<p>Question: Say I go to my hometown university in canada, and lets say it doesn't have much prestige(if any) but I do very well in terms of grades and the school was small enough so I could work with professors on research, through in some extra curricular activities like Hospital volunteering, and majoring in something like economics would I be able to apply to an American Medical School that is very well respected (considering I meet the pre-requisites of the school) and have a good shot of being accepted? I am just worried going to a canadian school will screw me over and the fact that it might not be as prestigious doesn't really seem to help I think. I could always move out and go to a more well known Canadian school..but I don't like the curving some of them do.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/807608-does-your-undergrad-really-matter-if-you-plan-being-doctor-lawyer.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/807608-does-your-undergrad-really-matter-if-you-plan-being-doctor-lawyer.html</a></p>
<p>Some good stuff on this thread for you</p>
<p>Being an international student will make it a lot harder to get into medical school than the prestige or lack of it.</p>
<p>Apparantly prestige doesn’t matter, because medical schools are grade whores</p>
<p>Bitter much?</p>
<p>^^ hahaha, yes.</p>
<p>UG pedigree is a factor in admissions to many med schools. The weight given that factor varies substantially. As a general rule, the top schools tend to give more weight to UG pedigree. If your goal is to be practicing physician , there is little reason to seek out a “top” med school. For those desiring a career in research or what is loosely called “academic medicine”, there is a legitimate reason. Maybe for the most competitive residencies, too. But for most? It’s just not a requirement.</p>
<p>^ I just want to be a practicing physician, so I am aiming for a state medical school in PA. For state medical schools, they don’t care about Ug prestige.</p>
<p>“For state medical schools, they don’t care about Ug prestige.”</p>
<p>False. </p>
<p>That may hold true in PA, but it doesn’t in Texas. </p>
<p>What I was told, directly from an adcom member, was that yes, the reputation of your school does count for something, but how much? Not very much. It won’t make up for GPA deficiencies or MCAT deficiences or anything. It’s basically just an extra little tickmark out of the huge number you need to get in. So while it does matter, I wouldn’t call it significant.</p>
<p>Also, prestige is very loosely used. At least at the TX pub med schools, they hold UT’s reputation on par with Harvard, for all intensive purposes. The only difference is like a branch school, say UT El Paso vs. a big name school.</p>
<p>Don’t worry about the name on your diploma. It’s not gonna make much (if any) difference.</p>
<p>UT’s undergrad prestige is the same as Harvard’s UG prestige for Texas medical schools? ***</p>
<p>They way they put it, any institution in the top 50 basically is considered on equal footing.</p>
<p>Yes, the name Harvard will look better than U of Wyoming or someting, so you will still get a little bump up, but the only real benefits come when you’re applying against people who went to schools like UTEP or UTD or UTSA. And even then, the benefits are negligible.</p>
<p>I would not worry at all, as I’m quite certain that they’re not going to have any preference between any of the top 20 schools as far as level of prestige within that group.</p>
<p>sigh, i hate reading these threads. i chose utd over upenn. dont make me second guess myself 2 years later!! lol</p>
<p>Prestige=/= academic reputation, though they often go hand in hand.</p>
<p>Are you a science/engineering major at UTD?</p>
<p>Even if you’re not, UTD’s definitely got a well reputed science/engineering departments. I actually live about 5 minutes from there, and so a lot of my friends from HS went there, and the science there is not easy at all.</p>
<p>Texas med schools at least know this, but I’m not sure how it’s reputation is outside of Texas.</p>
<p>Do well at UTD and it won’t matter.</p>
<p>There are people in my son’s class from small religiously affiliated schools in the midwest that I have never heard of along with those from Harvard and Hopkins. There are something like 45 different undergrad schools represented.</p>
<p>im a neuroscience major at utd. its a really good school, and classes are pretty tough. too bad no one outside of texas knows anything about utd. i get the impression texas med schools think highly of utd (texas med schools recommend utd’s postbac program over getting a masters or whatever like the one at unt). not a lot of people go out of state for med school, except for the occasional genius that gets into yale.</p>
<p>By any chance are you a McDermott scholar at UT-D? And BTW, UT-D garners some respect for academics most everywhere but more in Texas.</p>
<p>i am a mcdermott scholar. i really love the program. plus, i really like getting paid to go to school and be debt free before med school.
thats good to know, since utd isnt the flagship school. its also slowly building its rep by building more buildings and making campus prettier. it’s a pain to get to classes, but it’ll be worth it</p>
<p>Congrats. You are a stud (or studette ;)). You’ll do fine. No worries.</p>
<p>thanks. there was a premed conference at utsw today, and there were a lot of utd alums at utsw. it was encouraging to see them doing well in med school.</p>