it?!</p>
<p>I do not know whether it is because my child is influenced by me (i.e., I keep telling him for years that it is much cheaper to go to an in-state medical school), or because he is fully aware that he will have a better chance for an in-state medical school, he always said to his friends that he intended to get into ONE medical school in his home state.</p>
<p>As regard to why we spend big $ on his undergraduate education, we really do not have a very good explanation. If I can make a guess, it is probably because we feel more “secure” when he goes to a top college and also do well academically there. I say it would make us feel more “secure” because we intuitively believe (right or wrong) that he might have a slight edge when he applies to a state medical school with a relatively good stat from a top college. If he had gone to a typical state school, we feel that his stat and other qualifications (e.g. MCAT, ECs) may need to be even more stellar. It seems to me that his ECs tend to be average no matter which college he goes to. On the other hand, it appears to me that he is relatively good at getting grades that are worthy for medical school admissions.</p>
<p>This seems to be a repetitive theme all over the CC threads. Free StateU vs pricey Private U for undergrad when you THINK you want to go to medical school. So many students seem to make the decision about which undergraduate school to attend based on something they may or may not do 4 years down the road. No 18 year old freshman knows that they are definitely going to go to med school, there are just too many variables. I’ve read that only 10% of kids who start on the premed track take that to fruition. Nearly half of students who apply to med school are rejected by every single school they apply to. </p>
<p>My older D started as a biology major on the premed track. Sophomore year did a 180 and headed a completely different direction. My nephew is a junior at Northwestern. Brilliant kid - 2390 SAT (one and only sitting), Val, NMF, Pres Scholar semi, IB, amazing writer, etc. etc. Started in an area of science and now is a history major. Although he is incredibly gifted in math and science, he LOVES history. You can change your mind over the course of four years.</p>
<p>Our younger D IS premed at WashU, but that was not why she chose the school. She didn’t want a repeat of h.s. She didn’t want to go to a college where 85% of the students were from our state. She wanted to be challenged to the max, and that is what she got. We picked her up at the airport for spring break last March and on our long drive home, she told us story after story of the incredible students she has come to know, amazing professors who teach her classes, opportunities abound on campus she has experienced, etc. All of a sudden she became very emotional and tearful. She said she feared she had not told us often enough how grateful she is that we are allowing her to attend the university (paying the big $$$ instead of telling her she had to take the free rides offered by StateUs). If we weren’t entire sure before, that car ride cleared up any lingering doubts we might have had that she picked a school that was right for her, premed or not.</p>
<p>I love the letter to her son Hyeonjlee posted on the occasion of his acceptance to U of C – here is a very small part.
</p>
<p>I also love what jmmom says about attending top schools. You might be able to get better grades at the State school, but
Those are some of the skills my younger D has developed at WashU that have nothing to do with being premed.</p>
<p>It comes down to what you want your undergraduate experience to be and what type of peers you want to surround yourself with. There is a night and day difference between StateUs and schools such as those you have listed. There is no right or wrong choice here - just which one is right for you? As Hyeonjilee mentioned, in which environment are you going to reach your “critical threshold” whether or not you end up applying to medical school?</p>
<p>While I do agree with much of what you wrote, you can still got to a state school and surround yourself with brilliant minds. A good chunk of my undergraduate friends are now at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, etc etc for their graduate studies. </p>
<p>As far as what jmmom said, she’s not here so I’ll just say that I think that she is being unfair. I bled for my grades too.</p>
<p>One thing I neglected to mention is that older daughter DID attend our StateU in their honors program, where she was very happy and successful. She looked at WashU and it was not the place for her. She also has a few friends who are now in graduate programs at Harvard, Duke, etc. Also, all StateUs are not the same - some are set up much better to handle high achieving students. Older D is now in a graduate program at a much higher ranked (than our StateU) public university, attending with a generous stipend and all expenses paid.</p>
<p>Younger D gave our StateU a good, hard look and it was not the environment she was looking for. WashU had everything she wanted and it was the right fit for her.</p>
<p>I think I did come off sounding like I was supporting a Top 20 private school VS a public university, and that was really not my intent. We have a small square window sticker from each school in the back window of our car - equally proud of both. What I was trying to convey is to pick the school that fits you, with the possibility that you MIGHT be premed as only ONE OF MANY criteria you use to assess a school.</p>
<p>^ I agree with you that there are brilliant minds at state schools, especially at a flagship one (esp. its honor program).</p>
<p>I know that this is just anecdotal: many years ago, a rank-1 kid from my child’s HS went to a state school, became a Rhode Scholar and entered a top-15 medical school. He even did not apply to any national research university or top LACs. His family is not poor at all. His mother is a doctor. I think his family is confident that he could “make it” no matter where he goes. I wish my family could be as confident as his family but mine is not.</p>
<p>Sometimes I think the top colleges may be good for those who may not always take initiative by themselves and, on a daily/weekly basis, these kids had better to have good “pacers” running beside them (like in a race). For those who are naturally good at grabbing opportunities that even do not go their way, they can succeed anywhere.</p>
<p>Frankly, if you’re a Rhodes Scholar, I’m under the impression that you could get into pretty much any medical school you wanted, family or no family.</p>
<p>Both of my girls were val of their high school class and always the ones who did the extra credit, even when they already had 100% in the class. They attended a very mediocre public high school (only offered 2 APs), where only 65% of the population attends college and only 25% of those actually graduate. You couldn’t even call them “pacers” as there wasn’t much of a “pack” who cared to do what they were doing.</p>
<p>Older D continued to be #1 at our StateU - Phi Beta Kappa, 4.0, #1 graduate in her major, one of 10 Chancellor’s Scholars (out of 3,500+ seniors graduating),etc. Even though younger D was a NMF, 99% in ACT/SAT, she has had to work her tail off to excel at WashU. It was a HUGE adjustment coming from the academic environment our high school offered. She has been named to the Dean’s List every semester, but it has NOT come easily. Younger D says there are MANY who are smarter than she is in college, MANY who have had MUCH better high school educations and precollege opportunities than she had. She says the one thing they won’t do is out work her. She wanted to attend a top school to be challenged, to see if she could “hack” it, and she has grown and succeeded beyond anything we (or probably she) could have imagined. Maybe a good topic for a med school essay??</p>